Eleanor Coppola, Locating the 'Hearts of Darkness'
Eleanor Coppola (right) with husband Francis Ford Coppola watches work on the New York City set of The Godfather: Part II. Gerald Israel/Hulton Archive/Getty Images hide caption
Eleanor Coppola (right) with husband Francis Ford Coppola watches work on the New York City set of The Godfather: Part II.
Gerald Israel/Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesDuring the famously chaotic filming of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, another director was at work on the set: Documentary director Eleanor Coppola, the auteur's wife.
Her footage, along with cast and crew interviews shot a decade later, became the celebrated documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, which premiered on the Showtime cable channel in 1991.
The documentary, which takes its title from the Joseph Conrad novel that inspired Apocalypse Now, has been described as a revealing insider look at how stressful moviemaking can be, as well as a deeply personal chronicle of one director's battles with his creative demons. Hearts of Darkness just been released on DVD for the first time.
(This interview first aired on Jan. 24, 1992.)