Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse in November! (1 Viewer)

[Ed Moroughan]

Hey, some details and art at DVDActive:

http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releas...-darkness.html

It says "Full Screen" on the spine...any ideas on whether that's right or not? I've never seen the film.

 

[Mark Edward Heuck]

The movie was projected at 1.85 in theatres - but from what I recall, the interview segments were at a full Academy aperture with movie excerpts at approx. 1.90, like all previous Storaro-approved letterboxed presentations. When projected, the compositions were just fine, no head cropping or anything, which leads me to think Hickenlooper had theatrical exhibition in mind.
Paramount released this on tape and laserdisc full frame with the letterboxed clips. I suspect they will do the same for DVD, though really, it would make more sense to just crop the dead space out of the interview segments and present everything 16x9, since the letterboxed clips will look really puny windowboxed on a HD monitor within a 1.33 frame.

 

[Jon Martin]

I saw the film theatrically, actually after it had aired on cable (it got such acclaim it got a theatrical release), and it was shown I believe 1.85, but the sides of the frame were all black, so the actual image was only 1.33. The clips were letterboxed in that 1.33 frame. And this was in a major, commercial, multiplex theatre, and not some poorly managed arthouse.

I remember thinking it was one of the worst theatrical presentations I had seen. I had already seen it on cable and thought that I would have been better off just watching it again on TV.

 

[JonZ]

Finally!!!

 

[joshEH]

Sweetness! And I'll second the laserdisc love...but that new commentary's gonna be worth the purchase price all by itself. Too bad this wasn't included in the Complete Dossier edition, but now I'll have both on my DVD shelf.

 

[Jon Martin]

The director George Hickenlooper is over on Hollywood Elsewhere posting this morning that he only heard about the DVD last night from the internet. He wasn't even asked to do a commentary. Criterion wanted to do it, but FFC would never sign off on it. And, he says that 1.33 is the correct ratio.

You can read his comments here (he is Hickenlooper)

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/archi...s_of_darkn.php

 

[oscar_merkx]

now that's what I call a fascinating post from Hickenlooper.

Especially the Criterion dvd part or how BTTF II played a part as well. lol

What's Picture This like ?

 

[Philo MacDuff]

It's pretty shameful of Paramount to exclude the director of this documentary, Mr. Hickenlooper. To find out about this release from a website after he campaigned for years to get it out on DVD is a major insult. And to not even be asked for input into his creation for this DVD speaks volumes about Paramount and the Coppolas.

 

[RickER]

Thanks for the link Jon. The thing best not be edited. It is a powerful doc. If FFC and his wife cut it down, i wont buy it.

 

[Lord Dalek]

Something tells me the fact that Hickenlooper and Bahr were not involved in this is going to delay the title.

 

[Jon Martin]

I doubt there is anything they can do. This is FFC after all. Most people (wrongly) consider it his film.

 

[Craig Beam]

Delayed? Nah. I'd be more concerned about the likelihood of the film being edited.

 

[Lord Dalek]

And thats another reason why they would sue.

 

[TravisR]

I'm certainly not a lawyer but what copyright would be breached by a company releasing a product that they own? Since he had no idea it was happening, it's obvious that Hickenlooper has no say in its release. Granted, it's America so he can sue for almost anything he wants but I'm sure Paramount's legal department are more than capable of handling a bogus lawsuit.

 

[JulianK]

Great news that the documentary is coming out, but it's scandalous that its director hasn't been invited to contribute to the disc.

 

[MarcoBiscotti]

Actually if they play down the credits as he claims in his posts on the other forum and market it in such a way, than I would say that he'd have a very legitimate lawsuit. But I see no such discussion anyway...

 

[GuruAskew]

I agree, I don't see his status as director giving him any sort of claim over the DVD release.

By all accounts this movie has been controlled by American Zoetrope and Paramount from the beginning. I don't think its omission on "The Complete Dossier" was ever a legal issue. I think there were many factors (like how Coppola will address the comments he regrets, its viability as its own entity as opposed to an extra, the question of how much demand for it exists, the impact of including in the Dossier which would undoubtedly would have added a disc and probably raised the price, etc.) that have prevented its release before now but that doesn't necessarily mean that there was ever a time when Zoetrope and Paramount weren't in a legal position to release it in any way they deemed fit.

I personally think it's unfortunate that Hickenlooper and Bahr weren't involved but that's hardly a deal-breaker. I'm sure everyone here has several titles in their collection that have no input from the director, whether that's the result of a similar situation where they simply weren't asked to the more-common bare-bones release to the releases where the director has died years before DVD participation was even possible.

Also, some might take objection to this but the truth of the matter here is that Hickenlooper was very much a "director-for-hire" on this film, and I certainly think he did a wonderful job and I think "Hearts of Darkness" is the definitive document of a film production (and it's unfortunate that it's taken so long to appear on DVD since it's kinda the "Big Daddy" when it comes to the great DVD documentaries) and he certainly deserves credit for that but this isn't the case of a film that was the director's labor of love from day one. I don't know how hold Fax Bahr is but George Hickenlooper was a teenager during the troubled production of "Apocalypse Now" and wasn't involved in any way, shape or form until about 10 years after the film's release.

On the other hand, the foundation upon which this film is based goes back to the mid 70's and Francis Ford Coppola and Eleanor Coppola were involved from the very beginning. They obviously didn't work on it day-to-day for over a decade but their obvious involvement spans the entire life of the film and as such I feel that they're every bit as deserving as Hickenlooper and Bahr when it comes to participation on the DVD. Ideally all 4 would be involved, and an additional Hickenlooper/Bahr commentary would certainly make the DVD release that much better, but I have to confess that if I had to choose which two of the four were involved I'd go for the Coppolas.

But yeah, my point is that I don't think there's really any precedent for a director having any real legal say over the release of a film that's made for a studio. Even the big names like Spielberg get approval on their releases due to the studios not wanting to upset them, but I don't think Paramount is really all that concerned with upsetting George Hickenlooper, whereas Coppola's involvement in future films and video releases of his past movies like "The Godfather" trilogy and "Apocalypse Now" are valuable to them. There are also obvious cases of directors getting final cut and final approval over matters such as home video releases but it goes without saying that Hickenlooper and Bahr simply don't have the status to have that amount of control over this film, especially with FFC calling the shots.

As for the censorship, I'm gonna try to stay optimistic here. The good news is that Coppola has been asked about the quote in question and he'll talk about it. If Coppola was at a Q&A or an interview and bringing it up caused him to completely shut down and the best you could get out of him was a "no comment" I'd be worried but by all accounts he'll acknowledge it and subsequently address it. This gives me hope that the film itself will be unaltered and the commentary (which is a confirmed extra) will be his opportunity to explain the comments.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

It's been a long, long time since I've seen this... what was the comment in the film that FFC has an issue with?

 

[GuruAskew]

I think it's when they talk about Martin Sheen's heart attack and he says something like "he dies when I say he can die".

I don't know the exact quote. It's been nearly 10 years since I've seen the movie due to its unavailability on DVD.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

I am a lawyer, and the only rights that could potentially be breached by Paramount/AZ releasing this without the artist's consent are what are called moral rights. These are the rights of the creator of the copyrighted material to have final say over any alterations to his work. This arguably includes alterations for the purpose of release on home entertainment formats. There is an abundance of caselaw regarding what a creator has say over with respect to moral rights, but moral rights protection is not as strong in North America as it is in Europe. That being said, most studios will tend to defer to directors and DPs when it comes to transfer, when to release and on what format (witness the announcement and subsequent delay of Jaws on HD DVD by Universal, while Sony has had no problems with getting CE3K out on BD, both films owned outright by their respective studios, but seeming to require the rubber stamp of Steven Spielberg).

With respect to Hearts of Darkness, I would suggest that the only way Paramount/AZ would run into problems is if they decide to edit it. At that point, Hickenlooper et al could file suit and claim their moral rights have been infringed and apply for, and quite likely get, an injunction barring the sale of the DVD release. Based on that, I suspect that we will get an unedited version of HoD, since neither Paramount nor FFC would want to get into a protracted court battle @ this point.