It's Francis Ford Coppola in the raw as documented by his wife, Eleanor, when he was making APOCALYPSE NOW in the jungles of the Phillipines during the late 1970's. It's another version of the Rumble in the Jungle as we witness Coppola battling nature; Coppola versus The Typhoon; Coppola outmaneuvering crazy actors like Hopper and Brando; Coppola at the negotiating table with the Philippine government; and Coppola in a winner take all bout against himself.

Aspiring filmmakers and theatrical types will love this mostly fascinating chronological and seemingly unbelievable account of the making of the movie classic that was released in 1979. Eleanor Coppola who was an artsy type of filmmaker, but who had only completed bit pieces prior to this effort, did a very respectable job in bringing her husband and his work to us. She used behind-the-scenes location footage, and combined it with interviews she did with her husband at the time he was on location although he was unaware most of the time that he was being recorded. Then she inserted updated 1990 interviews that she did with some of the cast and crew members. The product is an interesting and intriguing portrait of a man and a movie director who went into an internal struggle to make a great movie that deepened into an obsession with "getting it right". The same obsession he sought to portray within the movie.

For those who have not heard or seen APOCALYPSE NOW, it is a wonderment to some of us that there are still many who live a sheltered and empty life. In 1976 Coppola began filming his monumental Vietnam epic with the expectation that it would be done in sixteen weeks. It took a few years to complete and included more than 200 days of principal photography. Events included the firing of the lead actor, Harvey Keitel; the heart attack suffered by the replacement star Martin Sheen who was a three pack a day cigarette smoker; a typhoon that hit the Phillipines and destroyed several sets; obstacles created by an unprepared and grotesquely overweight Marlon Brando; a ritualistic animal slaughter to placate the local tribe that were used as extras; and President Ferdinand Marcos' war with the communist rebels.

Interviews with the stars included Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest, and Dennis Hopper, the producers and production crew, and of course Coppola. We see how the they expertly relate the "real" story behind the making of APOCALYPSE NOW including the director's seemingly endless and tormented search for a conclusion. Even as it went "into the can" he was not satisfied and he lived in fear that he would lose all of his personal assets that he had put up as collateral to get the studio to agree to continue making it. Many times he was not stable and showed little concern for others because of the continual intense stress.

Eleanor completed her documentary by using her own and her film crew's ability to shoot behind the scenes and tape conversations with her husband who fought with his demons that he believed were causing him to make a disaster hack movie. Her work then was used by filmmakers Fax Bahr and George Hickenlooper for this documentary as they drew parallels with the plot and the making of APOCALYPSE NOW to Conrad's novel, "Heart of Darkness".

Coppola compared his film to America’s efforts in Vietnam: "We were in the jungle, there were too many of us, we had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane."


---THE MOVIE (viewed on DVD) ---
Length: 96 min
Rating: R (language; violence)
Year: Original release in 1991 (updated DVD with extras in 2007 including a piece on his latest movie, "Youth On Youth")
Type: Documentary
Special Features: interactive menus; scene access; commentary by Francis and Eleanor Coppola


---DISCLOSURE about Rallynow: This was written by someone who enjoys the movies and might consider it a hobby since I've been doing it for 50 years. I now have a three at a time Netlfix membership. In the "old days" I averaged 30 movies a year when they were in first release but the VCR and then the DVD player opened the world of rentals for me so that I now average 100 movies a year. (I keep a book that I list the date seen with notes about the quality and entertainment value.) That will tell you my approximate age and experience so you can understand the perspective but just to be clear, for Gen X and younger, they did have talkies when I first went to see a film at The Cinema, The Flicks, The Strand, The Big Screen in Cinerama, etc.



Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age