Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse was originally released in 1991. It follows the many roadblocks encountered by Francis Ford Coppola during the making of 1979’s Apocalypse Now. It also incorporates cast and crew interviews shot in 1990.
The new release includes new commentary by Coppola and his wife, Eleanor, who shot much of the footage used in Hearts of Darkness. The release also includes the documentary CODA: Thirty Years Later, about the production of Coppola’s 2007 film Youth Without Youth.
It really says something that the most striking aspect of Hearts of Darkness is also the most striking aspect of the much newer CODA. Watching Hearts of Darkness, I was struck by Coppola’s sincere enthusiasm and lack of self-consciousness. On set in the Philippines, perched high off the ground in his director’s chair, Coppola discusses his vision, plans, and fears with remarkable candidness. Clearly he is not posturing for the press: he sits slightly slumped, scratching his bare chest as he sees fit throughout the interview. He is so excited by the material, and so focused on completing the film (for which he is footing the bill), he doesn’t stop to consider how he appears.
It reminds me of when Peter Jackson showed up at the Academy Awards being awesome and creative but without having bothered to shave. He took a lot of flak for that, as I recall, but the move tickled me. In the same way, it’s great to see a respected artist like Coppola focused more on the creative process than on his appearance. It was probably this unwavering creative focus that allowed him to keep going on the hellish Apocalypse Now shoot.
The commentary, recorded during August 2007, is interesting. Francis and Eleanor look back on the ‘70s with all their current wisdom, and are often amusingly self-deprecating. In CODA, we peer in on Coppola as he directs his first film in nearly a decade, the artsy adaptation Youth Without Youth. Even with another 30 years of experience under his belt, he has not lost his infectious enthusiasm for material that excites him. Coppola adapted the screenplay from Mircea Eliade’s novella Youth Without Youth. Eliade (1907-1986) was a Romanian-born religious historian. What attracted Coppola to Youth Without Youth, he explains, were Eliade’s probing questions about the origins of consciousness and the nature of “good” and “bad.”
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