![]() Outside is the clamor of Manhattan inside he's back in the Philippines, on that wild, two-year, go-for-broke shoot that is now an enduring part of cinema legend. "I'm 16, I'm on that boat, and we're making Heart of Darkness."įishburne pauses and sips his coffee. "For me, this was the moment, the artist-is-born moment," Fishburne says, his eyes glowing in their sockets. In Fishburne's mind, they're all still there together, on the boat or on the set: his comrades and mentors, taking in hand a raw, gawky 16-year-old kid and passing him the flame. It was more than 20 years ago, but for Fishburne everything from that boat remains vivid and huge, painted in bold, primeval colors that will never fade or lose their magic: Brando. It was on that boat, that battered little gunboat, edging its way upriver, edging deeper and deeper into the wilds of Vietnam, edging closer and closer to that murderous rendezvous with the man named Kurtz. So now, leaning forward, eyes blazing, Fishburne reaches out and touches it, he places the tip of his finger on the exact spot where his life, his work, his entire being snapped into focus: He wants to go deeper, he wants to cut through all the externals and go straight to the core. Fishburne, as one can tell from his work, is a man who demands precision. This is all important, fascinating ground, and Fishburne is happy to go over it. ![]() About his recent work in The Matrix and about his latest creative charge: writing and directing. "Apocalypse Now" won Academy Awards for cinematography and sound, and was nominated for six others, including best picture, director and supporting actor (for Duvall).Ĭoppola's "Final Cut" will be released in select IMAX and Nagra m圜inema theaters starting Thursday followed by a home entertainment release on Aug. 27.For more than half an hour, on this gorgeous morning in Manhattan, he's been drinking coffee, eating chicken sandwiches and talking. Should I be so fortunate to make another film, I feel it will be one that the theme and the message is thrillingly positive. "I look at the future of mankind in the most positive way," the 80-year-old filmmaker said after screening his dark, often horrific work. "I did not direct it or anything, that was the way they do it," said Coppola, noting that he refused an offer to keep an extra water buffalo on standby if the first shoot didn't go to plan. "I'm not going to kill an animal for a movie I'm not going to kill anything for any reason." Coppola wants to make an optimistic film next "That was a big part of their compensation," he said.Īfter his wife, Eleanor, a documentary filmmaker, captured the locals' first water buffalo sacrifice, he decided to film the second, equally bloody and brutal slaughter for the final scenes of "Apocalypse Now." Part of the production deal struck with locals to film on their land included trading animals, including chickens and pigs, for slaughter, Coppola said. Why a real water buffalo was killed in the film and that meant to me, that's Kurtz!" And they got to work. "I can't believe my eyes," Coppola said. "His whole head is shaved. And on Day 5, Brando arrived with a look of his own. Unsure of how to costume his military-brass leading character, Coppola decided to clothe Brando in loose black pajamas. In fact, when Brando arrived "he was even heavier." "And I think he was sincere that he wanted to lose the weight, but losing weight is hard," Coppola said. ![]() The director knew Brando was overweight when he cast him, but the actor had promised to shed the pounds. An overweight Brando shaved his head without telling anyoneĪfter negotiating a rate of $1 million per week (for three weeks), Brando showed up on the set and just wanted to ruminate with Coppola in his trailer for four days, Coppola recalled. ![]() Walter Kurtz (Brando).Ĭoppola revisited his epic war film in a Q&A following the screening alongside Sheen and Laurence Fishburne. Brando, Martin Sheen and Robert Duvall star in the twisted tale, inspired by Joseph Conrad's novella "Heart of Darkness." The film follows Captain Benjamin Willard (Sheen) on a mission up the Nung River deep into the jungle in Cambodia to kill the rogue and presumably insane Army Special Forces Col.
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