Apocalypse Now's behind-the-scenes production

As early as 1969 filming Rain Man, george lucas, then francis ford coppola's assistant, encouraged john milius to write a Vietnam War movie. The latter thought of adapting Joseph Condra's novel "Black Heart", but he didn't want to direct it and wanted Lucas to lead the film. However, director Carroll Ballard once said that he had the idea of shooting Apocalypse Now in 1967. At that time, Mileus had not started writing, and he reached an agreement with producer Joel Langdon, but they finally failed to get the right to adapt Condra's novels.

Coppola paid milius $65,438+05,000 to write the play. The first draft of Milius's play was completed on 1969, and the original film was called Psychedelic Warrior. Although the script is adapted from "Black Heart", it is obviously very different from the original. Condra incorporated his personal experience in Africa in "Black Heart", when he was the captain of a steamboat. Mileus hopes to regard Condra's novels as fables, because the plot of the novel is too simple to follow completely. When he conceived the characters, he also drew lessons from the first-hand information around him.

preparatory work/be about to work

George lucas originally intended to direct the film, but after 500 years, he didn't start shooting until 197 1. He planned to shoot the film in a rice field between stockton and Sacramento, California, and his good friend and producer gary kurz went to the Philippines to find a shooting location. According to their original idea, the shooting budget is 2 million dollars, using documentary style, using 16mm camera and hiring real soldiers. But then Lucas began to devote himself to American amorous feelings painting, which delayed the filming of Apocalypse Now. 1974 In the spring, Coppola began to discuss shooting with producers Fred Roos and Gray frederickson.

Shooting process

1 976 March1day, Coppola took his family to Manila, where they rented a big house and filmed for five months. Three weeks later, the film officially started shooting. 1On May 26th, 976, the crew was caught in a tropical rainstorm in Iba, Philippines. The heavy rain destroyed the set of the film and the film crew had to stop shooting. 1June, 976, Coppola, who returned to the United States, saw a book about Genghis Khan and immediately came up with a new idea, which was to promote the role of Curtis. Marlon Brando arrived in Manila, where he and Coppola rewrote the ending. After Christmas 1976, Coppola glanced at all the finished films, but the ending was still up in the air. At the beginning of 1977, Coppola returned to the Philippines to continue filming. On March 5, Martin, who had a heart attack, struggled for 400 meters before being rescued. On April 19, Xin, who recovered from illness, returned to the set.

Show the encounter

1977 on may 2 1 day, Apocalypse Now was finally finished. Coppola told the editor and sound engineer that Walter Mozzie could only give him four months to complete the sound effect of the film. Mosquito found that the script used narration, but Coppola didn't use it in the filming. Finally, he decided to change his mind and record the narration for the film himself. 1In September, 977, Coppola admitted to his wife that there was only a 20% chance that the film would be released as scheduled. Coppola approached the senior management of American film companies and asked to postpone the premiere date from May 1978 to 10/0. Coppola is under great pressure from movies, but at the same time, she is caught in a family crisis because of extramarital affairs. 1978 In May, Coppola decided to postpone the film screening until the following spring.