The famous helicopter battle where the helicopters swooped in on the village while playing "The Ride of the Valkyries" was meant to be an ironic comment on the Vietnam War.
In the original Wagner magna opera "Der Ring des Nibelungen," the Valkyries arrive at a point of apparent victory, but which later results in defeat.
Thus, the apparent victory in the helicopter battle would be followed by the eventual defeat in the war.
читать дальшеOriginally scheduled to be shot over six weeks, ended up taking 16 months. Heshot nearly 200 hours of footage for this film.
Filmed in 1976 but released in 1979.
Francis Ford Coppola threatened suicide several times during the making of the film.
While in pre-production, director Francis Ford Coppola consulted his friend and mentor Roger Corman for advice about shooting in the Phillipines. Corman's advice: "Don't go."
Marlon Brando was paid $1 million in advance. He threatened to quit and keep the advance.
Francis Ford Coppola told his agent that he didn't care, and if they couldn't get Brando, they would try Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford, and then Al Pacino.
Brando eventually turned up late, drunk, 40kg (about 88lbs) overweight, and admitted he hadn't read the sсript or even "Heart of Darkness", the book it was based on.
He read Coppola's sсript, and refused to do it. After days of arguments over single lines of dialogue, an ad-lib style sсript was agreed upon, and this was shot according to Brando's stipulations that he be filmed mostly in shadows.
Francis Ford Coppola spent days reading Joseph Conrad's source novel "Heart of Darkness" out loud to Marlon Brando on the set.
Although top billed, Marlon Brando does not appear until more than 2.5 hours into the movie (Redux version) and his total appearance time is 15 minutes.
Marlon Brando so angered Francis Ford Coppola that the director turned over the filming of Brando's scenes to Jerry Ziesmer, the assistant director.
Marlon Brando improvised the line "You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill."
The scene in the beginning where Willard is moving around chaotically in his underwear and eventually punches the mirror was filmed on Martin Sheen's 36th birthday.
The scene at the beginning with Captain Willard alone in his hotel room was completely unscripted. Martin Sheen told the shooting crew to just let the cameras roll.
Sheen was actually drunk in the scene and punched the mirror which was real glass, cutting his thumb. Sheen also began sobbing and tried to attack Francis Ford Coppola.
The crew was so disturbed by his actions that they wanted to stop shooting, but Coppola wanted to keep the cameras going.
It took Francis Ford Coppola nearly three years to edit the footage. While working on his final edit, it became apparent to him that Martin Sheen would be needed to tape a number of additional narrative voice-overs.
Coppola soon discovered that Sheen was busy and unable to perform these voice-overs.
He then called in Sheen's brother, Joe Estevez, whose voice sounds nearly identical to Sheen's, to perform the new narrative tracks.
Estevez was also used as a stand-in/double for Sheen when Sheen suffered a heart attack during the shoot in 1976.
Estevez was not credited for his work as a stand-in or for his voice-over work.
Clint Eastwood turned down the role of Captain Willard because he felt the film was too dark.
When Francis Ford Coppola asked Al Pacino to play Willard, Pacino turned him down saying,
"I know what this is going to be like. You're going to be up there in a helicopter telling me what to do, and I'm gonna be down there in a swamp for five months."
Francis Ford Coppola lost 100 pounds while filming.
Coppola invested several million dollars of his own money in the film after it went severely over budget.
He eventually had to mortgage his home and winery in Napa Valley in order to finish the film.
In fact, throughout the 1980s he had to work as a "hired gun" for other producers (instead of his own projects) to pay off the enormous debts he had incurred.
Laurence Fishburne lied about his age (he was 14 at the time) when production began in 1976.
In the DVD commentary, Francis Ford Coppola downplays his involvement in the controversial slaughter of the water buffalo, saying he "happened to film a ritual" being performed by Ifugao natives.
However in the article "Ifugao extras and the making of Apocalypse Now", cast and crew detail how Coppola staged the entire scene, directing the natives to chant and sing while they killed the animal which Coppola provided.
Afterwards, Coppola "went overboard and ordered a whole truckload" of animals which he gave to the Ifugao to slaughter on camera.
However only one water buffalo slaughter was used in the final cut. ('Flip Magazine 2003, v.2, n.3, pp. 29-33, 90-91') - ВОТ ЭТО УЖАСНО. ДИКО НЕ ПОДДЕРЖИВАЮ. КАДР УЖАСАЮЩИЕ!
Harrison Ford was allowed to pick his own character's name and he chose "Lucas" to honor George Lucas, who had directed Ford in American Graffiti (1973) and Звёздные войны. Эпизод 4: Новая надежда (1977), two films which made Ford famous.
According to the George Lucas biography "Skywalking," Lucas' decision to pull out of Apocalypse Now destroyed his working relationship with Francis Ford Coppola, who felt betrayed, and all but ended their friendship.
It would be years before they would be on speaking terms again, and would not work together again until 1986's Captain EO (1986).
More than a year had passed between the filming of Willard and Chef searching the jungle for mangoes and encountering the tiger, and the immediately following shots (part of the same scene) of Chef clambering back onto the boat, ripping off his shirt and screaming.
According to writer John Milius, he wrote the entire sсript of the movie listening only to music by Richard Wagner and The Doors.
To him, the music by The Doors had always been "music of war", though when he at one point mentioned this to the band they were horrified.
As, to them, it was the exact opposite. Ironically, the lead singer of the band, Jim Morrison, was a son of George S. Morrison, who was an important Admiral of the United States Navy.
In a 2006 interview, writer John Milius said that after he had written the now famous line "I love the smell of napalm in the morning." he thought to himself "This is over the top. This will be the first thing they'll take out."
Emilio Estevez hung out on the set of the movie in the Phillipines with his father Martin Sheen during the filming of the movie.
When casting for The Outsiders (1983) 4 years later, Francis Ford Coppola remembered Emilio hanging out on the set of 'Apocalypse Now', and wanted him to play Two-Bit in 'The Outsiders'.
In or just before each of the scenes where a member of the boat crew dies, purple smoke from a flare is visible.
A similar thematic element is used by Francis Ford Coppola in the Godfather series where oranges appear just before or in a scene where a character dies.
One ending considered for the film was that an air strike was called to destroy the temple.
Explosives were rigged especially for this sequence, but Francis Ford Coppola changed his mind, feeling that the finale should represent the end of war and the beginning of peace.
However, since it was required by Philippine law to get rid of the sets after filming, the sets were blown up anyway.
fter its initial engagements, which presented the film without credits, Coppola decided to use footage of the demolition as the backdrop for the end title sequence.
After the public misconstrued this sequence as the alternate ending, Coppola re-edited that portion and had the titles run on black.