The crew were mostly just kids— rock and
rollers with one foot in their graves.
Some of the first people that Coppola brought
onboard to undertake this epic project were
Fred Roos and Gray Frederickson.
Roos served as a Line Producer on The Godfather
Part II and would handle much of the logistics
of shooting Apocalypse Now (Cowie 9).
Frederickson was good at getting locations
and dealing with location problems— he’s
also fluent in Italian, which really came
in handy during The Godfather productions
and it would prove handy on Apocalypse Now
as well (Cowie 9).
I’m gonna speak Italian to mike.
Go ahead.
Roos and Frederickson began work on a preliminary
budget at Coppola’s Paramount office in
Beverly Hills (Cowie 9).
Frederickson said, "We were obviously under
budget on everything… because there were
so many unforeseen things that lay ahead of
us.
I think I only budgeted for two PBR boats,
and we should have had five, six, even seven
of them, so that we'd have had a spare one
standing by should there be any problem during
shooting” (Cowie 9).
By the way, PBR in this case, is not Pabst
Blue Ribbon, but instead Patrol Boat, River.
I was being ferried down the coast in a Navy PBR
a type of plastic patrol boat. Pretty common sight on the rivers.
Coppola hired as production designer, Dean
Tavoularis, who had worked as the art director
on Bonnie and Clyde (arguably the first movie
of the New Hollywood movement) and he was
the production designer on The Godfather movies
(Cowie 9).
He actually introduced Coppola to Marlon Brando
(Cowie 9).
By the way, a production designer designs
the overall look of the movie and the art
director makes it happen.
For cinematographer, the logical choice was
to get back together with Gordon Willis who
had shot The Godfather and The Godfather Part
II.
However, Coppola had his eyes on another cinematographer
named Vitorio Storaro after seeing his work
on Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist
and Last Tango in Paris— he particularly
liked the way Stroraro experimented with light
and color (Cowie 10).
In August 1975, Coppola was in Sydney, Australia
doing press for The Godfather Part II with
production designer Dean Tavoularis, and producers
Fred Roos and Gray Frederickson (Cowie12).
None of the actors wanted to do the South
Asian press tour, so Paramount allowed them
to go instead (Cowie12).
This worked out for the development of Apocalypse
Now, because Tavoularis, Roos, Frederickson,
and Coppola were able to scout locations to
act as Vietnam while on this press tour, and
all on Paramount’s dime instead of using
the funds from Coppola’s small production
company, now called Omni Zoetrope.
They went all over, including Thailand, Malaysia,
Indonesia, and Australia (Cowie12).
Storaro met up with Coppola in Australia on
August 4th to discuss the visual style (Cowie 11).
On the 27-hour-flight from Rome to Sydney,
Storaro got right to work.
He said, "I never went to sleep, I just sat
down, and I started to write down my visual
concept of Apocalypse Now, inspired by Conrad's
book, which I'd just finished.
I wrote four, five, maybe seven pages, pausing
only for meals.
I landed in Sydney, jumped into a shower,
and then met with Francis" (Cowie 11).
Storaro goes on to say, "Even with my poor
English…
We were able to discuss the main concept of
the film for more than three hours.
We sat comfortably on the floor in his suite,
and later he called Gray Frederickson and
Gray translated my outline into English, sentence
by sentence.
That was wonderful.
It was one of the most remarkable encounters
I’ve ever had in my life.” (Cowie12).
One of the locations they looked at to act
as Vietnam was Cairns in Queensland Australia (Cowie12).
It had a jungle, but Frederickson didn’t
like it, saying that there aren’t carabao
or water buffalo and the rice grows differently
and won’t look right in aerial shots (Cowie12).
But on the plus side, the Australian military
had equipment that resembled American equipment
and they would have access to Huey helicopters
and a well-trained workforce (Cowie12).
One of the scouts sent to the Philippines
contacted Coppola to say
“Don’t come here, it’s dangerous.
Go to Australia, go to Thailand, go to Stockton!
You’re talking about building a $20 million
set.
This is November.
On May 15, the first typhoons are gonna hit,
and it’s gonna rain until October 15.
The water rises fifty feet.
The sets are going to be washed out to sea”
(Travers 100).
Coppola responded to the scout, “What’re
you, a fuckin’ weatherman?” (Travers 100).
Coppola asked Roger Corman for some advice
on filming in the Philippines and Corman said,
“Don’t go,” going into the same song
and dance about the rainy season “from May
to November.”
Coppola replied, “It’ll be a rain picture”
(Travers 100).
So Australia wouldn't look as authentic, but
would much be easier to shoot in compared
to Cambodia or the Philippines.
After all, Terrence Malick would end up shooting
in Australia for The Thin Red Line (Cowie12).
They began negotiating with the Australian
Screen Actors’ Guild, but the guild demanded
that every actor in the film (besides one
or two) must be Australian, but it is possible
that they were just saying this to get out
of the negotiations once it leaked that the
United States Department of Defense disliked
the script (Cowie12).
Roos insists that the film wouldn’t had
gone over-budget or behind schedule if they
had shot in Australia (Cowie12).
I was going to the worst place in the world
and I didn’t even know it yet.
By the end of 1975, the screenplay "was six
years old" and [quote] “The U.S. had essentially
lost the war in the spring of that year when
the North Vietnamese Army overran Saigon and
the entire southern part of the country" (Travers 95).
During this period Coppola was, at the same
time, revising John Milius’ screenplay,
negotiating with United Artists for financing
after Warner Brothers abandoned him, and finding
the right cast (Cowie13).
Frederickson and Roos picked up the slack
by working on the budget and finding actors
so that Coppola could focus most of his attention
on the script (Cowie13).
Coppola’s mentality was, “just keep going”
and either the financing will fall into place
or not.
Here’s Coppola talking about this mentality
while developing The Outsiders:
Coppola: “For example, I’m starting a
film now in three weeks and we don’t really
have the money for it all together, but we’re
in a position where we have all the people
and we’re working on it and we want to continue
working on it, so each week, you say, ‘well,
let’s go another week’ and you’re sort
of financing it yourself hoping that, next
week, someone will come in with the money.
And what happens, then you get so far deeply
into the production that you sort of have
to go all the way and then suddenly someone
says, ‘well, you owe 14 million dollars.’”
They were trying to get funding from a studio
called United Artists.
United Artists has a really interesting history.
It was founded in 1919 by some of the biggest
names in silent films—
"D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford,
and Douglas Fairbanks” (Wiki).
The purpose of the studio was to allow [quote]
"actors to control their own interests, rather
than being dependent upon commercial studios” (Wiki).
United Artists was unique in that it would
finance movies and allow the director to go
make the movie themselves without interfering
and the director would return with a finished
product (Cowie13).
Coppola had Brando set to play Colonel Kurtz,
which finally got United Artists on board
to help finance the epic (Cowie13).
Coppola said, "They had the script, they had
me, who was a famous director at the time,
they had Brando - plus, I offered some personal
guarantees…
If I could not have pulled off a deal for
financing Apocalypse, featuring Marlon Brando,
after two Godfather films and The Conversation,
what could I do?” (Cowie13).
Letterman: “Now you raise an interesting
point there, that people who fancy themselves
artists probably could understand, but people
who fancy themselves businessmen are probably
going, ‘Francis, that’s how you get into
trouble— get the money first, THEN go to work.”
Coppola: “Well, it’s my feeling, when
you want to get a movie going, it’s so easy
for someone to come in and say, ‘well, we
don’t like that idea’ or ‘we don’t
think that’s like anything that has done
well.’
So, really, if you want to start, my feeling
is just start and follow your heart and really—
Godfather 2, I remember, we had spent a million
dollars building the sets before Paramount
ever told us we could make it.
Letterman: “Now see, what would have happened
if Paramount said, ‘oh, we’ve decided
against it’?
Coppola: “Well, that’s sort of what has
happened to me at certain times and this notion
of me being a risk-taker isn’t REALLY so
true.
It’s not that I’m a risk-taker, it’s
just that once we’re making the film, we
don’t want to stop and we sort of, in a
naive way, think it’ll all work out…
That’s really how it is.
The risk part is the least important.
We’re not thinking about that, we’re thinking
about the film."
In fact, The Godfather Part II had gone over
its $9.5 million dollar budget ending up around
$13.6 million dollars (Cowie13).
Frederickson had budgeted Apocalypse Now at
between $12 million and $14 million (Cowie13).
United Artists’ put up $7.5 million dollars
for the United States distribution rights,
but the agreement stated, in effect, that
the film must be completed even if the money
runs out (Travers 101).
Another $7 million dollars came in the form
of a loan by Bank of America to a new company
Coppola created called Coppola Cinema Seven
(Cowie13).
In her production diary, Eleanor Coppola writes,
"By financing the film in this way, Francis
retained ownership and responsibility if the
film went over budget” (Coppola 17).
Coppola [quote] “mortgaged his homes in
San Francisco and the
Napa Valley to finance it (Travers 98).
Coppola said, “One of the great virtues
of being young as a filmmaker is that you
don’t realize what some of the issues really
are, and what it really takes to make a good
film and put it all together, but that’s
a benefit, to sort of go fearlessly into areas
that a wise person would not” (Travers 98).
Merv Griffin: “You’ve always done things
in a VERY big way.
Coppola: “Well, number one, that’s an
element of movies and why they’re so important—
that they have quality and integrity because
they have such a tremendous influence on the
world and on people and the fact that someone
will remember a phrase…”
I’m going to make him an offer he can’t
refuse.
Coppola: “or a character will go to someone’s
heart shows that this is a really important
thing and that film should be made with that
kind of quality and I believe that filmmaking—as
probably with everything—is a game you should
play with all your cards and all your dice
and whatever else you’ve got and so, each
time I make a movie, I give it everything
I have and I think everyone should and I think
everyone should
do everything they do that way."
So, according to Peter Cowie’s book, the
agreement was that [quote] "gross rentals
in the United States were to be split 50-50
between [United Artists] and Coppola’s company
up to $20 million, and thereafter in higher
proportion to Zoetrope, up to a maximum of
74.8125 percent on revenues over $100 million”
and going on to say that [quote] “the balance
of the budget would be covered by pre-sales
of Apocalypse to distributors outside the
United States" (Cowie13).
Coppola: “We always wanted to be independent
and control our own destiny with film against
the idea of the 'big company' that would just
use us and tell us what to do.
So I developed—with some my friends—the
idea that we would go around the world and
we would make a film that we would finance
by getting each country to put up an amount
of money as partners in advance.
In other words, Italy would put up so much
money, France, etc. and we would get the money
by getting distribution advances and therefore
we would own the picture…
I was the head of the company and I believed
that I could finance it ,this unique way,
which I thought might be a precedent, that
we could maybe go on and continue to do that
and by doing that, we would basically build
a real company that really could make movies
and give new people chances and own the movies."
Coppola hired Tom Sternberg to work on making
the pre-sale deals— his goal was $5 million
dollars, but after six months, he had already
secured over $8 million dollars from Japan,
Germany, France, the UK, and Spain (Cowie13).
$7 million dollars came from the European
distributors, but only if they cast [quote]
“brand name actors,” but they were having
a tough time convincing them to spend an undetermined
amount of time, not only in the jungle, but
in the jungle with Coppola (Travers 98).
After all, Coppola gets a lot from his actors.
Coppola also didn’t offer them any percentage
of the film’s box office earnings (Travers 98).
In May 1975, Coppola and Roos went to a meeting
at the Pentagon in an attempt to be granted
use of American military helicopters (Travers 98).
The Department of Defense wanted the army
to help the production, so that they could
have some influence over the depiction of
the American military in the movie (Travers 98).
They had read an early draft of Milius’
script and particularly didn’t like the
[quote] “scalping, surfing, dark humor,
and pot smoking” in the story (Travers 98).
They also [quote] “argued that the Army
would never order Kurtz’s murder”
Terminate… with extreme prejudice.
— of course, what good would a morally grey
secret assassination plot be if you admitted
to doing stuff like that? (Travers 99).
When the deal didn’t work out, in part,
because of these demands, Coppola said to
them, “You aren’t going to see this picture—this
picture is going to happen to you” (Travers 99).
Later, Frederickson would try one last time
to get the American military on board by sending
a letter to “both the Department of National
Defense in Washington, and the Armed Forces
of the Philippines HQ in Manilla" (Cowie13).
They still needed [quote] "military technical
advisers, military escorts, aircraft (mostly
Huey helicopters), ordinance (firearms, artillery,
etc.), military vehicles,
and a radio communication system” (Cowie13).
Blow it to the stone-age, son.
The letter reads: "The story is set in Vietnam
in 1968.
It is about the demoralization wreaked by
the Vietnam war on the young Americans who
reluctantly served in the most unpopular war
in US history.
Nothing in it is derogatory to the Vietnamese
nor American people, although its effect would
be to question certain once-popular values
and attitudes
that made the Vietnam war possible” (Cowie14).
A press release was sent out saying, "The
project budget is $13,000,000 ... Preparations
and construction will take about 3 to 4 months.
Actual filming, desired to start January 1976,
may take anywhere from 4 to 6 months ... Principal
stars will be Marlon Brando, Steve McQueen
or Clint Eastwood, James Caan, Yves Montand
and Maria Schneider . . . There will be a
staff of 65 foreigners plus about 500 Filipinos.
As much as 2,000 local technicians, bit players
and other talents will be hired . . . Location
for the filming have not been finalized.” that made the Vietnam war possible” (Cowie14).
I have included some excerpts with more info
on Coppola dealing with the Department of
Defense in this episode’s Companion PDF,
which you can get for a dollar
at the end of the video.
Frederickson just happened to run into an
old high school friend name Giovanni Volpi
on a trip to Manila (Cowie16).
Volpi’s family founded the Venice Film Festival
and Frederickson mentioned their need to get
the Filipino military to agree to help the
production with use of their military vehicles
and facilities if the American military wouldn’t
give them an answer (Cowie16).
Volpi invited Frederickson to have dinner
with him and President Ferdinand Marcos and
the negotiations went on from there (Cowie16).
Fellas, I think I know a little bit about
politics.
Coppola and Roos met with Marcos and on October
1st, 1975, they had signed a contract to use
the equipment and personnel at no cost except
for the normal expenses and “insurance against
death and damages” (Cowie16).
And it just so happens that Marcos had American
helicopters and Air Force planes, which were
provided by the U.S. government to help fight
Communist rebels (Travers 100).
Eleanor Coppola: "The production will pay
the military thousands of dollars per day
as well as overtime for the Philippine pilots.
In return, Francis can use Marcos’ entire
fleet of helicopters as long as they are not
needed to fight the Communist insurgency in
the south.
A band of rebels has been waging a fierce
war for control of the southern Philippines islands."
This was during the height of the Cold War
and President Marcos was afraid that the communists
would assassinate him like the they did to
the president of South Vietnam— the assassination
was allowed by Kennedy’s Administration
and Marcos knew
that he needed the US on his side (Travers 104).
Marcos would fight the communists and, in
exchange, the US would ignore Marcos’ extreme
corruption (Travers 104).
Just after the production arrived in the Philippines,
United Artists wanted to send out a documentary
crew to shoot behind-the-scenes promotional
material for the movie (Travers 104).
The job would go to Coppola’s wife, Eleanor.
Eleanor Coppola said, "At the time, it was
customary to run five-minute pieces on television
to promote films.
Francis was already having difficulties and
didn't really want a team coming out and snooping
around, plus all the systems of getting people
out to the locations were overtaxed and he
just thought that having more people to look
after would be too much.
He told UA that he would do it [quote/unquote]
"in house."
He looked around and everyone but me had a
job.
He said, "Ellie, you do this."
I had never made a movie or been to film school,
though I had made some very short art films
and he knew I had a good eye" (Travers 104).
Eleanor continues saying, "The equipment arrived
on the porch of our house in Manila, and I
sat down and read the instructions, taught
myself how to load magazines, and so on.
I was using a small 16-millimeter newsreel
camera, but it was still fairly heavy for me.
I made every mistake there was to make.
The tripod blew over while I was trying to
shoot on the main set.
I thought that if I shot everything in sight,
surely I would get five minutes of usable film.
I wasn't getting paid—just getting raw stock.
At home, Francis would start talking about
all his problems, and I would just stick the
tape recorder on the table and turn it on.
He didn't care.
He was too overwhelmed with what he was saying.
By the end, I had sixty hours of film and
about forty hours of sound tape" (Travers 104).
It is because of this small decision that
generations of new filmmakers will have an
amazing insight into the creative process
of one of cinema’s greatest artists making
one of his greatest masterpieces.
Not to mention a historical account of one
of the most amazing things to happen in cinema
history— a big-budget epic story told by
a filmmaker with complete creative control.
They could have just as easily hired some
documentary team who would have known what
they were doing and sheepishly stayed on the
fringes of production, capturing just what
they need for a 5-minute promo and that’s
it.
With Eleanor’s film and diary, we don’t
just get an intimate glimpse into one of cinema’s
greatest minds, but also we get a certain
understanding of what it is like to be married
to someone trying to create something meaningful.
In a separate interview, Eleanor goes on to
say, "So I got the guy projecting Francis's
rushes at night who was free during the day;
he took the sound equipment and I took the
camera, and we set off.
At first we practised where the production
was training GIs, and we just shot everything
in sight.
After a while, word came from the publicity
department that they'd like to do a fifteen-minute
piece about the making of Apocalypse.
After all, it wasn't costing the budget anything,
because I was unpaid, and the sound man was
already on the crew - so we just kept shooting”
(Cowie 51).
Steven Travers writes, "Initially, the footage
and interviews were for the short promotional
film, or for her diary, not a documentary.
Eventually, Ellie Coppola's "in house" camera
shots became Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's
Apocalypse (1991)" (Travers 104).
The seemingly endless footage and audio was
locked up in storage until 1990 when two filmmakers,
who had been students when Apocalypse Now
was released, asked if they could look at
the hours and hours of raw footage and turn
it into a roughly 90-minute documentary (Coppola 285).
What’s interesting is that, even though
there was an understanding that whatever Eleanor
shot would be reviewed and approved by Coppola
himself before any promotional materials were
made, Coppola, didn’t breathe down the filmmakers
necks like he had experienced so often by
producers in his life (Hearts of Darkness
Commentary).
However, Coppola didn’t think that the documentary
would get as popular as it became— he thought
it would play on Showtime twice and that would
be it, but then DVD, Bluray, and now 4k Ultra
came out and it was included as a special
feature (Hearts of Darkness Commentary).
He was embarrassed about how he appeared and
didn’t like how some of the events were
misinterpreted in the documentary (Hearts
of Darkness Commentary).
Hearts of Darkness is, without a doubt, a
must-see for those interested in filmmaking.
It offers an unguarded look at an artist’s
struggle to create a masterpiece.
I will attempt to correct some of the issues
of the documentary in this series, in the
way Coppola explains them.
Personally, I really wish they would release
all 60 hours of footage— just think how
much it would help budding (and even seasoned)
filmmakers to see the day-to-day experiences
of making this film.
In this Episode’s Companion PDF, I wrote
about how Francis and Eleanor feel about Hearts
of Darkness today.
Coppola put everything on the line to keep
his independence from studio control and carry
the auteur spirit of the French New Wave and
other movements that celebrated an artist’s vision,
but for movie on a massively epic
scale.
Coppola explained his need for this independence
in an interview.
Coppola: "When you have a good idea and you’re
all excited to do it and you say, ‘okay,
tonight at eight o’clock, everyone come
and we’ll start’ you don’t want to then
have to go and talk to someone and say, ‘please
give us the money so we can start’ you want
to just start.
I think the treatment of money is so conservative.
They want to be sure— ‘well, I’ll talk
to my lawyer,’ ‘we’ll see next week’—
that your enthusiasm just dies.
I like to— if we decide we want to do something
then we should do it right then and let our
enthusiasm take control and not our fear that
‘oh, we’ll lose money.’
And I find that it’s very difficult to convince
other people of your own enthusiasm, so it’s
almost easier to make a lot of money so you
can spend it quickly rather than to have to
ask for it from rich people because rich people
are most frightened of their money of all.
So, I think independence just enables you
to get on with your life, not to always live
waiting for something to happen in the future."
Coppola: “We’d like to be an official
little movie company based on those backgrounds—“
Letterman: “Now this is a rarity, isn’t
it?”
Coppola: “Which?”
Letterman: “Having your own independent
studio turning out big huge motion pictures?”
Coppola: “Yeah, but of course it’s more
like the early days of movies when it was
fly-by-your-pants and the people in the film
business were not so much businessmen, but they
were former garment industry people, so they
were used to what it is
to invest in next year's hemline.
So there was the element of risk in movie-making,
it has to be."
Rose: “I mean, the extraordinary thing about
it is this is after the enormous success of
The Godfather."
Coppola: “Right, well, Godfather, and then
really what was catching lightning in a bottle, Godfather
AND Godfather Part 2, and The Conversation,
so I had won all these Oscars—
had won five Oscars—“
Rose: “You were the director of decade.”
Coppola: “Right, and here I am, no one had
ever touched the Vietnam subject, no one had
ever made a film, a feature film, other than
John Wayne who had made the Green Berets and
I was going to take up all the money I had
made, which I had, among other things, had
bought the great Inglenook Estate, which was
the queen of the Napa Valley and I put it
all on the line to borrow the money, which
along with the advances from all the European
countries, I was going to go off to the Philippines
and make this film—“
Rose: “But let me interrupt you, as we look
at this now, before we even go to the clip
and before I hear a lot more about this—
was it the worst decision of your life?”
Coppola: “Oh, not at all.
I wouldn’t say that at all.
I think it was a great decision.
I mean, when else is it the time to go on
an adventure when you're— what was I,
34 years old?
I don’t think it was a bad decision at all."
So, the deals were finalized with Coppola
on the hook, the locations secured, the crew
ready, and Coppola still had his control and
independence.
It was time to begin production.
The release date was set for “April 7, 1977,
Coppola’s thirty-eighth birthday” (Travers 102).
Thirty-eight fucking years old.
In the next episode, we will finally begin
the movie in the hotel of Captain Willard
suffering from inner turmoil and waiting for
his next mission...
To help support this series, I made a one-dollar
Companion PDF that talks more about Hearts
of Darkness, the Department of Defense, and
a selection of my favorite comments from the
last episode.
I would love to raise enough money for an
editor, so that I can work on two episodes
at once.
With your help, I can do that.
And if you support CinemaTyler on Patreon
at the $5 level, you’ll get access to all
of the Companion PDFs I make.
Thanks for watching!
