Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse

But now that he was awake, it wasn't any good. 528 00:33:48,985 --> 00:33:51,278 He said he couldn't go on making the John Milius script 529 00:33:51,488 --> 00:33:53,656 because it didn't really express his ideas, 530 00:33:53,865 --> 00:33:55,825 and he still doesn't know how to make the film 531 00:33:56,034 --> 00:33:58,119 into his personal vision. 532 00:33:58,328 --> 00:34:00,538 He's been struggling with this for so long. 533 00:34:00,747 --> 00:34:03,040 He knows the material backwards and forwards. 534 00:34:03,250 --> 00:34:05,584 He is practically chasing his tail. 535 00:34:06,128 --> 00:34:09,588 First of all, I call this whole movie the Idiodyssey. 536 00:34:10,882 --> 00:34:14,093 - The Idiodyssey? - This is the Idiodyssey. 537 00:34:14,302 --> 00:34:17,096 None of my tools, none of my tricks, 538 00:34:17,305 --> 00:34:22,101 none of my ways of doing things works for this ending. 539 00:34:23,228 --> 00:34:26,313 I have tried so many times that I know I can't do it. 540 00:34:27,274 --> 00:34:29,608 It might be a big victory to know that I can't do it. 541 00:34:29,818 --> 00:34:32,194 I can't write the ending to this movie. 542 00:34:32,529 --> 00:34:35,990 I was on the spot. I had gotten myself into something big. 543 00:34:36,199 --> 00:34:39,910 Some people had come through, a lot of people hadn't. 544 00:34:40,328 --> 00:34:42,747 And it was my job and also my financial burden 545 00:34:42,956 --> 00:34:44,874 to pick up the pieces and finish the movie. 546 00:34:45,125 --> 00:34:48,753 I didn't quite understand all the ramifications of the financing. 547 00:34:48,962 --> 00:34:51,839 I felt that he'd do whatever he had to, we'd borrow the money. 548 00:34:52,048 --> 00:34:53,507 But I really support him as an artist, 549 00:34:53,717 --> 00:34:57,428 and I feel like whatever the artist needs to do 550 00:34:57,637 --> 00:35:00,139 in order to get his artwork is okay. 551 00:35:00,348 --> 00:35:02,725 And I always felt confident. So what's the worst that can happen? 552 00:35:02,934 --> 00:35:03,768 They take away 553 00:35:03,977 --> 00:35:06,020 your big house, your car, so what? 554 00:35:06,229 --> 00:35:09,315 He was a very creative person and could make another film 555 00:35:09,524 --> 00:35:14,945 and could do another job and earn his living and provide for us. 556 00:35:15,155 --> 00:35:18,574 So I really wasn't frightened by it. 557 00:35:18,784 --> 00:35:22,578 In fact, at that point in time, we had escalated our lifestyle. 558 00:35:22,788 --> 00:35:25,456 We had this big 22-room Victorian house, 559 00:35:25,665 --> 00:35:27,750 you know, a staff and a screening room. 560 00:35:27,959 --> 00:35:30,795 Life was kind of complicated for me. 561 00:35:31,004 --> 00:35:32,213 And I would have loved 562 00:35:32,422 --> 00:35:35,966 to have had my lifestyle reduced to some smaller scale. 563 00:35:36,176 --> 00:35:38,135 So that part of me was just fearless in that regard. 564 00:35:38,345 --> 00:35:42,264 It really didn't matter if it all went down the tubes 565 00:35:42,474 --> 00:35:45,518 in financing this project. It was really okay. 566 00:35:51,316 --> 00:35:54,193 A melodrama is currently playing itself out in Hollywood 567 00:35:54,402 --> 00:35:58,113 that for sheer emotionalism rivals anything put on film. 568 00:35:58,657 --> 00:36:01,867 The embattled figure in this drama is director Francis Coppola, 569 00:36:02,077 --> 00:36:04,245 who once again finds himself waging a war 570 00:36:04,454 --> 00:36:06,747 to keep his dream financially afloat. 571 00:36:07,165 --> 00:36:09,792 If you read newspapers at all or listen to the radio, you know 572 00:36:10,001 --> 00:36:11,669 that Mr. Coppola has been involved 573 00:36:11,878 --> 00:36:13,671 in the production of this motion picture 574 00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:15,756 for more years than even he would care to count. 575 00:36:20,011 --> 00:36:22,888 The press painted a portrait of me 576 00:36:23,098 --> 00:36:26,141 as a crazy person and financially irresponsible, 577 00:36:26,351 --> 00:36:28,978 which I don't particularly think is really true. 578 00:36:29,354 --> 00:36:30,980 No doubt that it was my money. 579 00:36:31,189 --> 00:36:34,191 But the difference was that Apocalypse Now was about Vietnam. 580 00:36:34,401 --> 00:36:38,404 That was what made it sound like such a crazy financial bet. 581 00:36:39,072 --> 00:36:40,990 Did you ever consider quitting? 582 00:36:41,199 --> 00:36:45,452 How am I going to quit from myself? To say, "Francis, I quit"? 583 00:36:45,996 --> 00:36:49,415 You know, I was financing the movie. How could I quit? 584 00:36:52,752 --> 00:36:54,879 July 25th, 1976. 585 00:36:55,672 --> 00:36:58,716 We've returned to the Philippines to resume production. 586 00:36:58,925