Hearts of Darkness
![[box cover]](../reviewimgs/h/heartsofdarknessvhs.jpg)
Although we gratefully paid out some hard-earned money for a copy of Paramount's Apocalypse Now (and thought it was well worth the investment), we only had one complaint about the disc — few freakin' extras. And it's not like a lot don't exist. It's well known that director Francis Ford Coppola (frequently revising the screenplay during the three-year production) shot a number of scenes that he later abandoned, including a positively surreal visit to French plantation in Vietnam, where the aristocratic residents refuse to accept that their world is crumbling around them. Would it have been that hard to add this scene and others to the disc? For whatever reason, Paramount couldn't be bothered, which means that the brilliant 1991 Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse is still the only place to find snippets from Coppola's cutting-room floor. However, Hearts of Darkness isn't comparable to a series of extras on a DVD, tossed into the mix like dessert after a meal. The documentary, shot by Coppola's wife Eleanor during the film's production at her husband's suggestion (to keep her occupied, she suspected) is perhaps the greatest film ever made about the making of a film. Coppola may have announced to the world that Apocalypse Now "isn't about Vietnam — it is Vietnam," a statement that is both egotistical and a bit silly, but Hearts of Darkness isn't about Apocalypse Now — we'd argue that it is Apocalypse Now, detailing the many missteps and mishaps that kept the Coppolas and their colleagues in the Philippines for nearly three years. Among the many fascinating revelations contained herein are that John Milius wrote the first draft of the screenplay in the late 1960s as a college student; that the original plan was to send actors and crew to Vietnam while the war was still ongoing and try to capture some of the insanity on film (a sort of Blair Witch Project in war-paint); that George Lucas was one of the first young directors to be offered the job, which he turned down; and that Coppola chose Milius's script as the first film for his fledgling Zoetrope studio because he thought he could make it very quickly and shore up the venture with some much-needed cash. Of course, it just didn't happen that way. Coppola's renting of helicopters from Philippine President Marcos — with the understanding that they could be taken away from the production at a moment's notice — was a real head-scratcher. His dismissal of Harvey Keitel from the lead role after one week of shooting should have set off some red flags. And when his replacement, Martin Sheen, suffered a heart-attack and was forced to leave the production for several weeks, Coppola veered dangerously close to a nervous breakdown. Towards the end of it all, Coppola had dumped all of his earnings from the two Godfather films into this one while the Hollywood trades were printing headlines such as "Apocalypse When?" And, after two years, he hadn't even written an ending to the screenplay. The semi-comic black-and-white photograph of the director staring at a camera with a pistol to his head pretty much said it all.
Regrettably, Hearts of Darkness is Missing in Action from DVD, which is a shame because we had been hoping for some time that discs of both Apocalypse Now and the filmed record of its making would arrive simultaneously, giving film freaks around the world a very special street Tuesday. But even though Paramount owns the documentary, it is out-of-print on both VHS and Laserdisc. Why Paramount would let Hearts of Darkness lapse after just a few short years is beyond our comprehension, but it's obvious that a DVD will not arrive until the studio decides this one's worth another general home-video release. And don't ask us to put our Laserdisc up for one of our forthcoming contests — it just ain't gonna happen.