HEARTS OF DARKNESS: A FILMMAKERS APOCAYPSE (1991)
Label: Lionsgate
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: R
Duration: 97 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: Dolby Vision HDR10 2160p Ultra HD Fullscreen (1.37:1)
Director: Eleanor Coppola
Cast: Eleanor Coppola, John Milius, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola
The documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991) takes its name from Heart of Darkness, the Joseph Conrad novella on which Apocalypse Now was loosely based, it features 16mm footage shot by Francis Ford Coppola's wife Eleanor during the tumultuous making of Apocalypse Now, offering a fly-on-the-wall perspective of the making of one of the greatest films of the 20th century, the director shooting a film he is convinced is doomed and destined to ruin him financially and personally, while shooting in a foreign country, battling typhoons, and stars who were either unruly and difficult, or having near fatal heart attacks onset, and having to mortgage his own house to keep the production going after running over-budget. The footage she shot with sat unused and unseen for fifteen years until young filmmakers, George Hickenlooper (Mayor of the Sunset Strip) and Fax Bahr (co-creator of MADtv) approached Coppola's American Zoetrope production company about completing the documentary. Getting the thumbs up they then poured through over eighty hours of the raw footage shot by Eleanor Coppola and then edited it down, then shot new interviews, also in 16mm, with the original cast and crew, and intercut them with Eleanor Coppola's original material.
What we ended up with was one of the best making of docs about filmmaking of all time, a chaotic chronicling of the turbulence the production faces, chock full of intimately naked humanity and folly, including secretly taped conversations with the tormented Coppola who reveals the his fragile state of mind during the disastrous shoot in the Philippines. It's a fascinating watch, truly one of the most raw and compelling making of docs about the making of a film ever put to film.
Audio/Video: Hearts of Darkness (1991) gets a 4k Ultra HD from Lionsgate in 2160p UHD with Dolby Vision HDR10 color-grades, the original 16mm footage has been scanned in 4K and the scenes from the film have also been upgraded, replacing footage with 2018 4K restoration, and it looks terrific. The 16mm grain looks better resolved then ever, still authentically grainy, but texture and detail is greatly improved over previous versions I have seen, and the WGC color-grade offers deeper more saturated hues throughout. Keep in mind this is a run and gun documentary, the footage will never looks like Bladerunner in 4K, but it certainly looks the best I have ever seen it on home video. Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround with optional English subtitles, the track is clean and is a solid representation of the original documentary footage to my ears, but the original mono track would have been appreciated.
The sole extra on the Lionsgate release is a 38-min The Making of Hearts of Darkness featuring new interviews with Roman Coppola, Sofia Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola, and Fax Bahr, who talk at length about the film with additional stories about Keitel and Brando.
If you are an extras junkie I would also strongly recommend seeking out the 3-disc UHD/Blu-ray UK release of this film from Studio Canal, which offered copious extras not seen here, including the Audio Commentary by Eleanor & Francis Coppola, and the 23-min Eleanor Coppola: Art Is All Around Us (2003) plus a wealth of Eleanor Coppola's short films and documentaries.
The single-disc 4K UHD from Lionsgate arrives in a black keepcase with a single-sided wrap, inside there is a redemption code for a 4k digital copy of the film.
Special Features:
- The Making of Hearts of Darkness (37:35)
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