Lights, Camera, Coronary

Somehow, I've never gotten around to watching Apocalypse Now. I've read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and I watched the bizarre parody Porklips Now at an age when I was far to young to understand and appreciate it, and now I've finally seen Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse. I was stunned by the insane journey undergone by everyone involved to create the film. I love movies about the creative process, especially when hampered by numerous horrible obstacles, and this documentary did not disappoint. It reminded me of Lost in La Mancha, the incredible movie about Terry Gilliam and the making and abandoning of his doomed adaptation of Don Quixote. Terry Gilliam had to suffer numerous creative and financial setbacks, an elderly star with severe medical ailments and the indignity of watching his equipment get washed away during a flash flood before he finally pulled the plug on his epic failure. Somehow, Francis Ford Coppola just plowed right on through problem after problem, putting his head down with a determination to finish the film no matter what. Nothing cowed him, not the firing of his star nor the heart attack of the star's replacement. Not even the fact that he didn't know how to end the movie would stop or hinder him. A paean to resiliency and bull headedness, this movie was engrossing and inspiring.

I saw it in a completely opposite light. Where you saw greatness I saw vanity. Your artistic vision was my deluded fantasies and unending hubris. Francis Ford Coppola, high off his Godfather films, believed he could create a war, film it and wait for the money to roll in. I was stunned to see he actually hired military helicopter pilots to fly the choppers in his movie.

But plenty of directors have used actual military personnel to assist in their movies.

True, but these helicopters and soldiers were needed elsewhere since they were involved in an actual war of their own during the production of Apocalypse Now. The shot of Coppola expressing his dismay that they were taking several of the choppers away while he was filming a scene amazed me as it showed a gall so large that only his ego could match it.

But doesn't art sometimes require fortitude of this magnitude? Don't you sometimes need to be stubborn and obstinate and unflinching in the face of obstacles if you are to create great art?

Bollocks. You can be kind and reasonable and still make great art. Miles Davis could have just as easily been a kind, considerate person and it wouldn't have necessarily affected his music in a negative way.

Possibly, but because of Coppola's dedication to his craft he was able to mold all the disparate elements into a singular whole and once again show his prowess behind the camera lens. What beef do you have against the man?

I will never forgive him for Jack starring Robin Williams. The man had a free pass for life after his 70s films and he squandered it on Mork from Ork.

Did you even see that movie?

No, but the trailers were painful and and because of them, this film gets a 1.