Product Description

An encyclopaedic guide to all aspects of the Coppola film. Contains over two hundred entries on all aspects, including background details, gossip and mythology behind the dramatic making of the film.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #436405 in Books
• Published on: 1998-09-24
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Karl French describes Francis Ford Coppola's seminal Vietnam movie as "one of a handful of works of art as famous for the process of its creation as for its finished form". It is a film which achieved notoriety even before release, coming under intense press speculation following Coppola's success with The Godfather and its sequel. The production lurched from mishap to mishap in the Philippines for eight months, fuelled by drugs and vastly exceeding its budget; Coppola contributed to the legend, screening his work-in-progress at the Cannes Film Festival and telling the audience "it was crazy...we were in the jungle, we had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane".

This A--Z guide is an attempt to dissect the madness of Apocalypse Now by breaking it down into snippets of information, the author describing his book as "a product of, and investigation into, the film's enduring fascination". French finds room to discuss parallels with myths and works of literature, aspects of the writing and production of the film, and its enduring legacy in popular culture. Sections on Joseph Conrad and T S Eliot appear alongside lyrics by punk band the Clash, transcripts of oft-quoted dialogue, details of longer cuts available as bootlegs, and biographies of stars who did not quite make it into the film. The result is a wealth of information which will enhance a viewer's appreciation and enjoyment of the film, and a volume which achieves a rare balance between trivia and critical insight. --John Oates

Customer Reviews

A modern film classic in perfect, bite-size form
There are few films more apt for an A-Z guide than this Francis Ford Coppola classic. It boasts references to literary classics like Conrad, Eliot and The Odyssey as well as seemingly almost every other Vietnam film ever made. Pretentious? Well, perhaps, but no fan of Coppola or the film should fail to be impressed by author Karl French's detail and brief vignettes that describe and explain the script, the characters, the actors, the locations, the real history, the Heart Of Darkness book by Joseph Conrad on which the main characters were based and, most deliciously, the rumours. Want to know about the five-hour version of the film? Who were those bunny girl dancers in the Playboy scene? Did Martin Sheen really have a heart attack in the middle of filming? Who was the original choice for Sheen's role as Captain Willard? How did the voiceover come to be such a central part of the movie's legend? And, of course, what was behind Coppola's decision to change the ending of the film? It's all in this book. And it's all in nice, bit-size pieces which means that as a bedside companion, it's unbeatable. Why not check out another fact about the film before falling asleep - why watch the film when you can use this book to help you dream about it!

Buy...with extreme prejudice
In a word I found this book awful, far too much author opinion & not enough fact. All the "information" here can be found in far more palatable & informative way in any of the other Apocalypse Now books. Its bite size chunks seem almost an insult to the reader & a movie of such scope. Ultimately dull, & very incomplete, opinions on Blade Runner, The Doors, & The Clash are either nonsensical or laughable. It's one hell of a cash in, glad my copy was second hand so as not to encourage them with sales.