Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 21, 1992 TAG: 9203210277
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Two hours later, I was still in front of the flickering TV screen.
Francis Ford Coppola's epic version of Joseph Conrad's "Apocalypse Now!" is the most ambitious and interesting of the Vietnam movies. It has a literary backbone, stunning visuals and a canny sense of the first rock 'n' roll war.
"Hearts of Darkness" is a fascinating documentary on the making of the movie that nearly destroyed Coppola. Directed and written by Fax Bahr with George Hickenlooper, it has worlds to say about the art and logistics of filmmaking. Under the best of circumstances, movie making is an exercise in damage control and problem solving. And "Apocalypse Now!" which was shot on location in the Philippines for more than 250 days, was probably filmed under the worst circumstances of any movie in history.
It took Coppola years to get it started, he fired one lead actor and was very nearly put out of business when replacement Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack well into the shoot. A typhoon destroyed the expensive sets that it took months to construct. The Philippine Air Force continually disrupted the most complicated scene in any of Coppola's movies when it called back its helicopters to fight rebel armies.
Coppola had to put up his house to continue financing the picture. Some of his actors were so zonked on drugs that they couldn't remember their lines. And when it was nearly over, Coppola had to deal with Marlon Brando who not only wasn't concerned about learning lines but hadn't read the book on which the movie is based.
Coppola calls the filmmaking his own Vietnam. He says he took too much money and too much equipment into a country where he didn't belong. And he is convinced throughout the entire production that he's making a bad movie that's going to embarrass him. Yet he forged on.
The makers of "Hearts of Darkness" interview Robert Duvall, Martin Sheen, Sam Bottoms, Larry Fishburne, Frederic Forrest, Dennis Hopper and others involved in the shoot. And they have invaluable material from Eleanor Coppola, who came to the jungle as Francis' wife and wound up shooting her own documentary footage for a PR film.
As the movie unfolds, Coppola emerges as a man of considerable, intelligence and talent. But they're not the only qualities required to make a movie. He's tormented by self-doubt, and at the same time he's egocentric. He's a smooth deal maker, a consummate improviser and a ruthless dictator when it comes to the interests of his movie. He becomes consumed by the project, and Eleanor Coppola says it was his journey into his own soul where he had to face fears of failure, death and madness.
"Hearts of Darkness" is a totally engrossing movie, a monumentally important observation on the process of movie making.
`Hearts of Darkness': ***1/2 A Triton picture at the Grandin Theatre (345-6177). Rated R for language; 110 minutes.
by CNB