“Some things I can’t talk about”: director Fax Bahr on Francis Coppola and the making of Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse

Many filmmakers might be paralysed at the prospect of shaping a documentary from 80 hours of footage, and 40 hours of audio, none of which they shot or recorded. Fax Bahr, however, claims he was always undaunted by what became Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse. “I’d seen some of the reels, so I knew it was beautifully shot,” he reminisces about the behind-the-scenes material captured by Eleanor Coppola, as her husband Francis struggled for years to make his hallucinogenic Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now (1979). “I had a very specific outline of what I thought the film would be, and it pretty much held up throughout the process.”

Bahr, and later his co-director George Hickenlooper (enlisted once Bahr – talk about a change of pace – also began to write for cult sketch comedy show In Living Color), weren’t short of dramatic footage. The runaway production had to contend with hurricanes, the fickle Philippine army (who leased helicopters but regularly took them back for military ops), unpredictable actors, including a leading man who had a heart attack, and the lack of an actual viable ending.

First released in 1991, what Bahr and Hickenlooper assembled from Eleanor Coppola’s intimate audiovisual treasure trove, plus her recollections of this creative maelstrom in the book Notes, is considered the gold standard of documentaries about the making of a movie. Now restored in gleaming 4K, Hearts of Darkness is back to inspire – and intimidate – any wannabe filmmakers looking to tackle their magnum opus.

Leigh Singer: Firstly, what’s your impression of the new 4K restoration?

Fax Bahr: I was thrilled with it, because when we put it out before, we didn’t really do much work on the film itself. So, it was delightful to see everything that Ellie shot on 16mm, they went back into the negative, and it’s just gorgeous. That was really a new experience.

Going back to the beginning, how did you initially get involved?

I came to the project in 1989 and my understanding is there were three or four different attempts to try to cut the footage together. After a while, they just gave up. So, when we went up to [Coppola’s production company] Zoetrope, they were thrilled that somebody was going to try and crack this puzzle.

Alongside Eleanor’s footage, you conducted then-contemporary interviews with cast and crew. Were people keen or reluctant to revisit their Apocalypse experiences?

It was therapy! it was really a big chunk of people’s lives, it was bananas and traumatising and thrilling… so, people desperately wanted to talk about it. Except Brando, who refused… 

Was he just a blanket ‘No’, or did he ask for a million dollars…?

I was shooting the electronic press kit for The Freshman (1990), the Godfather parody film he was doing at the time with Matthew Broderick, so we were trying to get him to do an interview. I chased him down after he’d been shooting all day, and told him, “I’m making this documentary, we’d love to have your perspective on it, you’re such an important part of the film.” And he basically said, “Kid, I do my shit and I go home.” Then he just walked into his trailer, slammed the door shut, and that was that.

I notice Harvey Keitel, who was originally cast as Willard, then fired, is missing too…

We talked back and forth and Harvey said, “Maybe, but I want to see it first.” Eventually he saw it and did not want to be part of it. We didn’t have a release [form] for him either, so we had to recut, actually, after the negative had been cut. I think it was a terrible experience for him, he was still angry about it, and rightfully so.

Was there footage you couldn’t – or weren’t permitted to – use?

Francis and Ellie had me take out some things for sure. Some things I can’t talk about. It got very dark on the set of Apocalypse Now. When I interviewed Martin Sheen about the Kurtz compound, he said, “I was blocking the scene and said ‘These corpses look so real! Who did the artwork on these?’ And the set decorator said, ‘Oh, no, those are real corpses. We picked up them up from a medical school.’” Sheen was like, “No fucking way. This is evil. Get this shit out of here.” And Francis was like, “Let’s not put that scene in…” But generally, they were pretty respectful of fellow filmmakers, we didn’t have somebody hovering over us, which was wonderful.

It’s fascinating how you used Eleanor’s Notes as the spine of the film…

When it’s Hearts of Darkness, you need a heart for the film. Her perspective was a diary, essentially, it was so sensitive and gave such insight into Francis’s creative intentions. At first, I had another actress read it because I thought, Ellie’s not a trained actress. When Francis saw that version, he said, “I’ll give you an A on the film if you get rid of that actress and have Ellie read it, because she’s the one who wrote and lived it.” So, we did.

Hearts of Darkness was the first time anyone saw footage of the French plantation sequence, which is now part of the Apocalypse Now Redux cut. What did you think of the scenes when you first saw them, and now as part of Redux?

Personally, I feel like it didn’t really work. There’s a reason Francis took it out, and I think it’s this sort of sidebar that takes a while to develop, and it’s intellectual. I didn’t like it in Redux.

After all the insight you have into its making, how do you rate Apocalypse Now as a film?

I do think it’s a masterpiece. To me, the film emotionally crescendos when they shoot the people in the boat, you know the My Lai massacre scene; that’s more horrifying than anything that you see at the Kurtz compound. And the Kurtz compound is somewhat intellectualised, I think, but it works.

Your film is often cited as the pinnacle of documenting the making of a movie. Are there other examples that you feel hold up as well?

[Les Blank’s] Burden of Dreams (1982) on the making of Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo (1982) was a big inspiration; I would definitely put it up there. And Les Blank actually shot some of the Hearts of Darkness footage, I think Ellie brought him in. I love behind-the-scenes docs, but they can often be sort of self-serving. I think that’s what made both that and our film unique, that the directors were really open to showing everything.

Given that Megalopolis recently came out, I’m interested in what you made of it?

I’m always excited to see anything Francis does. Megalopolis, I felt like was a bit messy but a treat to see and I felt it really came together in the third act. But again, I’m so respectful that he would take that on personally and pay for it. My interpretation is Francis was trying to explain his entire approach to creativity. He never considered himself just a filmmaker, but a creative entity in so many different ways. So, I think it was successful in showing the world who he is. 

The 4k restoration of Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse is back in cinemas from 4 July and as a 4K UHD collector’s edition from 28 July.