Beginning with Coppola and his production team travelling to the Philippines to shoot the film on location, mild disturbances occur when he is faced to re-cast Harvey Keitel with Martin Sheen as Willard, to dealing with Philippine army helecopter pilots abruptly abandoning the shoot in order to go fight local insurgencies. As the days drag on and shooting persists from initially scheduled three months to three years, more challenges begin to affect the troubled production from a typhoon destroying sets to an "uncooperative" Marlon Brando. It is even implied that the stress from these problems drove Coppola to attempting suicide.
Although not as revealing as I expected, with much of the documentary footage showing more work occuring rather than heated exchanges, Mrs. Coppola does give the audience a good idea through her candid narration (based on her production diary) of her viewpoint on what was going on. The film is also pretty short, for what I expect, nowadays out of a feature-length documentary, it's relatively ordinary nature reduces its status in this day and age as more of an elaborate DVD "extra-feature". Obviously, that is not the case, given the film's vintage. And yet, despite it's age, the information is incredibly valid. And chances are, you may not experience anything as brutally honest about the chaotic making-of this film than any other documentary. Hearts of Darkness, for what it's worth, is a commendable effort.
Peace,
- Jon
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