Bahr, Coppola & Hickenlooper: Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991)

Such is the sublimity of Apocalypse Now that it’s almost unbelievable it was ever made. Like Kurtz, it’s a grand idea of a film, a concept that would seem to defy any execution. It’s a tribute to Hearts of Darkness, then, that it makes Coppola's labour of love seem even more unbelievable, improbable and singular. Edited from footage and interviews that Eleanor Coppola gathered during the filming process – sometimes without Francis’ knowledge – it takes you through one unfathomable complication, crisis after another, as well as a series of out-takes that rival anything that the film has to offer (including the French Plantation sequence which, at this point in time, had never been edited into a theatrical release). Part of what makes it so engaging is that Eleanor started shooting from the earliest casting sessions – it’s clear that everyone was prescient that this was going to be a massive project, and that Francis himself wanted some record in case it never reached completion. At the same time, that also allows you to witness how often the scale of the project exceeded everyone’s expectations, quickly ballooning to a point where Francis could quite comfortably describe it as “the first film that would win a Nobel prize.” In Eleanor’s eyes, at least, it’s clear that Francis simply became Kurtz,  immersing himself in the agon of his artistry in a completely unprecedented way, at least for a director. Interestingly, the film opens with an excerpt from Orson Welles’ radio play of Heart of Darkness, which recurs at key points throughout the film, reminding us that Conrad’s novel was originally going to be Welles’ first film, before he settled for making Citizen Kane instead. The implication is clear - too ambitious even for Welles, Apocalypse Now is the film Kane wanted to be. That might sound hyperbolic, but the film gathers you up into its momentum, not least because of how passionately both Coppolas believe in film as a visionary medium, meaning it's also a film about American Zoetrope, the Coppolas’ production company. By the end, you feel as if the convocation of “artists, musicians, filmmakers and directors” that they dreamed of has really come to pass, if only on this one occasion – and that makes Hearts Of Darkness as exhilarating and intoxicating a companion piece to Apocalypse Now as The Godfather Part II was to The Godfather, suffused with “a kind of powerful exhilaration in the face of losing everything…like the experience of war.”