Production Hell - Apocalypse Now

apocalypse now is without doubt one of the greatest war films ever made a chilling exploration of man's descent into madness and despair amidst the carnage and destruction of the vietnam war featuring the finest actors of their generation delivering some of the most intense performances of their careers it's one of those movies that anyone remotely passionate about cinematic storytelling simply needs to experience at least once in their life which is just as well really because the making of this movie has gone down in hollywood history as one of the biggest cluster [ __ ] imaginable the problems and disasters behind apocalypse now's torturous production have practically become the stuff of legend even rivalling the nightmare that was the island of dr moreau but whereas one movie became a laughable piece of sci-fi horror trash the other turns out to be one of the greatest films of the 20th century and i think it's kind of interesting to compare the two so grab your lsd and smoke grenades and let's dive right into another episode of production hell based on the joseph conrad novel hearts of darkness about a journey up the congo river in africa to bring home a rogue british officer the script for apocalypse now was written by john milius who changed the african colonial setting into the vietnam war milius would go on to write no less than 10 different versions of his script totally more than a thousand pages and that's before the movie even started filming anyway milius wanted his mate george lucas to direct it and they even got as far as location scouting in south vietnam but it turns out that shooting your movie in the middle of an active war zone is a tricky thing to get permission for and george was already busy on another little project that he had in mind so he dropped out an apocalypse now was shelved however francis ford coppola had been interested in the project for a while and with lucas out of the picture he stepped in and decided to direct the movie himself he knew he'd need access to american military equipment for the big battle scenes so he approached the us army about a cooperation deal that is until they read the script and they were like nah it'll be fine this forced him to shoot the movie in the philippines because they were pretty much the only ones with us choppers willing to help out unfortunately the choice of location would cause its own problems further down the line casting also proved to be difficult coppola approached everyone from steve mcqueen to al pacino jack nicholson and clint eastwood [ __ ] man my brain just about shut down trying to imagine this movie with clint eastwood as lead actor anyway none of these guys were keen to spend months in the filipino jungle so eventually couple are settled on harvey keitel for main character willard marlon brando was convinced to play the antagonist colonel kurtz for a hefty paycheck and robert duvall and dennis hopper were soon signed on as well which was a pretty decent cast for the mid-1970s everything seemed to be going well as the production moved to the philippines in the spring of 1976 to begin their shoots it didn't last very long though the problems began pretty much straight away coppola was unhappy with keitel's portrayal of willard and after some disagreements keitel quit the project and tore up his seven-year contract with the studio wait a second a troubled production in a tropical location starring marlon brando that loses its lead actor before it's even got going what does this remind me of is the most outrageous spectacle i have ever witnessed look at yourself anyway with kytel right martin sheen was flown in to replace him but no sooner had he started work than a typhoon destroyed most of the sets costing millions of dollars to rebuild most of the cast and crew flew back to the states while this was going on and some of them decided never to come back needless to say things weren't looking good the movie was barely off the ground and they were already six weeks behind schedule and millions of dollars over budgets things didn't get much better once shooting restarted marlon brando finally showed up massively overweight and totally unprepared he hadn't bothered to read heart of darkness or even the script for his own [ __ ] movie as a result his scenes had to be shot in darkness and close up to try to hide his size and since he refused to learn his lines the only option was to turn the camera on him and just let him talk hoping that some of it would eventually be usable coppola was basically rewriting the entire movie day by day trying to compensate for various disasters and setbacks as they hit filming the battle scenes proved to be equally difficult because there was a real-life civil war going on in the philippines at the time and the attack choppers kept getting called away to blow up actual targets cast crew and equipment struggled in the swattering tropical heat disease drug and alcohol abuse were rife and security guards even had to be employed after the production's entire weekly salary mysteriously disappeared i wonder what they could have possibly spent it on when dennis hopper was having a tough time finding the energy to play his role coupler asked him what he needed to get into character his reply was simple about an ounce of cocaine ought to do the trick francis the drugs were duly provided and hopper delivered most of his scenes high as a kites what a legend not everyone was as impressed as me though marlon brando was disgusted with hopper's unprofessional behavior that's a bit [ __ ] rich mate and constantly berated him so naturally hopper made a point of provoking him at every opportunity eventually brando straight up refused to be on screen with him which meant their scenes had to be filmed separately and spliced together in editing the relationship between brando and coppola also started to break down as production dragged on to the point where coppola had to turn directing duties over to his assistant whenever brando happened to be on set someone on the production team also got the bright idea to use real dead bodies from a local morgue for the outdoor temple scenes i guess nobody really thought to question where they came from because they had other things to do until the police showed up one day and confiscated everyone's passports not to mention the cadavers it turns out that their supplier was a local grave robber and the production was implicated in his crimes you just cannot make this stuff up you know i'm trying to picture [ __ ] like this going down on a big budget movie today somehow i don't think disney would sanction behavior like this things weren't going much better for martin sheen who was already struggling with alcohol addiction and went on a self-destructive spiral as the weeks dragged on sometimes he would barely even function on set and had to be replaced with a body double for longer shots the opening scene where he breaks down in a hotel room cries his eyes out and punches a mirror wasn't acting he'd pretty much lost his mind at that point and suffered a complete nervous breakdown shooting finally wrapped in late 1976 but when coupler flew back to the states to review the rough cut of the movie two things quickly became apparent they'd wasted huge amounts of time and money on stuff that would never make the final cut and the movie still didn't have a proper ending the only option was to fly everyone back to the philippines the following year for extensive reshoots unfortunately the strain of the experience was taking its toll on martin sheen who suffered a massive heart attack while he was out in the jungle and had to crawl for half a mile to get help and because everyone was worried the movie would be shut down if the studio found out how serious his condition actually was he kept it quiet and pretended he'd just suffered from heat exhaustion the near death of his main actor combined with the constant pressure of filming in tropical conditions spiraling budget and crew mutinies was inevitably taking its toll on coppola too the man lost nearly a hundred pounds over the course of the shoot suffered an epileptic seizure a complete emotional breakdown and even threatened to end his own life on three separate occasions jesus at what point do you just say enough is enough anyway somehow he persevered and the shoot that was expected to last for 60 days dragged on for 238 when he finally returned to the states to edit the hundreds of hours of footage they'd shot he was literally a broken man mentally physically and financially apocalypse now had pretty much taken everything out of him but the movie was in the can now we just had to spend two years editing it into a finished cut jesus if i have to spend more than two days editing a video it makes me want to do a dennis hopper that's some good [ __ ] man the film finally came out in 1979 three years after shooting began and despite some mixed reactions from early screenings it went on to achieve massive success and is still recognized today as one of the greatest movies ever made apocalypse now is a complex challenging grueling kind of film about an equally grueling war it's certainly not an easy watch and by the end you feel almost as drained as the cast and crew must have felt but damn you know you've watched something pretty special some people consider the ending a kind of disappointing and anticlimactic and while it's clearly not the epic confrontation that was originally planned i actually think it fits pretty well with the overall tone of the film willard brutally cutting down kurtz in a frantic confusing scene intercut with drug-crazed animal slaughter and finally return into the real world forever haunted by his experiences there's no emotional release no catharsis at prevailing against an evil enemy who deserve to be destroyed there's only the horror of war it's a pretty good metaphor for the long draining and ultimately fruitless conflict that was vietnam when he was interviewed about his experiences after the film released us summed up the problems pretty well we had access to too much money too much equipment and a little by little we all went insane it's a testament to the guy's professionalism and sheer bloody-minded determination that he was able to soldier on through every disaster that befell him and pull such an epic movie out of the festering mire of insanity that he'd been lumbered with whether all the problems and challenges ultimately resulted in a better movie i don't think anyone will ever know all i do know is that while i'm glad this movie eventually got made i'm even more glad that i was never part of it anyway that's all i've got for today go away now

Channel: The Critical Drinker

Views: 1,069,497

Keywords:

Id: TXC-b4O_H_M

Length: 10min 44sec (644 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 09 2020