Behind The Scenes With Ed

To many, 70's American cinema was and still remains a golden age and looming large at the top of this movie mount Olympus was Francis Ford Coppola. Apocalypse Now, his 1979 war movie was one of the most famously “troubled productions” in film history, its 16-week shoot ballooning to 16 months due to recasting, typhoons, and health troubles — specifically, leading man Martin Sheen’s heart attack. That happened shortly after they shot the powerful opening scene, in which Sheen’s Willard has a breakdown in his Saigon hotel room. Incredibly,The scene wasn’t scripted; Coppola merely suggested turning on the cameras and letting Sheen go, shouting instructions to him off-camera. Sheen got good and hammered before and during the day’s shooting, losing himself in the scene and cutting his thumb open when he unexpectedly punched the mirror, which was made of real glass and not a prop. Crew members wanted to stop shooting, but both Coppola and Sheen insisted they continue, in order to capture the dark places the actor was going. The harrowing rough footage from the scene appears in Hearts of Darkness, without doubt the greatest making-of documentary of all time.