VHS : Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse

Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9780792123293
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
ISBN: 6302414016
Label: Paramount
Manufacturer: Paramount
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Paramount
Release Date: January 01, 1998
Running Time: 96 minutes
Studio: Paramount
Theatrical Release Date: November 27, 1991
Sales Rank: 10580

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Editorial Review:

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

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- A small dissent
Like the other reviewers, I found this documentary to be fascinating. If you are a Coppola fan, it's a can't miss. That said, I have a couple of caveats to the unconditional raves given by other reviewers: First, if you already have the VHS version, the DVD "extras" are pretty weak (of course, if you no longer have a VHS player, you may want to pick up a copy of the DVD anyway). The "Coda" is actually about Francis's recent film "Youth without Youth," not about looking back on the making of ... Read More

Rating:

- Finally!
This has to be one of the most anticipated DVD releases of last year. For quite a while, I was trying to find a VHS copy, while hoping that this would finally come out on DVD. We had JACK on DVD, but not this documentary with almost mythical status. But, now it's out, and it's great. I'm not a fan of certain documentary filmmakers (cough...Ken Burns) who try to create drama with filmmaking smoke and mirrors. "Cue music, cue Morgan Freeman or Anthony Hopkins reading a letter, then cut to historian ... Read More

Rating:

- Hope that a little fat girl in Ohio will be the next Mozart of film.
Destroying professionalism and making it an art form. This is some of the wisdom from Francis Ford Coppola on this documentary made by his wife Eleanor on the making of his film, the godfather of Coppola films in my opinion, Apocalypse Now - The Complete Dossier (Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition)

The interesting thing about Apocalypse Now is that with probably over 1,000 reviews here on Amazon counting the different versions you could probably get a different interpretation for each review. ... Read More

Rating:

- Never get outta the boat
And you thought you had a bad day at the office! Francis Ford Coppola went way up the river (and pretty much around the bend) during the making of "Apocalypse Now", and his wife Eleanor was there to watch (while shooting some of her own footage, and at times, even secretly recording intimate conversations with her hubby). Writer-directors Fax Bahr and George Hickenlooper took this raw material and assembled an amazing, intense documentary that takes the viewer about as uncomfortably close to the utter madness ... Read More

Rating:

- GREAT. JUST GREAT
Despite its reputation, I'd never gotten a chance to watch this feature until now. The best thing I found about it is that you are able to feel how everybody involved are this close to going completely over the edge. The level of madness in this documentary is truly amazing.
Despite being aware of the final result which is APOCALYPSE NOW itself you'll feel the tension and unease about what will eventually happen and that I think is HEARTS OF DARKNESS triumph. It's a miracle a movie that good came out of ... Read More

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