Hearts of Darkness: A Film-Maker’s Apocalypse **** (1991, documentary) – Classic Movie Review 13,668

Eleanor Coppola’s brilliant 1991 documentary film Hearts of Darkness: A Film-Maker’s Apocalypse about her husband Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 movie Apocalypse Now is edited from the 60 hours of footage she shot for publicity purposes.

Co-director Eleanor Coppola’s brilliant, eye-opening 1991 documentary film Hearts of Darkness: A Film-Maker’s Apocalypse about her husband Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 movie Apocalypse Now is edited from the 60 hours of footage she shot for publicity purposes at the time and is now an indispensable record of the troubled making of one of cinema’s great masterworks.

Francis Ford Coppola emerges as a beleaguered King Lear-style giant, battling everything and staking his all, including house and money, to neep the faith with his movie. It is so great that this story had a happy ending when it really could so easily have been a tragedy.

The interviews are unusually revealing, with sole refusnik of the original personnel, Marlon Brando shaming himself by refusing to participate (he only appears uncredited in archive footage). He allegedly refused to be interviewed because he claiming Francis Ford Coppola still owed him $2 million.

Happily, though, there’s Martin Sheen, Dennis Hooper, Robert Duvall, Laurence Fishburne, Sam Bottoms, Frederic Forrest, George Lucas, John Milius, Dean Tavoularis, Vittorio Storaro, as well as Eleanor Coppola and Francis Ford Coppola of course.

Expect some strong language, violence and disturbing scenes.

It was released on November 27, 1991.

Eleanor Coppola began the documentary by narrating her behind-the-scenes footage, and in 1990 Francis handed her material to two young filmmakers, George Hickenlooper and Fax Bahr, who then shot interviews with the original cast and crew, and intercut them with Eleanor Coppola’s material. After a year of editing, the film premiered at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival. It then debuted in America on the Showtime Network.

Hearts of Darkness: A Film-Maker’s Apocalypse is directed by Eleanor Coppola (documentary footage), Fax Bahr and George Hickenlooper, is made by Zaloom Mayfield Productions and Zoetrope Studios, is released by Triton Pictures (US) and Blue Dolphin (UK), runs 96 minutes, is written by Fax Bahr and George Hickenlooper, shot by Larry Carney, Eleanor Coppola, Bill Neal and Doug Ryan, produced by George Zaloom and Les Mayfield, and scored by Todd Boekelheide.

Francis Ford Coppola had a love hate relationship with the film, originally disagreeing with his portrayal in it, and initially blocking its release on DVD. Paramount later released the film on DVD on 20 November 20, 2007 with commentaries from both Eleanor and Francis Coppola, recorded separately.

But in 2025, after the death of Eleanor Coppola, he recorded a special introduction to it and called it one of the three best films about making movies ever (alongside Burden of Dreams (1982) and Lost in La Mancha (2002). If Hearts of Darkness: A Film-Maker’s Apocalypse is one of the three best films about making movies ever, Apocalypse Now is one of the best films ever.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,668

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