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If you wonder about the insanity in Francis Ford Coppola’s
epic “Apocalypse Now” and if it was just as crazy to make
it, you’ll appreciate “Hearts of Darkness” a documentary
made during the shooting of “Apocalypse Now” shot by the
film director’s wife (also a filmmaker) Eleanor Coppola,
Fax Bahr and Goerge Hickenlooper. Concurrently shot while
production was occurring, we see first hand all the disasters
that visited the film from the destruction of the sets due
to a typhoon that struck the Philippines to revealed in
behind-the-scenes footage, interviews shot at the time and
after the film was completed. Coppola, Bahr and Hickenlooper
go back to the beginning to Orson Welles’ failed attempt
to make “Heart of Darkness” (and featuring portions of Welles’
famous radio performance of the book) from Joseph Conrad’s
novel (the basis for “Apocalypse Now”) at RKO prior to “Citizen
Kane” to John Millius’ original screenplay which was supposed
to be directed by George Lucas for Coppola’s recently established
American Zoetrope. “Hearts of Darkness” is a revealing documentary
allowing us to see Coppola warts and all during times of
true despair and elation throughout the rigorous shooting
of the film. The fact that Coppola would allow such a naked,
raw glimpse says a lot about him as a film director. Narrated
by Eleanor Coppola herself, the film was released in 1991,
won a American Cinema Editors Award as Best Edited Documentary,
won the National Board of Review Best Documentary Award,
was nominated for three Emmys winning one for Best Informational
Programming-Directing and nominated for a DGA (Director’s
Guild of America) Award. Like a lot of other fans, I was
disappointed when “Hearts of Darkness” did not appear in
the recent deluxe reissue of “Apocalypse Now” that took
place last year where it rightfully belonged. I suspect
we’ll see another deluxe edition and an HD-DVD version with
the film in another re-release. ---
Image & Sound:
A terrific documentary, “Hearts of Darkness” deserves
better than the perfunctory transfer that we receive here.
The DVD looks good but could look better with a bit more
digital clean up. Still, you have to assume that this is
how the filmmakers wanted it to appear. It is a slight improvement
over the laserdisc release of the film fifteen years ago.
While part of that the image quality is due to the raw nature
of the film itself I suspect the film could have received
a bit more TLC. The original 2.0 stereo audio track is kept
in tact and was not attempt to remix it for 5.1. ---
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