Hearts of Darkness is an engrossing, unwavering look back at Francis Coppola's chaotic, catastrophe-plagued Vietnam production, Apocalypse Now. Filled with juicy gossip and a wonderful behind-the-scenes look at the stressful world of moviemaking, the documentary mixes on-location home movies shot in the Philippines by Eleanor Coppola, the director's wife, with revealing interviews with the cast and crew, shot 10 years later. Similar to Burden of Dreams, Les Blank's absorbing portrait of Werner Herzog's struggle to make Fitzcarraldo, the film chronicles Coppola's eventual decent into obsessive psychosis as everything that could go wrong does go wrong. Storms destroy sets, money evaporates, the Philippine government continually harasses the director, Coppola has romantic affairs, and he can't write the story's ending. Everything is captured on film. In the most disturbing scene, we watch Martin Sheen have a drunken nervous breakdown while his director goads him on (he eventually suffered a heart attack, but finished the film).

Great documentary

I used to have this on laserdisc and loved it. The only problem with it was that the disc was warped so I couldn't watch about the middle 10 minutes of it. I have been looking for this movie on DVD for years and I am really glad it is finally available. Apocaypse Now is one of the best movies of all time and this documentary only increases your appreciation for the movie. The scene where Martin Sheens character flips out and breaks a mirror and starts smearing the blood all over himself is all the more powerfull when you realize that that wasn't scripted and is actually his blood. He had actually cut himself pretty badly.

Get this to see a great documentary (shown without cuts) not for DVD "extra"

HEARTS OF DARKNESS is one of the few documentaries on film making where you get to see a true artistic process. After watching this, you will find nearly all "Making of..." pieces found on DVDs for what they really are: marketing fluff. As a result, I eagerly watched HEARTS OF DARKNESS on DVD after last seeing it more than 10 years ago. I was very nervous that Coppola would be releasing a butchered form of the documentary. After all, he bares his soul in a way that few real artists do in public -- the picture of him holding a gun to his head (and not all in fun) is pretty intense stuff.

I am happy to report that the whole film is here, there doesn't appear to any cuts and the run time (96 minutes) matches that of the official times listed on the Internet. Thank you, Francis!

Now to the DVD extra, an hour-long documentary called CODA: THIRTY YEARS LATER. It's this new documentary (40% of the total DVD content!) which explains why Coppola is finally re-releasing HOD. The title "CODA" it misleading (especially in this context) because CODA has nothing to do with [[ASIN:B000FSME1A Apocalypse Now]]. Rather it is a documentary on Coppola's newest film YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH.Perhaps because YWY looks to be an essential parlor piece with lots of dialog, CODA is, unfortunately, tedious. In fact, YWY has not yet been given a wide release in the US, so what we really have here is a (you guessed it) "Making of..." film for marketing purposes. Sure, it would have made a great extra on the YWY DVD, but it is a huge letdown after HEARTS OF DARKNESS. In fact, CODA didn't leave me wanting to see YWY and initial professional reviews reveal that the film itself is a letdown.

Instead, rejoice that Coppola decided to re-release HEARTS OF DARKNESS to home video to market his new film. Every single student of film should see HOD -- it is also a perfect companion piece to [[ASIN:B000096FUD Lost in La Mancha]], another documentary that shows that most of Hollywood isn't the glitz that it sells. (Fun fact: both HOD and LLM are documentaries about people trying to make films that eluded Orson Welles -- though Coppola succeeded where Terry Gilliam failed.)

Almost as good as the film itself

Like many others, I searched and searched for years only to find a beat up VHS copy of this extraordinary documentary. This overdue DVD release and rumored '30 years later' segment' is cause for real celebration - Hearts of Darkness examines the pathos and obsession of man almost as well as the film on which it is centered. Can't wait!