Imagine actual hell, now think this set was most likely worse than that. Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and released in 1979 goes down as one of the best war films of its time, but for the director, actors and the crew it was an almost 68 week long nightmare that pushed everyone physically, mentally and emotionally.
Compared to the other projects I’ve covered in past weeks, this takes the cake. The movies horrible production period goes down in history as legend. When people say the title of this movie the first thing that pops into peoples’ mind isn’t the actual film, but the hell that it was to make the film.
Drugs, Alcohol and Acting Fueds:
Most people know that Hollywood isn’t known for being made of saints and that drug fueled performances is nothing new, but on a set like this were the heat makes you delusional and your sitting around for hours waiting for the director to bring a completed scene to the table, alcohol, LSD and cocaine became the only way that some of the actors could actually complete their scenes. In an article by Death by Films, the author describes it as “With Coppola making the script up as he went along, there was a lot of free time on the set of Apocalypse Now. Crew members described the crazy shoot as the result of too much money, too much time, too much drink and too much drugs. Little by little they all went insane. Actor Sam Bottoms, who played the surfer Lance Johnson, spent the whole shoot high on speed, LSD and marijuana” (Deathbyfilms).
Not only was it actor Sam Bottoms, but leading man Dennis Hopper and Marlan Brando were also using substances heavily. “Amidst all the chaos, stood Dennis Hopper. The hippy hellraiser of Hollywood. A man who lived on a daily diet of a half gallon of rum, 28 beers and three ounces of cocaine. When Coppola asked him how he could help him with his role, Hopper replied “an ounce of cocaine”. The production team ended up supplying him throughout the filming.” and for Brando, “He turned up drunk, weighing as much as an African elephant and having never looked at the script or read the book it was based on” (deathbyfilm).
Because Brando was so over weight they ended up having to shoot him completely in shadow in order to hid his body and because he never actually read the script he basically just said whatever and did whatever he wanted on camera.
But the worst part for director Coppola was that after a misunderstanding when Brando and Hopper first met, Brando refused to film any scenes with Hopper. So in order to actually complete the movie Hopper came in first and recorded all of his lines and then Brando listened to his recordings to film his part. “Brando said, ‘I’ll work with him, but you come in and do your scenes first and then I’ll come in and listen to you, but we’ll never be on the set together” (Parker).
Typhoons and Disease:
After missing actors for weeks and already being 6 weeks behind schedule a massive Typhoon hit the Phillepeans and halted production again because it had wiped most of the sets out. ” the typhoon that tore through the production destroying all the sets. More down time, which the crew put to good use. Parties at the hotel grew more infamous by the day. Swimming pools surrounded by bottles of beer and actors hurling themselves off the roof” (deathbyfilm).
Once production started up again the heat and bugs were so unbearable that crew members and the equipment weren’t functioning properly and many of the crew members feel ill. In a featurette all about the behind the scenes nightmare of Apocalypse Now they talk about the worst of the illnesses which go to Martin Sheen and Francis Ford Coppola. Sheen had spiraled out of control so badly with drugs and alcohol and the toll of tropical heat exhaustion caused him to have a massive heart attack and then crawl for a half a mile to get help, and when Coppola found out about the Sheen’s near death accident. He suffered an epileptic seizure as well as already loosing over 100 pounds and threatening to take his own life on 3 separate occasions due to filming. Of course all of this was kept from studio executives in hopes that they wouldn’t shut the production down.
The Location of the Shoot was an Actual Hell-scape:
Even if drugs and disease are your worse problems on set, it’s manageable, but Apocalypse now was filmed in the Philippines on an active war ground as the Philippines was in the middle of a Civil War. So the helicopters and other military equipment they were using would have to be taken at times to go off and blow things up for real.
Coppola got in trouble for filming the ritualistic killing of water buffalos and then keeping it in the movie. The dead bodies that were shown in many of the scenes were real corpses and after a few weeks of filming no one could handle the awful smell of rotting bodies. At night tigers would roam around the set and the behind the scenes youtube video explained that the film had to hire security guards after one whole weeks worth of on set allowance was stollen.
What was supposed to be a 60 day shoot dragged on for a whopping 238 days and came in millions of dollars over budget. But the film was a gritty and downright fantastic showing of war time nightmares, but when Coppola said that, “this film isn’t about Vietnam, it is Vietnam” it’s easy to see why.
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