Product Details

• Actors: Francis Ford Coppola
• Format: NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Paramount
• DVD Release Date: November 20, 2007
• Run Time: 96 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000XECFXS
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #26,646 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Hearts of Darkness - A Filmmaker's Apocalypse" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Hearts of Darkness is an engrossing, unwavering look back at Francis Coppola's chaotic, catastrophe-plagued Vietnam production, Apocalypse Now. Filled with juicy gossip and a wonderful behind-the-scenes look at the stressful world of moviemaking, the documentary mixes on-location home movies shot in the Philippines by Eleanor Coppola, the director's wife, with revealing interviews with the cast and crew, shot 10 years later. Similar to Burden of Dreams, Les Blank's absorbing portrait of Werner Herzog's struggle to make Fitzcarraldo, the film chronicles Coppola's eventual decent into obsessive psychosis as everything that could go wrong does go wrong. Storms destroy sets, money evaporates, the Philippine government continually harasses the director, Coppola has romantic affairs, and he can't write the story's ending. Everything is captured on film. In the most disturbing scene, we watch Martin Sheen have a drunken nervous breakdown while his director goads him on (he eventually suffered a heart attack, but finished the film).

Other incredible footage is not visual, but aural as the film includes tapes Eleanor Coppola recorded without Francis's knowledge. In them, he truly sounds like a madman as he confesses his fears about making a bomb of a movie. But while Hearts of Darkness is an amazing, voyeuristic experience, its importance lies in the personal reflections offered by those involved. Sheen, Coppola, and Dennis Hopper speak frankly without embarrassment, offering us an essential piece of film history. --Dave McCoy

Product Description

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse is an engrossing, unwavering look back at Francis Ford Coppola’s chaotic, catastrophe-plagued Vietnam production, Apocalypse Now. Filled with juicy gossip and a wonderful behind-the-scenes look at the stressful world of moviemaking, the documentary mixes on-location home movies shot in the Philippines by Eleanor Coppola, the director’s wife, with revealing interviews with the cast and crew, shot 10 years later.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

91 of 97 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A stirring portrait of the making of a masterpiece January 3, 2002

By Linda Linguvic HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:VHS Tape

Subtitled, "A Filmmaker's Apocalypse", this 1991 film is a documentary about the making of "Apocalypse Now", the 1979 film based on Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness". Set in Vietnam, it is the story of a captain, Martin Sheen, and his crew's mission to find and kill an insane colonel, Marlon Brando, who had created his own kingdom deep in the Jungle. On the way, everyone is touched with the evil around them. This summer I saw the re-edited version of the film and have been intrigued by it ever since. When I heard about this "Hearts of Darkness" I just HAD to see it.

The filming of Apocalypse Now was supposed to take just sixteen weeks at a budget of $13 million. It wound up costing more than $30 million, much of it put up by Francis Coppola himself, and took almost three years to get to the public. Coppola' wife Eleanor and their three children went along on location in the Philippines. She was interested in making a documentary and shot a lot of behind-the-scenes footage, even secretly recording private conversations she had with her husband about the film. The authenticity of the experience really comes through, as everyone involved with the production seemed to go a little bit insane.

Coppola had serious doubts throughout and we hear his words of despair as he thinks he's making a bad movie. We see the terrible typhoon that destroyed all the sets and realized that the helicopters that were being used for the shooting were actually property of the Philippine government who kept calling them away to fight a real disturbance that was going on just ten miles away. We see shots and scenes that never made it into the original film (although much of it eventually made it into the 2001 "Redux" version). We see and overweight Marlon Brando who insisted on being filmed in shadows. And we are right there to watch the filming of the scene in which Martin Sheehan has a mental breakdown. In order to do this he became bleary-eyed drunk, cut his thumb on a mirror and used the blood as part of the scene. The intensity is chilling and when, a short time afterward, he has a life-threatening heart attack at the age of 36, we're all there to see him as he is given first aid.

Now, years later, some of the actors are interviewed about their experiences. We learn that they did a lot of drugs during many of the scenes - acid, speed, marijuana, alcohol, which certainly added to the authenticity as well as the craziness of the whole production. Robert Duval talks about how his famous line "I love the smell of napalm in the morning was improvised. And the whole cast talks about how they improvised a massacre scene. Laurence Fishburne was only 14 when the film was made, a real coming-of-age experience for him. But this very stirring film portrait belongs to Francis Coppola. We get to meet him as a very imperfect human being doing his best to create an art form out of the script, changing it constantly as he went along, and eventually turning out a small masterpiece which went on to be nominated for eight academy awards.

I give this video my highest recommendation. It is a "must" for movie buffs. And an essential education for anyone involved in filmmaking itself. Don't miss it!

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Documentary Is Even Better than the Actual Movie June 2, 2000

By Weston J. Kathman

Format:VHS Tape

Shot by Francis Ford Coppolla's wife, Hearts of Darkness is an incredible, one hour fifty minute documentary that reveals the horrors of making the very popular Apocalypse Now. The film took forever to make, driving many of its participants to the brink of insanity, not just Coppolla, who was emotionally-unstable for much of the film. Viewers of this fascinating documentary will be amazed to learn that Harvey Keitel was originally cast as Willard, but was dropped after only two weeks of shooting. Though only 36 years-old, Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack during filming, an event that further postponed its debuts in theaters. There is some really great footage included here, especially the shooting of the opening sequence of the film which involves a very drunk Sheen lashing out as both his character and himself (at that point, Sheen was experiencing a lot of hostility towards Coppolla and had it out with him right then and there, an episode that would appear in the finished movie). Even if you didn't particularly care for Apocalypse Now, you will most likely find Hearts of Darkness interesting, nonetheless. It is a magnificent look at the troubles and triumphs of a film crew headed by a somewhat mad, but brilliant director. This shouldn't be missed.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Get this to see a great documentary (shown without cuts) not for DVD "extra" November 24, 2007

By The Rocketman

Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase

HEARTS OF DARKNESS is one of the few documentaries on film making where you get to see a true artistic process. After watching this, you will find nearly all "Making of..." pieces found on DVDs for what they really are: marketing fluff. As a result, I eagerly watched HEARTS OF DARKNESS on DVD after last seeing it more than 10 years ago. I was very nervous that Coppola would be releasing a butchered form of the documentary. After all, he bares his soul in a way that few real artists do in public -- the picture of him holding a gun to his head (and not all in fun) is pretty intense stuff.

I am happy to report that the whole film is here, there doesn't appear to any cuts and the run time (96 minutes) matches that of the official times listed on the Internet. Thank you, Francis!

Now to the DVD extra, an hour-long documentary called CODA: THIRTY YEARS LATER. It's this new documentary (40% of the total DVD content!) which explains why Coppola is finally re-releasing HOD. The title "CODA" it misleading (especially in this context) because CODA has nothing to do with Apocalypse Now. Rather it is a documentary on Coppola's newest film YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH. Perhaps because YWY looks to be an essential parlor piece with lots of dialog, CODA is, unfortunately, tedious. In fact, YWY has not yet been given a wide release in the US, so what we really have here is a (you guessed it) "Making of..." film for marketing purposes. Sure, it would have made a great extra on the YWY DVD, but it is a huge letdown after HEARTS OF DARKNESS. In fact, CODA didn't leave me wanting to see YWY and initial professional reviews reveal that the film itself is a letdown.

Instead, rejoice that Coppola decided to re-release HEARTS OF DARKNESS to home video to market his new film. Every single student of film should see HOD -- it is also a perfect companion piece to Lost in La Mancha, another documentary that shows that most of Hollywood isn't the glitz that it sells. (Fun fact: both HOD and LLM are documentaries about people trying to make films that eluded Orson Welles -- though Coppola succeeded where Terry Gilliam failed.)