Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse – Collector’s Edition (UK Import) (4K UHD Review)
Director
Eleanor Coppola, Fax Bahr & George HickenlooperRelease Date(s)
1991 (July 28, 2025)Studio(s)
Zaloom Mayfield Productions/Zoetrope Studios (StudioCanal)- Film/Program Grade: A
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: A
Review
[Editor’s Note: This is a UK import 4K release. The UHD disc is compatible with players worldwide, but the Blu-ray Discs are limited to REGION B.]
In March of 1976, after years of development and many months of pre-production, director Francis Ford Coppola pulled his kids out of school and flew with his family to Manila in the Philippines to begin principle photography on his next picture for United Artists, Apocalypse Now. Knowing that his wife Eleanor was herself an accomplished filmmaker, Francis purchased a 16mm camera and tasked her with shooting a documentary on the making of the film. But as it turned out, that task was anything but straightforward.
Filming on Apocalypse Now was supposed to run for five months, but stretched to well over a year, concluding in May of 1977 with a total of two hundred and thirty-eight production days. Seemingly every one of them was difficult, as Coppola was essentially shooting a film he didn’t know how to make, with an incomplete screenplay and an ending he didn’t have. He was doing so entirely on location in a foreign country, amid budget overruns that forced him to mortgage his own house and winery to guarantee the film’s completion. And obstacles appeared at every turn, including star Martin Sheen suffering a near-fatal heart attack, Marlon Brando proving a challenge to work with, a typhoon that destroyed sets and equipment, and the whims of Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos, who lent Coppola the military helicopters needed to shoot several scenes, but only on the condition that they could be recalled at any moment to fight local insurgents.
Gamely continuing her own work amid the turmoil, Eleanor Coppola captured all of it on film. The resulting eighty-plus hours of footage is a remarkably raw, candid, and unvarnished look at the making of one of the most important Hollywood films of the late 20th century, and perhaps the best work of Francis Ford Coppola’s long career. Again and again, Francis bears his soul to her camera or tape recorder, absolutely convinced that he’s making the worst film ever. The entire process was so stressful that it wasn’t until 1990 that Eleanor revisited her footage, essentially turning it over to a pair of younger filmmakers Fax Bahr (later a co-creator of MADtv) and George Hickenlooper (Art, Acting, and the Suicide Chair: Dennis Hopper), who proceeded to shoot new interviews with virtually all of the participants involved, and ultimately to assemble the final documentary, Hearts of Darkness, which debuted at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival.
Interestingly, Fax Bahr was at the time working for an EPK company called Zaloom Mayfield Productions. The owner of the company, George Zaloom, had read Eleanor Coppola’s book Notes on the Making of Apocalypse Now (1979) in which she describes shooting documentary footage on the set. But neither Zaloom nor Bahr could find evidence that such a documentary had ever actually been completed. So they contacted American Zoetrope and pitched the idea of completing it using Eleanor’s footage, and interweaving (at Francis’ suggestion) the original Orson Welles radio play of Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella Heart of Darkness, on which Apocalypse Now itself was loosely based. Both Francis and Eleanor were happy to be hands off during this process, and to allow Bahr, Hickenlooper, and Zaloom to do their work, though Eleanor did return to narrate the film. The result, of course, is one of the greatest and most acclaimed documentaries on the making of a film ever produced.
Most of Hearts of Darkness was shot on 16mm film (specifically Eastman 100T 7247) by Eleanor Coppola using an Aaton camera with spherical lenses. A variety of archival sources were also employed to complete the film, including new interviews shot on 16mm, footage from Apocalypse Now itself, and other material. For its release on Ultra HD, all of the original documentary footage was scanned in 4K. Footage from Apocalypse Now was replaced with the same shots from the film’s 2019 4K remaster (reviewed here on The Bits). And other material was upgraded to the best available source. The result was graded for high dynamic range (compatible with both Dolby Vision and HDR10). It’s been encoded for release on a 100GB for maximum video data rates (which average between 70-80 Mbps). The result is pretty terrific. The 16mm source naturally means that photochemical grain is medium to strong throughout, but overall image detail is greatly improved over previous Blu-ray and DVD presentations, and the color and contrast are much enhanced as well. This certainly isn’t a reference quality image, but it’s not meant to be. This is, however, by far the best that Hearts of Darkness has ever looked, which makes it an even more engrossing experience than it was before.
The film’s English soundtrack is included in newly-remastered 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio format, as well as the original LPCM mono. The surround mix is subtle, but it draws you into the imagery and the story being told. The soundstage is medium wide up front, with the surrounds used almost exclusively for atmospheric immersion. Dialogue is clear and clean at all times. German LPCM mono is also included, along with optional subtitles in English SDH and German.
StudioCanal’s Collector’s Edition is a three disc set that includes the film in 4K on UHD and also remastered 1080p HD on Blu-ray. The 4K disc is all region, but the Blu-ray is Region B only. Both discs include the following special features:
- Audio Commentary by Eleanor & Francis Coppola
- The Making of Hearts of Darkness (2025) (HD – 37:34)
- Eleanor Coppola: Art Is All Around Us (2006) (HD – 23:23)
You also get a Blu-ray bonus disc of additional special features (also Region B only) that adds the following:
- Eleanor Coppola Short Films
- Peeling a Potato Is a Work of Art (1976) (HD – :32)
- Victorian House (1976) (HD – 3:05)
- Joyce Goldstein (1976) (HD – 1:03)
- Refrigerator (1976) (HD – :32)
- Eleanor Coppola Documentaries
- Coda: Eleanor Coppola Introduction (HD – 1:44)
- Coda: Thirty Years Later (2007) (HD – 62:59)
- Making of Marie Antoinette (2007) (Upsampled SD – 25:59)
- FCC Directs The Rainmaker (2007) (Upsampled SD – 27:07)
- On the Set of CQ (2002) (Upsampled SD – 10:01)
- Making of The Virgin Suicides (1998) (Upsampled SD – 30:37)
- A Visit to China’s Mao Country (1996) (Upsampled SD – 36:29)
- Circle of Memory (Upsampled SD – 7:47)
- Trailers
- Apocalypse Now Theatrical Trailer (1979) (HD – 3:56)
- Hearts of Darkness Restoration Trailer (2025) (HD – 1:02)
The Making of Hearts of Darkness is a terrific new piece produced for this release, which features interviews with Roman Coppola, Sofia Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola, and Fax Bahr (who tells terrific stories about interviewing Martin Sheen and attempting to get Brando and Harvey Keitel to do interviews as well). Of course, Art Is All Around Us has been released before, and the commentary on Hearts of Darkness with Eleanor and Francis is excellent and a deeply personal listening experience.
The bonus Blu-ray is essentially a complete archive of Eleanor Coppola’s documentary filmmaking work. And it makes for a truly lovely companion to Hearts of Darkness disc. Most of the documentaries were done on behalf of the other filmmakers in her family, but not all of them. And the short films are charming indeed. Note that Eleanor also directed a pair of dramatic films—Paris Can Wait (2016) and Love Is Love Is Love (2020)—which are not included here.
You also get a 64-page booklet with new essays about the film (unfortunately, I don’t have the actual book in hand to give you a list of the authors) and technical credits, a pair of posters featuring the original artwork and new art by Akiko Stehrenberger, as well as an additional booklet that reprints Eleanor Coppola’s Notes on the Making of Apocalypse Now. Here’s what the package looks like…
Hearts of Darkness is currently available in 4K from StudioCanal in the UK in the 3-disc Collector’s Edition reviewed above, and also as a single disc 4K release that includes the film disc only. We’ve learned that Lionsgate will be releasing the film on 4K Ultra HD here in the States later this year or early in 2026. Whichever version you purchase, the documentary is a marvel and StudioCanal has done a beautiful job of remastering it in 4K, as well as preserving Eleanor’s filmmaking legacy. Highly recommended, especially for fans of Apocalypse Now.
- Bill Hunt
(You can follow Bill on social media on Twitter, BlueSky, and Facebook, and also here on Patreon)