“Apocalypse Now”: the story behind the wildest filming of cinema

Martin Sheen, represented an US Army officer with a helmet, without a shirt, with a ship in the background, in a scene of "Apocalipsis Now" — Photo foot, Matin Sheen (in the photo) suffered a heart attack during the filming of a dramatic scene.

- Author, Daniel Dylan Wray
- Author's title, BBC Culture
July 6, 2025, 10:57 GMT

“The way we did it was in many ways similar to how Americans were in Vietnam,” said Francis Ford Coppola after the screening of his movie “Apocalypse Now” at the Cannes Film Festival in 1979.

“We were in the jungle. We were too many. We had access to too much money, too much team and, little by little, we went crazy.”

Although the problematic production of the epic, brutal and psychedelic tape on the Coppola War had been well documented in the press during its filming -from financial matters to changes in the cast, health emergencies and extreme climatic events -, it would not be until 1991 when the true magnitude of the chaos would be clarified through “hearts of darkness: the apocalypse of a filmmaker.”

The documentary was assembled with the extensive material filmed by Coppola's wife, Eleanor, when he was on the set, illustrating a film production that, although imposing in his amplitude, ambition and vision, was equally disorderly, wrapped in drugs and full of apparently unsurpassed setbacks.

Fax Bahr and the late George Hickenlooper were the young directors who had the task of meticulously roll after roll of tape to make sense of madness and tell the fascinating story of filming. Now that documentary, which has undergone 4K restoration, is back on the screens of the United States and the United Kingdom.

Bahr still remembers the first day he saw the Coppola tapes, which had been filed, almost intact, for more than a decade.

“Some said: 'Oh, there are many things out of focus,'” he tells the BBC. “But the scrolls we examined were extraordinary. A simply beautiful filming. Clearly, she had been filming everything that happened. It was an absolute gold mine.”

The long list of problems

“Apocalypse Now”, freely based on the 1899 novel “The heart of darkness”, by Joseph Conrad, is considered one of the greatest works in cinematographic history.

However, he almost collapsed at several times.

At the beginning of the filmmation in the Philippines in March 1976, it was supposed to be a five -month filming, but in the end it would last more than a year.

Coppola fired its protagonist, Harvey Keitel, after a few weeks and replaced it with Martin Sheen, who later suffered an almost fatal heart attack in the filming.

The expensive scenography was destroyed by a typhoon, and some actors were infected with intestinal parasites while others dedicated themselves to parties and drug use on the set.

Then, Marlon Brando, who played the role of Colonel Desertor Kurtz, reached the excessively past weight and without any preparation, which forced Coppola to rewrite the script and readjust the end of the film.

As time passed, the filming exceeded the budget that Coppola assumed the financing of the project, which would have ruined him not having recovered the investment.

According to Eleanor Coppola “Notes” (notes), even after finishing the filming, during postproduction, Coppola estimated that there was hardly 20% of probabilities to get a convincing film from that disaster.

A scene of "Apocalipsis Now". — Photo foot, Filming was supposed to last five months, but in the end it lasted more than a year.

The documentary draws the portrait of a production that is proposed to recreate the Vietnam War and, in many ways, ends up replicating many of the same patterns and behaviors that took place among the soldiers.

An ideal person to make that comparison is Dutch photographer and photojournalist who was on the set for six months (the results were collected in the 2021 book “Apocalypse Now: The Lost Photo Archive”).

“Vietnam was crazy, 'Revelation Now' just a little less,” says Gerretsen to the BBC.

The hard conditions were totally strange for most. “The team complained a lot about heat, humidity, hotel rooms, insects, mosquitoes,” he says. “The mud, which sometimes reached the knees, was a real challenge.”

Damien Leake, who played a machine gun in the film, spent three weeks on the set and also remember that the physical environment did not look like anything that would have experienced.

“The first thing about memory is to get off the plane and moisture stuck like a wet mop,” he tells the BBC. “Having lived in New York, I know moisture, but this was incredible.” The water was not potable, the lizards rose through the walls of the cabin that occupied and the time was biblical. “Every day rained,” he says. “It rained as if it were fury. It rained to pitchers as I had never seen before.”

Francis Coppola at a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival, in May 1979. — Photo foot, “Little by little, we went crazy,” Coppola said about the filming of 'Apocalypse Now' that was screened at the Cannes Film Festival, where he won the golden palm.

As the production lengthened, it became harder for the cast and the team, which began to miss life at home.

“They were like the soldiers in Vietnam, who had never gone further than Canada,” Gerretsen recalls. “There was a lot of longing. A team member was almost every weekend to Manila – on a three or four -hour trip per route along a bad road – and rented a room in a hotel near the airport just to look at the planes that took off directed to the US.”

Coppola's vision crumbled as time passed. In particular, I could not find the end of the film that, until now, varies with the different editions and versions of the film.

“I call this whole movie the 'Idiodisea',” said the director at that time, during the filming of “hearts of darkness.”

“None of my tools, none of my tricks, none of my ways to do things are working to achieve this end. I have tried so many times that I know I can't do it. It may be a great victory to know that I can't do it. I can't write an end to this movie.”

However, its cast remained loyal and committed. “The actors would cross the fire by Francis,” says Leake, “because he gives them a lot of freedom and the feeling that the scene or the character can be his. Then he gives him the way he wants. You can't ask for more.”

Francis Coppola (center) surrounded by Timothy Bottoms, Robert Duvall and Laurence Fishburne, during an essay in the Philippines of 'Apocalypse Now'. — Photo foot, During filming, Coppola changed the script multiple times, but I couldn't find the end. Despite all the stumbling blocks, the cast remained faithful to its director.

While the longing tormented many, Leake had a different experience.

For him, his stay in the filming were “the three most glorious weeks of my life. I got together with the Filipinos, whom I adored. I thought they were wonderful. I fell in love with a beautiful girl and if I had had a more extensive role in the movie, I would probably continue there. I loved it.”

The story behind the scenes

Once Bahr began working with all the images, it was when he fell into account how miraculous it was that this film existed. “I knew it was a very difficult film to carry out, but until you get into the ins and outs of the footage, you cannot really understand the horrendous obstacles they faced.”

Therefore, Bahr's task to tell the story behind the story was a challenge, since he had to search in about 80 hours of footage. “The first edition of the documentary was about four and a half hours,” he explains. “Because Ellie (Coppola's wife) continued to film after the production ended, we had a whole postproduction section (in the original edition).”

And of course, there was a lot of drama during that process, even when Coppola and his team had left the jungle and were back in the comfort of a study.

“One of the assemblers escaped with the copy of the documentary and hid in the room of a hotel,” Bahr recalls. “No one could find it and they thought everything had been stolen. Then I sent pieces of burned celluloid in envelopes saying, 'I'm getting rid of the movie, scene by scene.' They were going crazy.”

Fortunately, the creative differences that had caused rupture and theft could be resolved before serious damage occurred.

Marlon Brando in a scene of "Apocalipsis Now". — Photo foot, Marlon Brando reached the last filming set of kilos and poorly prepared to play his role.

Bahr remembers the moment in which he realized that the documentary had discovered something fundamental.

“The discovery of the sound tracks that Ellie made of Francis was revealing,” he says about the audio recordings that accompany the documentary scenes.

“Ellie was the only person in the world who was able to capture Francis in that way, intimately and personally. This placed you there with an American teacher in her most private moments and allowed you to take a look at the center of creativity: doubt, concern, anxiety and elaboration of these ideas. That was incredibly special.”

Coppola gave Bahr and Hickenlooper his blessing to do what they wanted with the images. His only instruction was that they were honest.

“He said: Very ugly things happened here, but as long as they tell the story honestly, they support them.” The requirement that imposed them was that the narrative, which had been made with the voice of an actor, was recorded by his wife, since the material was her and, in many ways, this was a story seen through his eyes.

It was the final master coup that caused the documentary to seem even more a raw and personal filming look.

Francis Ford Coppola and his wife Eleanor in 1980. — Photo foot, The documentary is an intimate look of the filming of “Apocalypse Now” through the eyes of Eleanor Coppola, the director's wife.

“The best comment that someone can make about the documentary is that it is a necessary accessory to understand 'Apocalypse Now',” says Bahr. “Do people say: 'Well, I saw Apocalypse Now and I loved it, but after seeing your documentary, I understood it in a broader way.' That is the best possible fulfillment.”

For Bahr, “Apocalypse Now” exists as something totally unique.

“It was a unique film in the history of cinematography,” he says. “I don't think anyone can ever do something like that again. Not only because Francis was willing to play all his fortune, but also simply for ambition. I mean, his intention was to go to the Philippines and recreate Vietnam for the team and make everyone in the company live that experience. It was a brilliant vision.”

As for Gerretsen, his experiences have become almost impossible to differentiate from their memories from real war zones.

“The explosions, the colored smoke, the hours waiting for the assembly of a scene, everything mixes,” he says. When you could see the finished movie, the impact was significant.

“It was incredible how he brought everything in memory again. It was a masterpiece, no doubt, but they had to spend several years before I could see it again. Both the Vietnam and Cambodia wars and 'Revelation now' continue to accompany me because the madness of the war still continues with us.”