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September 12, 2006
Don't Look Back
WORTH LISTENING TO, No. 1: Francis Ford Coppola's commentary track on the new Apocalypse Now: The Complete Dossier DVD. Coppola's a natural storyteller, and he effortlessly holds court for three and a half hours, regaling us with anecdotes from the famously nightmarish production as if we were guests sitting around his dinner table (a scenario which, he says more than once, is his favorite thing to film). His commentary provides a different perspective to the harrowing events presented in both his wife's published journals and the documentary she made with George Hickenlooper, Hearts Of Darkness - a perspective that has the benefit of an additional factor: time. Coppola laces every mishap and disaster with what I can only describe as a deeply exuberant sense of nostalgia. It's the same sensibility, I think, that is fueling his new film, Youth Without Youth (on the set of which the commentary was recorded). It's been about a year since he updated his journal on that film's website, but this commentary track is very much a focused extension of his writing there.
As an added benefit, listening to the commentary separates the film's visuals from the narrative, allowing one the opportunity to appreciate Vittorio Storaro's breathtaking cinematography on its own terms.
I wasn't quite nonplussed by the exclusion of Hearts Of Darkness from the DVD, but I really do hope that whatever legal troubles have kept it from being released are resolved soon, because I'm dying to revisit it. The first and last time I saw it was when I was about 12, on a VHS tape I got from the library. I watched it three times, all before I actually saw Apocalypse Now, intrinsically linking it in my head to the film it was about. I remember being overwhelmed by the chaos of it all. That was before I knew much at all about the technical ins and outs of a film shoot, and the scale of Coppola's production in concert with the lack of any apparent organziation made this neophyte filmmaker's head spin. Thirteen years later, of course, it all makes perfect sense to me; more and more, on my own films, I'm seeking some of that chaos out.
WORTH LISTENING TO, No. 2: Bob Dylan's Modern Times, which is just all around wonderful. I have a strong preference for Dylan's later work; I'm sure it's partially because Time Out Of Mind served as my introduction to his entire catalog, but in retrospect I think he achieved a new level of artistic clarity with that record, which he continued (minus the heavy bitterness) on Love And Theft and, now, this new album, so rich with analog texture and mellow epics like When The Deal Goes Down (which has a fine video from Bennet Miller to accompany it).
Posted by David Lowery at September 12, 2006 05:04 AM
Comments
Not to be picky, but the doc is called "HeartS of Darkness"... the Conrad Novel is called "HearT of Darkness".
I'm in the minority on Apocalypse Now. I think it's rather over-rated. A good movie.. just not as great as it's built up to be. I'm pretty interested in checking out that commentary though. Sounds great.
Posted by: RegularKarate at September 13, 2006 11:40 AM
D'oh! I think I've made that mistake more than once.
I prefer Apocalypse Now to the Godfather I & II, which puts me (I think) in an even greater minority than you. But you don't care for Bram Stoker's Dracula either, do you? I guess like Coppola best when he's indulgent and surreal.
Posted by: Ghostboy at September 13, 2006 04:47 PM
No updates to the diary, but there are new rehearsal photos up.
Posted by: mutinyco at September 14, 2006 01:58 PM