Anniversary of the "Apocalypse Now"
On May 19, 1979, Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" premiered at the Cannes International Film Festival.
"Apocalypse Now" was based on the 1902 novel "Heart of Darkness". The author of the novel was the Polish-British writer Joseph Konrad (real name - Jozef Theodor Konrad Kozhenyovsky), a native of the city of Berdichev, Kiev province, Russian Empire. This novel describes the adventures of the sailor Marlow, who is tasked with taking an ivory collector named Kurtz out of the jungles of the Belgian Congo. Orson Welles wanted to make a film based on this novel back in 1939. He submitted his 174-page script for the film to RKO, but RKO, taking into account the sharp contraction of the film market due to the outbreak of World War II, considered the project too expensive and rejected it. And then Orson Welles offered them another script - the movie "Citizen Kane".
Before Coppola, when the Vietnam War was still going on, the film adaptation of Joseph Conrad's novel was supposed to be carried out by George Lucas, who was going to make a film in the genre combining mocumentari and black comedy. It was no coincidence that John Milius was involved in the script. Back in 1967, his friends, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, knowing about his unsuccessful attempt to volunteer for the Vietnam War (he was refused due to asthma), invited him to write a script about this war. It was then that Milius came up with the idea to take Konrad's novel as a basis.
Milius understandably transferred the action of the novel from Congo to Indochina, but in addition, he radically changed the meaning of the novel. If in Konrad's book the main character is instructed to save an agent who has "gone off the rails", then in the scenario the main character is sent with the task to kill Kurtz. In 1969, Milius' script was acquired by Warner Bros. Pictures, and it was announced in the press that Coppola's American Zoetrope Co. begins production of the film from this script, directed by George Lucas and executive produced by Francis Ford Coppola. In accordance with Lucas's intentions regarding the genre of the future film, the budget was set at $ 1.5 million. Filming was supposed to take place in 1971, and to be carried out in Southern California and South Vietnam. However, filming did not begin in 1971. George Lucas considered it unsafe for the film crew to be in South Vietnam, where fierce battles were going on at that time, and without an authentic nature, his idea to shoot mocumentari became unrealizable.
However, it is possible that the danger of filming in South Vietnam in 1971 was only an excuse to postpone the shooting of the film indefinitely. Perhaps the main reason is that by this time Lucas was carried away by the space theme and, as if approaching his main work, Star Wars, he shot "THX 1138" (1971) and "American Graffiti" (1973). Well, and Coppola had no choice but to shoot "The Godfather" (1972), "Conversation" (1974) and "The Godfather. Part II" (1974). But despite the dizzying success of both parts of "The Godfather", according to George Lucas' biography "Skywalking", Lucas's decision to leave the film ruined his working relationship with Francis Ford Coppola, who felt betrayed, and ended their friendship, and as an expression of his disdain for his former friend, he gave the name Lucas to an unimportant character in the film played by Harrison Ford. Once friends and colleagues did not speak to each other until about 1986.
The project remained frozen until 1975, when Coppola decided to return to it, but already completely changing the concept of the future film. Instead of mocumentari-black comedy, Coppola, according to Milius, decided to shoot "the most brutal dramatic film about America's involvement in the Vietnam War." Milius was tasked with rewriting the script accordingly, and was assisted by Michael Herr, who covered the Vietnam War as a journalist for Esquire magazine in 1967-1969. The change in the concept of the film naturally led to a change in the originally planned budget. Now it was about $ 10 million. Warner Brothers refused to fund this project. Coppola decided to shoot the film with his own money, believing that the proceeds from the distribution of the two parts of "The Godfather" would be enough for him.
The question of filming in South Vietnam naturally disappeared, since the attitude towards the Americans in post-war Vietnam, already united, was, to put it mildly, tense. It was decided to shoot the film in the Philippines, where nature is very similar to that of Indochina. But there was another reason to shoot in the Philippines. The fact is that the US military, having learned that the protagonist of the future picture has the task of killing a colonel of the US Army, refused to provide Francis Ford Coppola with any military equipment and any assistance. But the President of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos, who had a tense relationship with the United States, agreed to allow his army to supply helicopters and pilots for filming. True, at that time, the Marcos government was also fighting the rebels in the area where the filming took place, which is why the pilots were often removed from the filming. But, at least there were no special problems with the equipment.
The role of Colonel Kurtz was originally assigned to Marlon Brando. But this decision cost Coppola a lot of nerves and blood. At the time of the contract agreement (Marlon Brando was owed a fee of $ 2 million, with half of the fee paid before filming, plus 8% of the rental income) Brando said that he was familiar with Joseph Konrad's novel "Heart of Darkness" and knew the script and his lines well. But when Brando arrived on set, drunk, Coppola was horrified to find that Brando had never read "Heart of Darkness", did not know his lines and, most importantly, became 40 kilograms thicker than he was on the set of "The Godfather". Francis Ford Coppola spent several days reading aloud to Marlon Brando on the set of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness". In the end, Coppola waved his hand and let Brando improvise on set.
But the "art" of the stars did not end there. Brando stated that an American colonel cannot have a name like "Kurtz", that he must have an English name, for example, "Leighley". At the same time, Brando threatened to leave the project and not return the $ 1 million already paid to him as an advance. And that's why the name "Leighley" was used during the filming. However, after completing the filming of the film, Brando eventually managed to read "Heart of Darkness" on his own, and not only read the book, but also fell in love with it. And falling in love, Brando demanded that the name of his character be changed in the film to "Kurtz". As a result, all lines in the film containing the name "Leighley" were re-voiced. Francis Ford Coppola was so angry at Marlon Brando's whims that he turned over the filming of the scenes with Brando to assistant director Jerry Zismer.
Many problems arose with the determination of the leading actor - Captain Willard. The first actor to be offered the role of Captain Willard was Steve McQueen ("Papillon"). Coppola offered him a $ 3 million fee, and McQueen initially agreed. But then he changed his mind, deciding that the shooting would take a long time. He suggested to Coppola that for the same fee he could play Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore (the screen time of this character was 11 minutes), but this was beyond the means of Coppola, who financed the production of the film from his own pocket.
The next person who was offered the role of Captain Willard was Al Pacino. But he refused, saying that he did not want to spend 5 months in the swamp. Al Pacino turned out to be almost a visionary: filming in the Philippines lasted more than a year - from March 1976 to May 1977. Much of the delay was due to the fact that the typhoon destroyed the set, and it took several months to restore it. However, Coppola subsequently commented on Al Pacino's refusal that he would agree to star in the film if it was filmed in his own apartment in New York.
Then the role of Willard was offered to Clint Eastwood, but he also refused, considering the script too dark. Then the role was offered to Jack Nicholson, but he also refused. Then Harvey Keitel was invited to play Willard, and he began acting. But after 2 weeks, Coppola himself came to the conclusion that Keitel was not suitable for this role. Nick Nolte hoped to get the role. But Coppola decided to shoot Martin Sheen. However, a few shots with Keitel's participation are still preserved in the final version of the film. And Nolte was terribly annoyed that the role did not go to him. All these ups and downs with the actors led to the fact that Coppola had to return the advance payment of 5 million dollars to European film distributors, who made the advance payment conditional on the fact that the film would be occupied by the stars of the first magnitude.
And the decision to shoot Martin Sheen in the lead role was explained quite simply. He agreed to act practically free of charge. At the time, he was struggling with alcohol addiction and several other problems, and believed that hard work would help him cope with all of this. By the way, in one of the early scenes of the film, where Captain Willard is alone in his hotel room, Sheen was really drunk, and, as they say, as a skunk. He hit the mirror, which was real glass, cutting his thumb. Sheen also began to sob and tried to attack director Francis Ford Coppola. The film crew was so alarmed that they wanted to stop filming, but both Sheen and Coppola ordered the cameras to work.
Martin Sheen had a heart attack during filming. Some shots of Willard's back feature lookalikes, including Sheen's brother Joe Estevez. Francis Ford Coppola and Sheen were so worried that the studio and distributor would drop support if news of Sheen's heart attack leaked out that they both remained silent. The official filming schedule reported that Sheen was hospitalized for heatstroke. As a result, Estevez's name was not credited either as a stunt double or as a voice-over.
On top of that, it turned out that there were no professional film labs in the Philippines, which meant that raw camera negatives had to be sent to the United States for processing. Thus, the entire film was shot blindly. Francis Ford Coppola had never seen a movie before returning to California. On the other hand, filming in the Philippines solved another problem. The famous opening scene, in which palms burn under a napalm hurricane, is associated with the destruction of a real forest. More than 4.5 tons of gasoline were poured onto palm trees and then set on fire. The tires were also burned to create more smoke, and the canisters were thrown onto the landing to create the effect of falling napalm. Many hectares of forest were destroyed in a matter of seconds. Since the film was filmed in the Philippines, which were in the midst of their own war with the rebels, environmental concerns didn't matter much. After all, the forest served as a defense for the rebels. Francis Ford Coppola later said: "We would never be allowed to film something like this in America, environmentalists would just kill us." And for another reason, environmentalists could easily throw sanctions on Coppola and his creation. On the set of the film, the film crew had to naturally slaughter and butcher the buffalo with a simple machete. In 1979, after the publication of the grandiose essay "Why Look at Animals?" John Berger, Coppola narrowly escaped the scandal. The director explained that the buffalo would have been killed by the locals anyway - and in such a cruel way.
Due to all the unforeseen delays and obstacles encountered in the making of the film, instead of the planned 6 weeks, filming lasted 16 months. As a result, the budget has tripled compared to the target. To cover the costs, Coppola had to mortgage his home and winery. During the filming, Coppola lost 40 kilograms and was close to suicide several times. But in the end, nearly 200 hours of video were filmed. The total weight of the filmed film exceeded 7 tons. Because of this, the editing of the film, instead of the usual 6 months, lasted more than 2 years. The installation of the napalm attack from the helicopter alone took one year. Approximately ten percent of the film footage (130,000 feet) was in this episode.
The premiere of Francis Ford Coppola's film "Apocalypse Now" took place on May 19, 1979 at the Cannes International Film Festival. The jury of the film festival, headed by the famous French writer Françoise Sagan, awarded Coppola's film the Palme d'Or, albeit in tandem with Volker Schlöndorff's film "Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum)". By the way, the remarkable Soviet poet Robert Rozhdestvensky was a member of that jury. And among the nominants for the main prize of the festival was Andrei Konchalovsky's film "Siberiade".
At the beginning of the next year, 1980, "Apocalypse Now" received 4 Golden Globe nominations and won 3 of them, including one of the most important - for Best Director. But in the second most important nomination - Best Drama Film - "Apocalypse Now" lost to Robert Benton's "Kramer vs. Kramer". Woody Allen's "Manhattan" was in the same "loser" position. A little later, Coppola's film received 8 Oscar nominations, but won only two of them, and not the most important ones. In the main nominations - Best Film and Best Director - "Apocalypse Now" and its director Francis Ford Coppola lost, respectively, to the same film "Kramer vs. Kramer" and its director Robert Benton. And in Japan, far from the United States, in the competition for the Japanese Film Academy prize in the category Best Foreign Film in 1981, "Apocalypse Now" again lost to the film "Kramer vs. Kramer."
Outside the United States, the festival successes of Francis Ford Coppola's film masterpiece were not limited to the victory in Cannes. The film received 9 nominations for the British BAFTA award and won 2 of them, including one of the main ones for Best Director. In the Best Film nomination, the British film academics recognized Woody Allen's film "Manhattan" as the winner. In the company of "relative losers", along with Coppola's film, there was another film about the Vietnam War - "The Deer Hunter" by Michael Cimino. And in yet another dispute for a film award in Europe, "Apocalypse Now" was "crossed over" by Woody Allen's film - in a dispute over the French film award Cesar. And here, too, the "partner" of Coppola's film turned out to be "The Tin Drum" by Volker Schlöndorff. Although the word "partner" in this case is probably not entirely appropriate, since Milos Forman's film "Hair" was in the company with these two films. But in Italy, neighboring France, the directorial work of Francis Ford Coppola in the film "Apocalypse Now" was awarded the David di Donatello Prize.
"Apocalypse Now" received almost overwhelmingly rave reviews from film critics. Roger Ebert, for example, devoted 3 reviews to the film: in 1979, in 1999 and in 2001. In all three reviews, he rated the film with a maximum of 4 stars and, of course, included it in his list of "Great Movies". In the very first of these reviews, written under the first, and therefore the most faithful, impression of the film, he wrote:
"But all such considerations are far from the reasons why "Apocalypse Now" is a good and important film -- a masterpiece, I believe. Years and years from now, when Coppola's budget and his problems have long been forgotten, "Apocalypse" will still stand, I think, as a grand and grave and insanely inspired gesture of filmmaking -- of moments that are operatic in their style and scope, and of other moments so silent we can almost hear the director thinking to himself."
In the previous paragraph, the word "almost" was used. The basis for the use of this word is a review by Gary Arnold in The Washington Post, filled with passages like the following:
"The atmosphere of Francis Coppola's lamentable magnum opus, "Apocalypse Now," a ruinously pretentious and costly allegorical epic about war in Vietnam... It's the cumulative effect generated by mixing richly portentous imagery with absurdly portentous prose, starkly portentous sound and flatulently portentous music....Movies that remain in production and then in the editing room as long as "Apocalypse Now," growing so expensive and difficult to complete that there's little chance of recouping the investment in domestic theatrical release alone, almost invariably prove artistic fiascoes".
However, according to the famous Russian film critic Sergei Kudryavtsev,
"for many people the picture ("Apocalypse Now" - FG) seemed too gloomy, complicated, unclear in thought" since "The parable of Coppola, loosely retelling the motifs of the novel “Heart of Darkness" by the singer of "lost Civilizations” Joseph Conrad, spoke not only about the horrors of inhuman slaughter, but also about the battle between Good and Evil, reason and madness, the Devil and God inside a person who is being tested by cruelty, violence, and most importantly - unlimited power over other people."
And this is far from everyone's mind. And even to journalists from leading US publications.
But most moviegoers gave Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" a very high estimation. This is confirmed by both the financial indicators of the film and the ratings on IMDB and Kinopoisk. With a budget of $ 31.5 million, the world box office was $ 150 million. 76% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users rated this film from 8 to 10, and 26% of users rated the film with the highest score - "ten".
Considering the above, the rating of Francis Ford Coppola's film "Apocalypse Now" according to FilmGourmand's version was 10,806, making it 14th in the Golden Thousand. Among the films released in 1979, Apocalypse Now is the highest marked figure, which allows us to conclude that this film by Francis Ford Coppola is the best film of world cinema in 1979.
