Is Apocalypse Now: The Final Cut the best version we’ll ever see?
At this year’s Tribeca film festival, Francis Ford Coppola used the 40th anniversary of his Vietnam masterpiece to unveil a new version
Everyone in the house at the Beacon Theatre last night already knew the legend of Apocalypse Now. The troubled production of Francis Ford Coppola’s psychedelic Vietnam war epic has already calcified into the stuff of industry myth: leading man Martin Sheen was nearly felled by a heart attack, second lead Marlon Brando showed up to set too overweight to believably portray a Green Beret, a monsoon seemingly sent by God destroyed thousands of dollars in equipment. The behind-the-scenes documentary Hearts of Darkness tracks Coppola’s descent towards madness during the unending shoot in the Filipino jungle, the money and pressure and humid South Pacific air all getting to him. (The film-maker joked, “It could’ve easily been called Watch Francis Suffer.”)
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