<b>时光网特稿</b> This is the end, Beautiful friend，This is the end, My only friend, the end……
Re-release trailer
With Jim Morrison singing, helicopter noises coming to the ear at the same time, cramped rooms, brutal war scenes, alternating images of different time and space on the screen, and more psychedelic situations than psychedelic rock are filled with sight and hearing, "Apocalypse Now" opens the "first page".
On May 19, 1979, Francis Ford Coppola came to the Cannes International Film Festival with Apocalypse Moderne, a film that encountered difficulties in filming, and the film that took Coppola's future and wealth was still unfinished at the time. However, after the three-hour screening, the applause from the audience gave Coppola confidence.
In the end, Apocalypse Modern won the Palme d'Or at the same time as "Tin Drum", and Coppola became the first director in history to receive two Palme d'Or recognitions. However, from the front of the stage to the backstage, the adventure of this film has only just begun...
Polish poster of Apocalypse Now, very artistic
Described by New York Times critic Frank Ritchie as "Hollywood's greatest catastrophe in 40 years," Apocalypse Now has become more and more alive as time goes on, and revisiting the film 40 years later is still full of creative techniques and reflections on modern civilization.
The 1970s were the time when various film movements were blossoming, and even Hollywood, which was controlled by capitalists, had to adapt to the changes of the times, and a group of young directors emerged.
Four of these young men known as the New Hollywood are the most admired and familiar to all generations: George Lucas, who relied on Star Wars to rewrite American pop culture, Martin Scorsese, the "social observer," Steven Spielberg, and the protagonist of this article, Francis Ford Coppola.
In 1974, at the age of 36, Coppola had completed three masterpieces, "The Great Conspiracy of Eavesdropping," "The Godfather," and "The Godfather 2," which won him numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture and the Palme d'Or at Cannes, a child from an Italian family in Detroit who was then one of the most successful film directors in the world.
Coppola and Brando's collaboration in The Godfather
From penniless to recognized, at this time Coppola is full of spirits, in a good mood, Coppola bought a summer house in Napa Valley, and there is a huge wine estate, a total of 1400 acres, enough for Coppola's entire family to enjoy the world here, but Coppola is Coppola after all, living such an upper life is not his ultimate pursuit.
After settling on the property, Coppola decided to devote herself to the next film, a larger-scale war film with a distinct authorial style. The film is Apocalypse Now, based on Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness.
Back in 1969, John Milieus, a Hollywood screenwriter who had fought in the Vietnam War, wanted a director to make Heart of Darkness into a movie, and he initially wanted George Lucas and Spielberg to take the lead. But someone has tried to shoot this novel before, all of which have failed, George Lucas naturally did not dare to slacken off, his plan is very thoughtful: intends to shoot the film as a black comedy style (fortunately not), after the completion of "500 Years Later" into filming, budget 2 million US dollars, 16mm film shooting, the battle is not finished, on-site shooting, let the Vietnam Soldiers run the dragon set on the spot, perfect.
Lucas was wrong, thinking of an unfeasible plan at the wrong time, and he thought about everything too simply. At this time, the Vietnam War was still in progress, and the poor environment could not guarantee the safety of the film crew. After repeated shelving, his interest also turned to the two projects of "American Style" and "Star Wars", but Coppola saw the potential value of the novel's cinematization, decided to take the film, and began to discuss with Milius how to write the script.
The original story of the novel takes place in the 19th century in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Africa, where the male protagonists Marlowe and Kurtz seek out local African workers for a Belgian trading company and squeeze their labor, but soon Marlowe discovers that Kurtz is crazy, pretends to be a god, and rules a tribe in the local area. Apocalypse Now sets the story on the Vietnam War.
Coppola was confident in the project at first, and indeed, 36 is still adolescence for a director, and this "adolescent" director already has achievements that others may not be able to achieve in a lifetime. But soon, reality quickly pulled him back from the joy and confidence of success. He had to face the embarrassing fact that almost no one was willing to invest in the film.
Coppola's previous work "The Godfather 2" was a success, and with this morale, he decided to stick to his shooting plan, looking for a suitable filming location while looking for investment. Relying on Fred Ruth's tips, Coppola decided to shoot in the Philippines, which was the back garden of the United States in Asia, where President Ferdinand Marcos even had dinner with Gary Fredrickson, another producer of Apocalypse Now, personally supporting the film's local shooting and access to Filipino munitions.
The exterior is well negotiated, but what about investment? Coppola initially received $7.5 million in investment from United Arts, and Coppola raised an additional $8 million through his own company, but it wasn't enough, Coppola is a real movie lover, he once said that if someone gave him $3 billion to make a movie, he could borrow another $300 billion to make a great work. This crazy attitude determined the high point of his artistic career and the fate of his next decade. He decided to gamble everything he had to finance the film, including the wine estate he had just bought.
The problem of money is finally solved, and the next step is casting. In Coppola's original vision, the film actually had only two core characters: Willard and Kurtz. A generation of tough guy Steve McQueen was the first choice to play Willard, but he turned down Coppola on the grounds that he didn't want to leave the United States for 17 weeks. What about Al Pacino? He built his career in Hollywood with Coppola's The Godfather, but he refused for the same reason, plus he didn't want to travel long distances in the jungle and was afraid of getting sick. Clint Eastwood was also invited, but everyone even refused for the same reason, and Coppola was hit before he could succeed.
In Coppola's own memories, he was frustrated by these successive rejections, especially the actors who had worked with him, who had worked hard and became popular. But that's the case in Hollywood, and the movie has to keep making, and Coppola plans to invite Martin Sheen, an American actor who auditioned for The Godfather.
Martin Sheen
However, Martin Sheen did not have a schedule at this time, and Coppola had to find Scorsese's royal actor, Harvey Keitel, who is still active on the screen, but this second-class choice was a kind of torture for the refined Coppola, and within a few days of the official shooting of the film, he could not stand Keitel's excessive performance in front of the camera. So Coppola flew back to New York temporarily, still bringing in Martin Sheen.
At the same time, Coppola also got the candidate to play Kurtz, the impressive Marlon Brando in "The Godfather". At the time, Marlon Brando was thriving in Hollywood, and Coppola paid $3.5 million for the film's final scene. In any case, the film's pre-production is ready for filming in the Philippines, but for Coppola, an adventure that will block his future has only just begun.
<b>Filming was hampered, and Cannes was finally recognized</b>
In March 1976, Coppola flew with her family to Manila, Philippines.
Before leaving, Coppola was full of confidence and thought that he could finish the film quickly, but when he arrived here, he realized that he was like the American soldiers of the year, and he was about to fall into the quagmire of Southeast Asia and could not get out.
The film was originally planned to be filmed for only a dozen weeks, but when Coppola arrived in the local area, she found that the filming location was far from her needs, not only could not even guarantee the basic accommodation of the crew, but even the electricity was not connected...
And the worst part is that the end of the film's script has not been finalized at all, and Coppola has been keeping this secret...
Worse still, the storm put the crew in a difficult position, especially a heavy rain in May that almost destroyed the set that the crew had worked so hard to build. Not to mention filming, the safety status quo of the entire crew has become a problem. Reluctantly, most of the crew returned to the United States, and filming was forced to pause.
Coppola and Brando
By June, there seemed to be a glimmer of light in filming, Marlon Brando had arrived in Manila, and Coppola had conceived the development of the film's ending. But Marlon Brando is not an easy character to deal with, and Coppola's energy is spent discussing the end of the film with him and his overly fat body type. Anyway, the filming of the film finally went on, overspending? It must have been overspended, and by the end of 1976 Coppola was still dissatisfied when he watched the wool film, and the budget at this time exceeded $2 million.
The classic section "Valkyrie" with bombing
In 1977, Coppola returned to the jungles of Manila with the crew to reshoot some footage, but Martin Singh had a heart attack, and it is said that he struggled to travel 400 meters on the ground before being rescued, nearly killing him, and other ailments were also torturing the actor's body. Coppola, on the other hand, was afraid to report the situation to the studios, because the severe overruns had made him "infamous" with the producers in Beverly Hills, and if something went wrong, it was entirely possible for the investors to interrupt their investment in the film.
Eventually, Martin Sheen's brother was temporarily caught dubbing his character. On May 21, "Apocalypse Now", which was full of suffering and serious budget overruns, was finally completed, and the final shooting cycle was as long as 16 months. But the long post-production made the film far away, the production cycle of the sound effects was more than twice as long as the original plan, and the schedule of the film was pushed back and forth, Coppola said to his wife: "It feels like only 20% of the time this movie is made." ”
In fact, looking back, the use of sound effects happens to be one of the most complex parts of "Apocalypse Now", because in the filming environment of the Philippines, the staff did not have a very good environment to record ambient sound, many of the sound effects in the film were filled with virtual sound effects, in the 70mm film version, the most advanced Dolby stereo sound at that time was used, five channels to cover the sound wall, but the theater equipment at that time was backward, and most of the 35mm versions of the theater line did not support this state-of-the-art sound effect at that time.
Fast forward to 1979, and the production of Apocalypse Now has entered its fifth year and is finally coming to an end. In April 1979, Coppola held a large-scale test screening inside Lianyi, and 900 industry insiders and media people saw a version that was not yet fully produced, but just like the premiere of "2001: A Space Odyssey", most of the audience could not appreciate this film that was beyond the times, especially the comment of Frank Richie mentioned in the opening paragraph, which made Coppola very hurt, and in a recent foreign media interview, he still said that "Hollywood's biggest disaster in 40 years" made him very broken Aren't there worse and dumber commercial movies?
At this time, a life-saving straw appeared, called Cannes.
It turned out that during that internal test screening, a Reporter from the Express in the United States mixed into the screening hall, and she had the insight to see the film, and after watching the film, she fed the film back to Jacob, the artistic director of Cannes. But at that time, Cannes had a principle, the previous palme d'Or directors, can only enter the non-competition unit, for this heart of the "Apocalypse Now", Jacob had to pay a lot of price, the first is to abolish this provision.
The people of the joint art are very obedient, they hope to premiere "Apocalypse Now" on the non-competition unit, but Coppola is not happy, just after the official cannes has released the film list, he temporarily regretted not going to Cannes, unless "Apocalypse Now" entered the main competition unit.
This upset Jacob, who, after a phone call from Coppola, decided to repeal the rule and usher in what was probably the greatest war movie of all time, in the highest courtesy. In May, Coppola arrived in Cannes with his family, crew, and of course, "Apocalypse Now", and Jacob arranged a private plane, distributed questionnaires to the media, and temporarily added audio to the theater to meet the multi-channel requirements of "Apocalypse Now", so to speak, to meet Coppola's various reasonable or unreasonable requirements.
Although "Apocalypse Now" was "begged" with an almost admiring attitude, not everyone was so interested in the film, including the famous female writer Francis Sagan, the president of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival.
I wrote about this scene last time I reviewed The Tin Drum. Sagan insisted on awarding the Palme d'Or to the famous adaptation of the work "Tin Drum", which upset the artistic director Jacob, who I paid homage to the invited film, but in the end did not even get the grand prize? At his behest, the organizing committee began to have people cheer for "Apocalypse Now" and win votes.
In the end, under the constant quarrel between the two sides, "Apocalypse Now" and "Tin Drum" shared the Palme d'Or, and after the award results, Coppola told Jacob that she only got half the Palme d'Or.
But in any case, the affirmation of the Palme d'Or saved the fate of Apocalypse Now, and also the fate of Coppola. Many people attribute Coppola's economic problems to the Book of Revelation Now, which is not entirely true. In fact, the film's box office is very impressive, with a domestic box office of $78 million in the United States and more than $150 million worldwide. Coppola did fall into an economic crisis in the '80s, but it wasn't the film that caused it.
Nowadays, "Apocalypse Now" is an insurmountable peak of war movies, both in terms of technical level and connotation depth, it does not put on a very advanced face, and the absurdity of war is not a rare theme. Its value lies in the fact that it takes us through a real war scene and the fragility and nihilism of modern civilization.