Documentaries don’t get better than ‘Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse’
- Craig Shapiro & Bill Kelley III
- 12 hours ago
- 5 min read
4K ULTRA HD REVIEW / HDR SCREENSHOTS
Director/writer/producer Francis Ford Coppola invested $7 million of his own money into “Apocalypse Now” (1979) as the film’s expenses ran out of control.
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“HEARTS OF DARKNESS: A FILMMAKER'S APOCALYPSE”
4K Ultra HD, 1991, R for language; Digital copy via Fandango Home (4K)
Best (and only) extra: The 38-minute making-of feature
“MY FILM is not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam. It’s what it was really like. It was crazy. And the way we made it was very much like the way the Americans were in Vietnam. We were in the jungle. There were too many of us. We had access to too much money, too much equipment and little by little, we went insane.”
Audiences probably came away with the same impression after taking in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 masterpiece “Apocalypse Now.” But if there was any doubt, his comments at that year’s Cannes Film Festival, where it was screened as a working print and still won the prestigious Palme d’Or, confirm it.
Coppola was speaking through an interpreter at a press conference that opens this extraordinary unfiltered documentary. It was a nominee for Cannes’ Un Certain Regard Award and went on to win Best Documentary awards from the National Board of Review and the Kansas City Film Critics Circle, two Primetime Emmys (originally aired on Showtime) and was nominated by the National Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Circle.
Thirty-five years later, it is still hands-down the best film you’ll see about an artist and his vision.
(1) Francis and his wife, Eleanor Coppola, during the production. (2) “Apocalypse Now” took 238 shooting days and nights. (3) A HDR screenshot from the motion picture: “See how they break both ways? One guy can break right, one left, simultaneously. What do you think of that?” asks surfing fanatic Lt. Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall). “We ought to wait for the tide to come up,” says California native and pro surfer Lance B. Johnson (Sam Bottoms).
That won’t be news to anyone who owns a copy of “Apocalypse Now.” Filmed in 16mm by Coppola’s late wife, Eleanor, “Hearts of Darkness” is included on just about every version of the film, most recently, 2019’s “Final Cut.” But for those first-timers ...
Coppola wanted to adapt Joseph Conrad’s 1899. Novella “Heart of Darkness” in 1969, but with America entangled in Vietnam, no studio would put up a dime. He got a different reception after “The Godfather” and “The Godfather Part II,” but only secured some financing. On the hook for any overruns, he put up almost everything he had.
Decamping to the Philippines, the production was beset from the start. Harvey Keitel (“Pulp Fiction”), cast as Capt. Willard, was replaced by Martin Sheen (“Badlands”) weeks into filming, and, at no slight cost, Copolla started over. The production was put on hold after Sheen suffered a severe heart attack. Helicopters on loan from the government of Fernando Marcos were diverted while the cameras were rolling to fight communist insurgents. A typhoon destroyed the sets and equipment. Marlon Brando, who was paid $1 million a week to improvise the role of Col. Kurtz, walked off the set at one point muttering that he had no more words. Back in the States, the newspapers were merciless.
Eleanor Coppola, a gifted handheld camera operator, was right in the thick of it. She also recorded private conversations with her husband in which he laid bare his crushing self-doubt. He insisted that they be used in the documentary and that she narrate it. And she wrote down what she witnessed. Her highly regarded account "Notes: The Making of Apocalypse Now," was published in 1995.
1989-90 Interviews included in the documentary: (1) Francis Ford Coppola, director, writer, producer (2) George Lucas, co-founder of American Zoetrope (3) John Milius, screenwriter (4) Martin Sheen, Capt. Willard (5) Actor Laurence Fishburne, Clean (6) Dennis Hopper, photojournalist
VIDEO/AUDIO
So what’s up with this new standalone Lionsgate release? Well, the 4K restoration was handled at Coppola’s American Zoetrope facilities in San Francisco, which he supervised, and the HDR10 and Dolby Vision grading was produced at Roundabout Entertainment in Burbank.
Given that “Hearts” was shot in 16mm (and the footage is 47 years old), the upgrade varies, but the original film elements were scanned in 4K, and it’s substantially better looking than the previous Blu-ray, which had been sourced from third and fourth-generation elements. Now, the film grain is more pronounced with expanded clarity, and the HDR toning is darker with natural colors. Plus, the footage from the actual motion picture has been reinserted from the 2019 4K/HDR restoration, in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio.
And, the new six-channel DTS-HD soundtrack holds up just fine with the dialogue front and center and good bass response during explosions.
EXTRAS
What it does offer is a new 38-minute making-of feature. Coppola, now, in his mid-80s, says he had a rule whenever he made a movie: If he was going to be away for more than 10 days, his family went with him. We see his daughter Sofia, who wrote and directed the Oscar-winning “Lost in Translation,” and his son Roman, a frequent collaborator with Wes Anderson and an Oscar nominee for co-writing “Moonrise Kingdom,” playing on the set with their older brother Gian-Carlo, who died at 22 in a 1986 boating accident.
Daughter Sofia and son Roman Coppola remember their time in the Philippines during the production of “Apocalypse Now.”
Fax Bahr, who co-directed “Hearts of Darkness,” recalls the challenge of sifting through some 80 hours of footage, and how a shoebox of Eleanor Coppola’s cassette tapes brought the documentary into focus. And there was the time in Toronto when he waited for Brando on the set of “The Freshman,” to ask about interviewing him. Brando, in a word, declined, telling him, “Kid, I do my s**t and I go home.”
But the biggest takeaway from the new feature are Sofia and Roman Coppola’s observations. Francis’ determination and “level of excellence and commitment,” Roman says, have been integral to his own career. As for Sofia, her father followed his heart, and that’s what she does, too.
Odds are that you’ll share her admiration.
– Craig Shapiro & Bill Kelley III, High-Def Watch producer
(1) Francis tries to give Hopper some instructions. (2) There were plenty of fires and explosions during the production. (3) Hundreds of extras were used for the Cambodian temple base, where rogue Col. Kurtz waged his own war.
SPECS:
100 GB disc
True 4K mastering
Captured on 16mm film stock (1.37:1 aspect ratio) using an Aaton camera mounted with spherical lenses.
Video bitrate: Averages in the low 70 Megabits per second range, with a running time of 96 minutes.
HDR10 maximum light level: 667 nit
Max frame average light level: 200 nit
Rotten Tomatoes: Top Critics’ 100 percent, Audience 94 percent
Metacritic: Critics 95 percent, User score 7.8
FOOTNOTE: The U.K. StudioCanal 4K Ultra HD version also includes a commentary with Francis and Eleanor Coppola and the new featurette “Eleanor Coppola: Art is All Around Us” (23 minutes).