Get the MovieNight app
Add it to your home screen — faster & full screen
Get the MovieNight app
Add it to your home screen — faster & full screen
American Zoetrope
Not part of a collection.
The magic and madness of making Apocalypse Now
A chronicle of the production problems — including bad weather, actors' health, war near the filming locations, and more — which plagued the filming of Apocalypse Now, increasing costs and nearly destroying the life and career of Francis Ford Coppola.
Wuchak
Aug 1, 2019 · via TMDB
***Outstanding documentary on the making of the hallowed "Apocalypse Now"*** Released in 1991, "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse" chronicles the making of 1979's "Apocalypse Now," combining footage shot by Eleanor Coppola during the shooting of the film with more recent interviews with the cast & crew. Documentaries or commentaries on how a particular film was made don't interest me because I'm not a filmmaker and only care about the final product. As a writer and former musician I'm familiar with the creative process and understand how some ideas fail to deliver the goods and must be thrown out, etc. As an example, I heard some demos of a couple of my favorite songs and they were lousy compared to the final product and almost ruined my view of those songs. This explains why I'm generally not interested in the harrowing details of how my favorite movies were made and the parts that were thrown out, etc. This documentary is an exception because (1.) "Apocalypse Now" is my all-time favorite movie (the original theatrical version, that is) and (2.) the documentary is just so well-done. In fact, it's fascinating from beginning to end. "Hearts of Darkness" shows the monumental problems Coppola and crew encountered in making the movie: The sudden firing of their leading man (Harvey Keitel) after three weeks of shooting and replacing him with Martin Sheen; the delays in filming due to the Philippine Army taking back their rented helicopters to quell an uprising; a hurricane that ruins the sets; Sheen having a heart attack at only 36 years of age and the corresponding delay; overweight Brando arriving to the set unprepared and making $1 million a week with an unwritten, improvised ending; the amusing tiger incident; Francis venting in genuine uncertainty at various stages of the creative process, particularly the entire ending; etc. The interviews with cast and crew are also very informative and entertaining, like Frederic Forrest's commentary on the tiger sequence and John Milius' insights on his original screenplay and his encounter with Francis during filming where the latter convinced him that it'd be "the first film to win the Nobel prize." This documentary came out ten years before the "Redux" version of the film was released and, as such, it was the public's first glimpse of various scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor, like the French Plantation sequence and the typhoon-with-the-bunnies sequence. In my opinion, "Redux" is a failure and those scenes should've never been inserted into the movie as very little of the added footage works, but those sequences ARE interesting as deleted scenes or viewing them (in part) in the context of "Hearts of Darkness." For some good laughs, be sure to check out the spoof of this documentary: "Hearts of Hot Shots Part Deux: A Filmmaker's Apology," which was released in 1993 and is available on Youtube in a couple parts. The film runs 96 minutes. GRADE: A
CRCulver
Sep 5, 2018 · via TMDB
Francis Ford Coppola's film <i>Apocalypse Now</i> was one of the most infamously troubled productions in the history of Hollywood, so resonating in collective memory that it can still be parodied in new-millennium like <i>Tropic Thunder</i>. A typhoon struck the set in the Philippines, local officials were difficult to work with, Martin Sheen had a heart attack during filming, and Coppola was constantly troubled how to bring his script to a powerful ending. The 1991 documentary <i>Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse</i> chronicles these trials and tribulations through audio recordings that Coppola's wife Eleanor made for her filming diary, informal footage of life on the set and interviews with cast and crew. If all <i>Hearts of Darkness</i> did was rehash the same general trivia one can get from Wikipedia, like so many documentaries, it wouldn't be very good. I was pleased to find that it reveals a lot about the story that I never knew before. The genesis of the screen adaption of Joseph Conrad's novel in earlier attempts by Orson Welles and George Lucas is charted. Dennis Hopper's maniacal performance is placed in the context of his own nervousness at a career slump and his thankfulness that Coppola was giving him a second chance. Perhaps the strongest point of the film is how it reveals the mind of someone tormented by his drive to create, and how a film can result from spontaneous choices on set that go far beyond any script. When the film was first shown at Cannes, Coppola said of the production "little by little we went insane", and indeed his highs of inspiration and lows of self-doubt are captured here. The opening of the film where Sheen's character drunkenly breaks a mirror and slumps, bleeding and crying next to his hotel room bed, is shown to have resulted from the cameras rolling when Sheen did drunkenly stumble on set. Upon its 1991 release this documentary must have been even more interesting as it contains much footage that appeared only in the <i>Apocalypse Now Redux</i> director's cut in 2001: the French Plantation scene, the interlude in the abandoned, muddy camp, etc. I was surprised to hear Coppola insist on cutting the French Plantation scene because he was unsatisfied with the quality of the French actors and the lighting, not because of its place in the story. But what remains remarkable about <i>Hearts of Darkness</i> is that it betrays nothing of the scenes out of the 5-hour workprint that remain cut from commercial release, such as the prominent role given to Lt. Colby and his murder of the American photographer. There's also absolutely no shots of Harvey Keitel as Captain Williard before he was replaced.
User reviews courtesy of TMDB.
Apple TV Store
Google Play Movies
YouTube
Fandango At Home
Apple TV Store
Google Play Movies
YouTube
Fandango At Home
Francis Ford Coppola
Self
Eleanor Coppola
Self
John Milius
Self
George Lucas
Self
Sam Bottoms
Self
Albert Hall
Self
Frederic Forrest
Self
Laurence Fishburne
Self
Fred Roos
Self
Martin Sheen
Self
Vittorio Storaro
Self
Robert Duvall
Self
Dennis Hopper
Self
Marlon Brando
Self
Sofia Coppola
Self
Roman Coppola
Self
Les Blank
Camera Operator
Eleanor Coppola
Director
Fax Bahr
Director
George Hickenlooper
Director
Francis Ford Coppola
Executive Producer
Fred Roos
Executive Producer
Les Mayfield
Producer
Todd Boekelheide
Original Music Composer
Fax Bahr
Screenplay
George Hickenlooper
Screenplay
God's Ways
Cobra Mist
Torn from the Flag
Konserven für den Winter - aber nur aus dem eigenen Betrieb
Stafford's Story
Buddha Wild: Monk in a Hut
Mamachas of the Ring
Denok & Gareng
Thank God I’m in the Film Business!
Alexis Tremblay: Habitant
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Characters - Salander, Blomkvist and Vanger
The Colour of Olives
Life After Death from Above 1979
The Many Miracles of Household Saints
The Making of Agatha Christie's 'Evil Under the Sun'
The Pharmacy: Shanghai
Last Fast Ride: The Life, Love and Death of a Punk Goddess
The Golden Gong: The Story of Rank Films - British Cinema's Legendary Studio
It Was a Wonderful Life
Reverón
There We Were, Now Here We Are... The Making of Oasis
Twenty Years After
Nude Portraits – Gundula Schulze
Who Did It? The Story Behind the Clue VCR Mystery Game
Mendès la France
Magic Night
La Scala: The Force of Destiny
Too Funny to Fail: The Life & Death of The Dana Carvey Show
P!nk: All I Know So Far
Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens
Rabot
Our Planet: Behind the Scenes
A Fan's Guide to Spider-Man Homecoming
How Good to See You Alive
The Mystery of Agatha Christie, With David Suchet
Clara Estrela
Portrait: Jane Campion and The Portrait of a Lady
Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser
Daguerréotypes
Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno
The Beatles: The Making of Sgt. Pepper
The Story of the Weeping Camel
The Panama Deception
The Man Who Made Angels Fly
A Fragile Trust: Plagiarism, Power, and Jayson Blair at the New York Times
My America... or Honk If You Love Buddha
The Real Glory: Reconstructing 'The Big Red One'
Un été + 50
Zapatista Women
All You Zombies: Bringing 'Predestination' to Life
La operación
Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids
Crimes of Honour
Advanced Style
Cyber-Seniors
Full Metal Village
Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story
Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa
Return to 'Giant'
Sam & Mattie Make a Zombie Movie
Marvel Studios Assembled: The Making of Deadpool & Wolverine
Meat Joy
Alone
Gendernauts: A Journey Through Shifting Identities
The Phantom of the Operator
Cecil B. DeMille: American Epic
My Neighbor, My Killer
Gifted and Challenged: The Making of 'Shortbus'
Journey to Somewhere
Joanna
The China Odyssey: Empire of the Sun
Whose Is This Song?
The Go-Go Boys: The Inside Story of Cannon Films
Germany in Autumn
Smokes and Lollies
Belinda
From the Depths
Hitchcocked!
Buba
Menhaden: The Most Important Fish in the Bay
The Art of Observing Life
Kings of Kallstadt
Dagny - om jag sätter mig ner nu dör jag
On Coal River
Freefalling: A Love Story
The Ringleader: The Case of the Bling Ring
Tango Dream
Diary of a Political Tourist
Casa Roshell
Prenatal & Postnatal Yoga
There Goes the Neighborhood: The Making of The 'Burbs
10 + 4 (Dah be alaveh chahar)
We're in the Movies, Now!
A Boy Named Sue
Omnibus: François Truffaut
The Pact
Derby Crazy Love
Zirkus is nich
One Thousand Days in Saigon
The Guerilla is a Poet
Boulevard's End
Jillian Michaels: Killer Buns & Thighs
Motherland
Election Day
Last Woman Standing
Black Ballerina
Made in China
Do You Dream in Color?
Smoke That Travels
Holy God
Modern British Slavery
Kick Like a Girl
6999 Doors
Miracle on 42nd Street
24 Days in Brooks
Moving Together
Dear Thirteen
The Diary of Florica S.
Sun, Hay, 30 Years!
Sun, Hay, Village
Tiffany Day: The Gratitude Tour
Beyond the Powder: The Legacy of the First Women's Cross-Country Air Race
Bis zum ersten Alleingang: Kinderunfälle und ihre Ursachen
In China's Shadow – The Philippines at the Center of a Global Conflict
Escape to Paradise/Water Birds
Slashback to Viper Video
Seid Hirt und Herde ohne Furcht
Señor Turista - Begegnungen am Tititacasee
Morena
Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me
Everybody’s Everything
For Sama
Tupac: Resurrection
Los Angeles Plays Itself
Love, Antosha
McQueen
The Walking Dead: The Return
Come See Me in the Good Light
Sly
Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films
QT8: The First Eight
Val
78/52
Making The Witcher
Milius
Audrey
They'll Love Me When I'm Dead
Lost in La Mancha
De Palma
Game of Thrones: The Last Watch
Corman's World
An Open Secret
We Live in Public
Frida
Halftime
The Kid Stays in the Picture
Memory: The Origins of Alien
Full Tilt Boogie
American Teen
Overnight
Evil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story
Room 237
Anna Nicole Smith: You Don't Know Me
Attack of the Hollywood Clichés!
Nov 27, 1991
Oct 16, 2015
Harvard Film Archive
© 2025-2026 MovieNight. All rights reserved.
Versus
Sign in to play →
Return of the Redneck Zombies
2017
We're Still Here (Now).... A Documentary about nobody
2016
Sign in to vote
Battle your watched movies head-to-head
Community Top Movies
Evil Dead II
1987 · 14 wins
The Dark Knight
2008 · 14 wins
Final Destination
2000 · 12 wins
Top Gun: Maverick
2022 · 11 wins
Joker
2019 · 11 wins
Trivia
Leaderboard →Playing as a guest — sign in to save your score and rank on the leaderboard.
Movie Trivia
Guess the movie from a clue — tagline, plot, cast and more. Pick from four posters.
What movie experience do you prefer?
What is your favorite movie genre?
Versus
Sign in to play →
Return of the Redneck Zombies
2017
We're Still Here (Now).... A Documentary about nobody
2016
Sign in to vote
Battle your watched movies head-to-head
Community Top Movies
Evil Dead II
1987 · 14 wins
The Dark Knight
2008 · 14 wins
Final Destination
2000 · 12 wins
Top Gun: Maverick
2022 · 11 wins
Joker
2019 · 11 wins
Trivia
Leaderboard →Playing as a guest — sign in to save your score and rank on the leaderboard.
Movie Trivia
Guess the movie from a clue — tagline, plot, cast and more. Pick from four posters.
What movie experience do you prefer?
What is your favorite movie genre?
We use essential cookies to run MovieNight, plus analytics (Google Analytics) and advertising (Google AdSense) cookies. By continuing to browse, you agree to this — or click No and we won't. See our Terms & Privacy Policy to learn more.