The intention
Francis Ford Coppola wanted in the years 70 making a 'Vietnam movie based on Jospeh Conrad's novel 'Heart of Darkness'. In Apocalypse now krijgt Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) command to descend a river to rescue the mythical and deranged Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando) to find.
The approach
Budget: 12-13 million dollars.
Filming location: Philippines.
Casting: including. Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall.
Planned run time: about 17 weeks.
The result
- The budget went from 12 million dollars to almost 31 million so that Coppola had to pay out of his own pocket.
- The tropical film set was destroyed by Hurricane Olga.
- Martin Sheen had a heart attack while filming.
- Marlon Brando had started the adventure unprepared and too fat. He kept threatening to quit.
- Actual run time ran out to 34 weeks.
Coppola himself was on too many drugs and his marriage was under pressure.
He also couldn't finish his spectacle, partly for fear of being after a few masterpieces like the Godfathers 1, 2 en The Conversation, now to come up with a flop. Coppola was often regarded by the crew in this war film as the insane general who tried to create his masterpiece despite all the setbacks..
The lessons
Coppola himself expressed it as follows: ‘This isn’t a film about Vietnam, this film is Vietnam’. “We made this film the same way the Americans waged their war”. We were far too lazy, Too much money, too much material and we slowly became nuts”.
Despite or because of the problems, Apocalypse Now is an incredibly powerful (anti-) war film about powerlessness and madness. In the end, the film came out of the red, won a golden palm in Cannes and dragged a piece or 8 oscar nominations on hold.
Further:
The vicissitudes surrounding the production are infamously and impressively captured by Eleanor Coppola in the documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse’. The film has many impressive scenes supported by memorable acting by Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall a very young Laurence Fishburne and of course Marlon Brando. (www.filmupclive.nl)
The classic Apocalypse Now (1979) by director Francis Ford Coppola has been chosen by Dutch film critics and directors as the best film of the past 25 year.
Author: Bas Ruyssenaars
Source: including. www.cinema.nl, www.IMDB.com, documentary ‘Hearts of Darkness: A Film-maker’s Apocalypse (1991)Spy. www.filmsite.org
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