Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse

Francis Ford Coppola made four masterpieces in a row in the 70's, three of which are cultural touchstones even beyond the limits of cinema. The greatest of those, in my humble opinion, being his final film in the Vietnam war epic Apocalypse Now. A film less about the war in a political or social sense, but rather the madness within man illustrated through war. This was Coppola greatest undertaken in the decade, and he never made another masterpiece, this documentary perhaps tells you why that is, and perhaps also why so many the firebrand directors that came to prominence had some strange moment of clarity all around the same time near the end of the decade. This is not the simple story of a the making of a film, even if it is that, but rather an examination of what it would taken to even endeavor to create a film as ambitious as Apocalypse Now. We see Coppola who is a mad man, here, a mad genius perhaps, but also an exasperated craftsman driven to that madness by his own ambition and the madness needed to fulfill it. Apocalypse Now is not a typical film, and its production matches this which this film examines in particularly intimate detail, as found through footage shot by Coppola's wife, Eleanor. The documentary is fascinating not only in that detail, but as a juxtaposition to the film being made. Much like Willard, Coppola struggles within the jungle attempting to discover meaning, and perhaps like Kurtz tries to wield the elements themselves towards his mad vision. No single person is so simple even beyond Coppola from poor Martin Sheen who suffered a heart attack that Coppola covered up in shooting, the egomaniac that was Marlon Brando, or even Dennis Hopper who once again is a few scenes wonder but now as a man who is perhaps mad enough to be on the wavelength as the production of the film. It is unlikely a film like Apocalypse Now, and this is in many ways an explanation of why. As it not only captures the extremes of the conditions, the struggle, the personalities in terms of hardship, but also the extremes in terms of the daring to take such a excursion. 
5/5