Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse Page #3

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This scene with all the extras

and special effects

is the most logistically complicated

of Francis' career.

Francis was always reminding me.

He says, "Vittorio, remember,

this is not just a documentary

"about the war in Vietnam.

"This is a main show in the sense

that wherever America goes,

"they make a big show on everything.

"They make a big event.

"They make a big show

about lights, music.

"Even the idea to put Wagner on

during the battle sequence,

"it's part of the show.

It's part of the opera.

"It's part of the major fantasy

that American people has. "

- Tell them to cut.

- Cutting.

- Very good.

- All cameras are cutting!

You know, just at the last scene,

the third trip,

when the Huey come,

they pass too high.

Okay. This is Coppola.

All aircraft, all Hornets,

all picture aircraft,

everyone land in the rice paddies.

We'll have a meeting.

Because of the civil war in the south,

everyday, the government

sends different pilots

who haven't participated

in the rehearsals,

wrecking tens of thousands

of dollars worth of shots.

All day today, a Philippine

air force general was on the set.

There were rumors that the rebels

were in the hills about 10 miles away.

The Filipino commanders were afraid

there could be an attack

on the helicopters we were using.

In the middle of a complicated shot,

the helicopters were called away

to fight the rebels.

So, what?

- They're taking away five.

- Five? They said two.

Wait a second. Stand by.

We just heard they're taking away

five of our helicopters.

Should we do it?

The H uey go away.

We'll do it next week.

There have been stories in the press

about production problems with the film.

Has the filming been delayed?

Well, we're behind,

but we have not stopped shooting at all.

I mean, it's just that

the film is enormous.

I would say it's twice the scope

in terms of the production

of any film I've done,

including the two Godfathers together.

And it's such an enormous film

with so many different aspects.

We're out here hacking inch by inch.

We are up against, everyday,

100 problems.

It's like a great war itself.

- Change!

- You mean right now, sir?

I wanna see how rideable that stuff is.

Go change.

It's still pretty hairy out there, sir.

- Do you wanna surf, soldier?

- Yes, sir.

That's good, son,

'cause you either surf or fight.

That clear? Now, get going.

I guess these air cavalry guys

did some pretty crazy stuff.

I heard from some

of the technical advisors

stories about the air cavalry

that were real,

that would serve my fulfilling fiction,

that they really did,

you know, like, for instance,

a guy would go into his helicopter

in North Vietnam

and try to hook a bicycle and steal it

with the runner.

And they would shoot at him.

He'd hover a while

until they stopped shooting.

Then they'd finally hook the bicycle

and stole...

It's like games to break up

the boredom of being in that war.

Men play strange games.

I love the smell of napalm in the morning.

You know, one time

we had a hill bombed for 12 hours.

And when it was all over, I walked up.

We didn't find one of them,

not one stinking dink body.

But the smell, you know,

that gasoline smell...

The whole hill,

it smelled like

victory.

Someday this war's gonna end.

It was a combination of

notjust Heart of Darkness,

but, like, the Odyssey.

Kilgore was like the Cyclops.

He was something that had to

be overcome, had to be tricked.

And then the Playboy bunnies

were like the Sirens.

This sure enough is a bizarre sight

in the middle of this sh*t.

The war was taking on

an interesting character,

and it was becoming a psychedelic war,

you know.

The culture was influencing,

sort of seeping into Southeast Asia.

The strange US culture

that was going on

where you really get a tone

that it is a rock 'n' roll war,

that things have gone a little further

than anyone realized.

At the point

when we were developing this,

nobody knew that

there were drugs over there.

Nobody knew all the craziness

that was going on.

A lot was being kept back.

So it was a chance

to really make a movie

that would reveal a lot of things.

What we'd done is strung together

all of John's anecdotes

and some of the things

that he had from his friends

who had been fighting over there.

And it was really a quest

or a trek or something

that would take us through

the various aspects of the Vietnam War,

and we would see it

for the insanity that it was.

At that point, we had it ending

in a very large battle with the Viet Cong

and having Willard

and the Kurtz character

fighting off all the Viet Cong.

And then when they bring in the

helicopters to bring his men out,

he says,

"No, I fought too hard for this land, "

and he shoots down the helicopter.

"I summon fire from the sky.

"Do you know what it is

to be a white man

"who can summon fire from the sky?

What it means?

"You can live and die for these things.

"Not silly ideals

that are always betrayed...

"What do you fight for, Captain?"

Then he answers,

"Because it feels good."

I never cared for the ending so much.

I always thought the ending was weak.

The ending didn't top

what had happened with the helicopters,

and it didn't answer

any of the kind of moral issues

that got into a real gung-ho,

macho kind of a comic book ending.

And my choice was to make it

much more back to Heart of Darkness

than really John and George

were intending.

I'd like to save the in-depth stuff

for the second reading.

And I think very early on,

I knew that even when I arrived there,

I was gonna take John's script

and mate it with Heart of Darkness

and whatever happened

to me in the jungle.

I mean, I knew that was, like,

my concept.

This afternoon Francis got a call

from his attorney.

Apparently, Brando is refusing to

give Francis the extra time he needs

to rewrite the ending of the movie.

Brando is threatening

to drop out of the project

and keep his million-dollar advance.

Yeah, but are they seriously saying

that Marlon would take a million dollars

and then not show up?

And imagine, here I am

with about 50 things that

are just quasi in my control,

like the Philippine government

and f***ing helicopters

which they take away

whenever they feel like,

and they've done it three times already.

I mean, all I'm asking is for Marlon

to allow me to start him a little later.

And I know it's all my fault.

But I'm saying is that

do I also have to shoot

the last 30 minutes of the movie

in the beginning?

Tell them to keep acting, Randy.

I assumed that there would be

some malleability about Marlon,

and I also didn't realize the immensity

of the constructions and stuff.

I mean, the picture's

bigger than I thought. It's just gigantic.

I personally, as an artist,

would love the opportunity

to just finish the picture up until the end,

take four weeks off,

work with Marlon, rewrite it,

and then in just three weeks,

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