APOCALYPSE NOW Blu-ray: Oct. 19, 2010 (2 versions) (1 Viewer)

[Kevin EK]

Bumping this thread as I just took a look at the Amazon listing for the "Full Disclosure" 3 Disc set, and it includes the Coppola commentary on the list of special features. I'll clarify that it does this completely apart from the listing of the compound destruction with commentary, so the note about the full commentary has to be about the feature talk done by Coppola for both versions of the film 4 years ago.

 

[oscar_merkx]

http://www.apocalypsenow.com/

 

very cool

 

[Brian L]

Check out the downloadable production notes!
 

Very cool indeed!!!!

 

Brian

 

[dolstein]

So are we going to see any new footage? I've always wanted to see the footage of Harvey Keitel, and I believe that Scott Glenn had some scenes that wound up on the cutting room floor.

 

[Kevin EK]

I don't believe there will be any more deleted footage than was already included on "The Complete Dossier" set. (And all of that material is included here again)

 

This includes at least two significant additional scenes with Scott Glenn, one of which explains what happens to him and to Dennis Hopper.
 

I somehow doubt that the Harvey Keitel footage will ever see the light of day.

 

[Edwin-S]

I'm confused. Did "The Complete Dossier" set contain additional footage to the material that was added in "AN Redux" or are the two additional scenes with Scott Glenn just in a section of deleted scenes? I don't remember seeing anything in "Redux" that explains what happens to him and Hopper.

 

[joshEH]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian L

Check out the downloadable production notes!
 

Very cool indeed!!!!

 

Brian

If you download the Hearts of Darkness production notes, though, it's kinda funny how Eleanor Coppola's name is slapped all over them, with Hickenlooper and Bahr basically relegated to second-banana status -- and it's something that's actually gotten worse since 2007, culminating in her recent, quasi-dishonest Blu-Ray box "directorial" credit.

 

[Kevin EK]

The deleted scene section of "The Complete Dossier" is another nearly 30 minutes of deleted scenes that were not part of Redux.

They include the original introductory shots of the Street Gang crew, and additional shots of the military compound with a telling banner of sorts.

The last scenes in the section include a little more material with Marlon Brando, and the two additional scenes with Scott Glenn.
All of this material is included in an identical section of the Blu-ray on the 2nd Disc.

 

 

Here's another thing that may interest you, though:

 

THE LIONSGATE WEBSITE IS SHOWING ADDITIONAL SPECIAL FEATURES:

 

"Fred Roos - Casting Apocalypse" (sounds like a new interview with Roos)

"Heart of Darkness read by Orson Welles on 'The Mercury Theatre on the Air' from 11-6-1938 (audio recording)"

 

It also appears that the trailers and the theatrical program are indeed included in the Marketing Archive.

 

As for Hearts of Darkness, the production notes don't feel like they are dismissive of Fax Bahr and George Hickenlooper's involvement. If anything, the notes put the whole situation into a much clearer light. I remember that George Zaloom and Les Mayfield were indeed involved from the beginning. The notes show the project evolving into something a lot bigger than was originally intended, at which point Hickenlooper was apparently brought in to help. The notes indicate a long production and post-production process, and a rough cut (which I would love to see sometime) running at 3 1/2 hours long - about the same length as the one done by Charles de Lauzirika for BLADE RUNNER.

 

If the notes are incorrect, I'd love to know where the error is. It seems to me that Bahr and Hickenlooper are identified as the co-directors and co-writers of the piece, using their 1990 interviews in coordination with Eleanor Coppola's on-set footage and her narration from her journal entries. The production notes more or less line up with Hickenlooper's account on the other blog - except that Hickenlooper says he was the one who found the audio tapes of Francis' rants, and that he was the one who asked to have Eleanor read her journal entries as narration for her footage. The part that is probably confusing a lot of people is that the on-set footage which constitutes the heart of "Hearts of Darkness" was indeed directed by Eleanor, or at least recorded by her, as were the audio tapes of her conversations with her husband. What Hickenlooper and Bahr brought to the piece was the ability to edit this material into coherent form and pair it with new interviews and her narration. Their contribution was invaluable, but it's understandable why the Coppolas want to keep this discussion within their own family. And while the Harvey Keitel footage sounds truly fascinating from Hickenlooper's description of it, it's quite clear that the Coppolas have no interest in making that public. Francis recast Keitel precisely because that footage was not the movie he wanted to make - it's one thing to put some deleted scenes on a disc. It's another idea altogether to show an alternative cut of various scenes with a different lead actor and a totally different tone to the movie - particularly when Coppola made it clear that he was dissatisfied with that setup.

 

One other thing - Hickenlooper says in his comments that he is concerned that the HD remastering might have been done from a magnetic 1 inch tape master from 1991. The Lionsgate website makes clear that they remastered Hearts of Darkness from "the original film elements".
 

This is looking like a really nice release, and a great way to kick off the holiday season.

 

[Edwin-S]

 

What Hickenlooper and Bahr brought to the piece was the ability to edit this material into coherent form and pair it with new interviews and her narration. Their contribution was invaluable, but it's understandable why the Coppolas want to keep this discussion within their own family.

 

Since it is a documentary, this makes it sound like they were the actual writers/directors, since they shaped and managed the form and content of the film. Coppola comes out sounding like she was essentially the cameraperson/interviewer for the film; although, that is probably too simple a view. Either way, I don't see why they couldn't have invited Hickenlooper and Bahr to do a commentary. I don't know about Bahr, but Hickenlooper sounded like he would have had some interesting insights. It just sounds like a lot of ego on the part of the Coppolas.

 

Edit: I should have added that this does look like it is shaping up to be a sweet set. I just wish they would swap boxart on the two sets. The artwork from the two disc set would make the three disc set just about perfect, assuming that they don't screw-up the transfer.

 

[Kevin EK]

Edwin, I have a good feeling about the transfer - particularly knowing that they've been showing attention in a lot of good areas. (ie using the 2.35:1 ratio, and going back to the original film elements for Hearts of Darkness.

 

Fax Bahr is included in the production notes with a comment or two, mentioning that they had no trouble getting the actors to agree to do interviews on this project. You're correct that the Coppolas had and have a lot invested in this film. From their point of view, it was their footage, their tapes and her journals. I'm curious about Hickenlooper's insights as well, although his comments on the other blog give a pretty good indication of his thoughts about the project. It's important to know that Hickenlooper and Bahr, and, more crucially, Zaloom and Mayfield were huge fans of Apocalypse Now. It was Zaloom and Mayfield's youth and enthusiasm that made Coppola willing to allow the project.
 

I would love to see Hickenlooper at least interviewed. If not on the disc, then perhaps at one website or another. He and the others on this project are the only ones outside of the Coppolas to have seen all of Eleanor's footage and heard all of the tapes. As I said, that 3 1/2 hour version of Hearts of Darkness sounds very interesting...

 

[oscar_merkx]

Hi all

 

I am really curious about the following :

 

I bought the Director's Cut DVD of THX 1138 recently and watched the hour long documentary about how American Zoetrope started with George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola during the time that The Rain People wrapped up production.

 

I found the documentary fascinating simply because Coppola was given money so that George Lucas could film THX 1138 as a feature film because the original student film THX 1138 4EB was so influential.

 

The end result was that while editing THX 1138, the movie was taken way from George Lucas by Warner Bros simply because they did not know how to market the movie upon release and died a sudden dead.

 

Ofcourse, we all know that GL was supposed to direct AN as part of the original 7 film deal that Coppola struck with WB yet AZ floundered because of the disaster THX.

 

Yet almost a year later, FFC was working on the Godfather movie where Robert Duvall played such a pivotal role in that picture as Tom Hagen.

 

My question really is how did FFC & Co managed to turn such a dire situation into the success of the Godfather ?

 

Anyone ?

 

[Absolution]

Has anyone seen The Added Scenes and Expanded Themes of Apocalypse Now Redux. It appears to now be the only thing missing from both the 2 disc and 3 disc versions.
For those that don't know, it was included on a bonus disc only available from Circuit City I believe. It features the cast and crew discussing the new scenes added to Redux.
I personally have never seen it and was wondering if anyone here has and their thoughts on it.

 

[Kevin EK]

I had never heard of that Circuit City bonus disc before, but it makes sense.

 

We went over the materials that sound like they have not been included here, including the BTS piece on Youth Without Youth from the HOD DVD, and some odds and ends from the Complete Dossier.

 

But that bonus disc sounds like something I haven't seen...

 

[Pete York]

 

Originally Posted by Absolution

Has anyone seen The Added Scenes and Expanded Themes of Apocalypse Now Redux. It appears to now be the only thing missing from both the 2 disc and 3 disc versions.
For those that don't know, it was included on a bonus disc only available from Circuit City I believe. It features the cast and crew discussing the new scenes added to Redux.
I personally have never seen it and was wondering if anyone here has and their thoughts on it.

It's a decent little primer on the Redux footage. It's about 8 minutes long, mostly of Coppola giving his interpretation of the added stuff. According to him, those scenes explore the greater theme of the film ("anti-lie, anti-hypocrisy") in ways the theatrical cut didn't (through humor and sensuality). Fishburne, Clement, Forrest and Storaro are also in it.

 

[Absolution]

Originally Posted by Kevin EK

We went over the materials that sound like they have not been included here, including the BTS piece on Youth Without Youth from the HOD DVD, and some odds and ends from the Complete Dossier.

The BTS on Youth Without Youth (Coda I think) is understandable as it has nothing to do with this film. I can understanding stuff like the FAQ as it talks about the '5 hour cut' which is talking about in the editing documentary and the commentary and the change from the OAR (now redundant).

I'm hoping some of the easter eggs like the letters and stuff will appear in the booklet.

 

It may only be 8 minutes long but it's sounds like something that should be on there. I can see it left off the DVD for space reason but here it seems like an odd omission.

 

[oscar_merkx]

Enjoy the interview

 

Part 1 http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/apocalypse/interview01.html

 

Part 2 http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/apocalypse/interview02.html

 

[Jim_E]

Interesting that the colour timing is so different. It seems like they're saying that the 2001 colours weren't faithful to the original dye-transfer prints and that Storaro had altered them at that time, along with mandating his 2:1 ratio for home video. I might be reading too much between the lines, but it seems like they're finding a diplomatic way of saying Coppola is going back to the original as he prefers that look and ignoring much of what Storaro had changed for the Redux cut.

 

I've personally never seen Apocalypse theatrically in any version, so it'll need someone more familiar with the film to say whether these colours really are more accurate to a quality 1979 print.

 

[Kevin EK]

I'll need to see the Blu-ray on my own set to understand what has really happened here.

 

The screencaps indeed suggest that the color timing has been significantly changed - brightened and warmed. But these are just screencaps, and we'll need to actually see the real thing to know for sure.

 

I recall Storaro's comments when Redux came out in theatres and on DVD - he was very pleased with the look, and particularly with the color timing. That color timing was his intended look for the film, along with the 2:1 framing. If the color timing has in fact been changed this drastically, we could be looking at a completely different version of the film.

 

There's one other troubling part of the interview. The guys seem to be saying that the original version of Apocalypse Now is just a shorter version of the Redux version. That's not completely correct - there are differences in the other scenes as well. And it would be disturbing if the original version on the Blu were just to be an extraction of the Redux cut, without the longer sections of the surfboard theft, the French Plantation, etc. This is part of the reason why I kept my copy of the pre-Dossier DVD of the original version (this was the DVD with the Kurtz Compound destruction footage). But I'll keep my eyes and ears open, and I'll wait to see what is actually on the Blu-ray.

 

Unless I'm mistaken, the next project they're alluding to releasing is The Conversation, which should also be a nice piece of work on Blu.

 

[cafink]

 

Originally Posted by Kevin EK

There's one other troubling part of the interview. The guys seem to be saying that the original version of Apocalypse Now is just a shorter version of the Redux version. That's not completely correct - there are differences in the other scenes as well. And it would be disturbing if the original version on the Blu were just to be an extraction of the Redux cut, without the longer sections of the surfboard theft, the French Plantation, etc. This is part of the reason why I kept my copy of the pre-Dossier DVD of the original version (this was the DVD with the Kurtz Compound destruction footage). But I'll keep my eyes and ears open, and I'll wait to see what is actually on the Blu-ray.

 

The interviewee explicitly acknowledges that, on top of the additional footage, "there's a slight difference in edit." So I presume they are aware of the other changes and have accounted for them.
 

But why, then, did you keep the original DVD in favor of the branched "Complete Dossier" release? Are you saying that the "original theatrical version" on the "Dossier" DVD was not actually the original theatrical version, but was just a truncated version of Redux? If that is, in fact, the case, then I'm not so confident that the Blu-ray will have the actual, original version. Here's hoping...

 

[WillG]

 

I recall Storaro's comments when Redux came out in theatres and on DVD - he was very pleased with the look, and particularly with the color timing. That color timing was his intended look for the film, along with the 2:1 framing

 

But then again, even though Storaro is the DP, how can you take his word on color timing when he also has insisted on cropping the film on home video for all these years, a decision which around here is pretty much unanamously viewed as wrong?