A Journey Toward Madness: A Review of "Hearts of Darkness"

The movie "Apocalypse Now" is an amazing movie to watch. It can take some getting used to. It is a strange film, to say the least, but it was one of the first ones to make some kind of effort to really look at the Vietnam War. These days, the movie is known as one of the greatest modern movies and one of the greatest war movies ever made. What many people do not know is how difficult this movie was to make. This is a movie that nearly drove the director, Francis Ford Coppola, insane and nearly killed the lead actor, Marin Sheen.

When Coppola first started out making movies, one of the movies he wanted to make was called "Apocalypse Now" and it was a loose adaptation of Joseph Conra's novel "Heart of Darkness." Believe it or not the movie was originally supposed to be directed by George Lucas, fresh off of "American Grafitti," and there was even the suggestion that the movie would be made in Vietnam while the war was still going on. It would be made on 16 millimeter film and with small cameras. That movie never quite developed and Coppola went on to become a millionaire with his "Godfather" movies and Lucas went on to do "Star Wars."

Once the two gangster movies were a success, Coppola resurrected his desire to do "Apocalypse Now." This time he knew he would be filming in the Philippines and not in Vietnam. Still, he hoped it would only take a few months, that he would have a great movie when it was done, and that it would tell the tale of what life was like in Vietnam, a war that had only just ended and was still fresh in the minds of so many.

So, Coppola packed up himself, his film crew, his actors and his family and moved to the Philippines. He also asked his wife to record a documentary, showing him making the movie. The documentary that resulted from that is called "Hearts of Darkness" and it was originally released on Showtime and is now available in a new DVD version. It is a remarkable and fascinating documentary. I had originally seen it on Showtime when it first came out and was captivated. When I saw this new DVD version, I was captivated all over again.

Coppola started making a movie that had no ending. He also had a different star in mind for the lead role when he got there. Originally the character of Captian Willard was to be played by Harvey Keitel. He spent a week filming Keitel in the role and when he and his editors looked at the footage, they knew they needed someone else. They made the tough and costly decision to fire Keitel and they brought in Martin Sheen.

This was just the beginning of the problems. The government of the Philippines was, at that time, fighting rebels in the hills. So, when the government agreed to let Coppola use real military helicopters for his movie, he had no idea that the government would sometimes just take helicopters away to go off and shoot at the rebels. Then a typhoon hit and destroyed much of the islands and huge amounts of the set. Then there was the fact that Coppola couldn't come up with an ending to the movie. Then there was Marlon Brando who wanted a million dollars upfront to play Colonel Kurtz. Finally, there was the heart attack suffered by Martin Sheen that nearly killed him.

As the days went buy and the costs mounted, Coppola's sanity seemed to fray. All of this is captured in this remarkable documentary. His wife actually secretly recorded some conversation about the filming at the time and they are being heard here for the first time. It shows a man trying to, by sheer force of will, to get a movie made and have it hold together.

It shows you exactly how far some people will go for the sake of art. The fact that "Apocalypse Now" has become a modern movie classic does not factor into this movie. Coppola is certain this is a movie that is going to fail. He despairs. He talks about killing himself. There are scenes where certain days of filming are celebrated (the 100thday of shooting, the 200th), but you have to wonder if those parties and celebrations were just whistling past the graveyard. Coppola himself must have been despairing, wanting to pull his own hair out.

For those of you interested in filmmaking, this is a DVD you must find. For those of you who are fans of "Apocalypse Now" this is a part of the story you should see just to see it. For anyone interested in fascinating filmmaking, this is a remarkable documentary and should be seen as soon as possible.