Director: Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper, Eleanor Coppola
Cast: Eleanor Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Duvall, Martin Sheen
Have I Seen It Before?: I have a vague memory of watching a battered VHS copy long ago. It is odd that I have stronger memories of this film than of previous viewings of Apocalypse Now (1979).
Did I like it?: Usually when I start these reviews, unless I’m seeing the movie in the theater (kids, ask your parents)—I’m typing as the film still plays out. I’ve had the damnedest time starting (to say nothing of finishing) this review, as the film is so engrossing. Most behind the scenes material is produced with the intention of promoting the eventual finished film. Much of the material here is produced with that same idea, but the work of putting that material together has created something far more honest about art and obsession. Certainly, the talking heads are still trying to maintain their, likely self-serving, version of events. But their facial expressions won’t lie. I don’t think we got all of Coppola back after this movie. I’m glad we got most of Martin Sheen back. Dennis Hopper was largely unaffected either way.
It’s sort of unrelentingly strange that the first filmmaker to kill somebody with a helicopter was John Landis and not Coppola. Whatever insanity the actual film depicts had to be harnessed from the production of the film, and there is plenty to harvest.
To talk more about the film might be to deprive you from experiencing it for yourself. As much as the scene of Willard/Martin Sheen freaking out is unsettling in the context of Apocalypse Now (1979), the uncut version depicted here is hollowing to the viewer, especially when you realize that Willard as a fictional construct barely exists. The helicopters that never fail to impress me in Apocalypse Now becomes all the more impressive when you realize they appear only via a tenuous agreement with the Philippine government, who was also a little preoccupied with a civil war of their own. It’s sort of wild to think about how other troubled productions pale in comparison to this. Somebody like Josh Trank tripping over himself to screw up Fantastic Four (2015) couldn’t possibly know trouble like this.
Community was right. It’s way better than Apocalypse Now. To my mind, it may be the best thing with which Coppola has ever been associated. That’s saying quite a bit.