Legacy of Megalopolis and Conclusion

Hello and welcome. I am Josh Whittdakomam. For today I amm the curator of a place of incredible artifacts and exhibitions, a place that stores the greatest thing on Earth. This is my archive of pop culture. Welcome back to the final part of the insane story of the Making of Apocalypse Now. Can Francis Ford Koppler pull victory from the jaws of defeat as the film spirals over budget and out of control? Or will he, like Kurtz himself, end up destroyed by his mad journey to make the film We're here for the last somehow redemptive episode of Apocalypse now. It needs a bit of redemption, I think, doesn't it so f? Yeah. It needs a drop of redemption considering the amount of drugs and lost film. Does this make you think that it was worth it? Well, general, let's save that for the end of the episode Was it worth it, okay? Yeah But until then, let's just say that one morning Martin Sheheen is found crawling along the road outside the jungle by a bus driver. Okay The bus driver carries him onto the bus, drives for help, the nearest hospital four hours away. Oh, so he's in a state of real health then. Yeah. This isn't just a drug super. No. Yeah. so from the bus, he's basically handed over to a costumer, someone from the costume, Dennis Phil, who places him pile of shoes in the costume truck and drives him to the production office. Yeah, as you say that's there was it the wife of the president? We did say she had a lot of sh. ye ye yeah exally. Yeah. Emelia Maros where name was. Meldam Markos. Melldam Maros. yeah. J shoes everywhere. A country full of shoes.. So the production manager immediately hauls Kopola's helicopter and tells him that Sheen needs to be choppered out to the medical center. He's had a heart attack as well as a nervous breakdown. Wow. A classic double. Yeah. It's the Feup and league title, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. I can see where that's come from as well, to be honest. Yeah Both make sense. Yeah, yeah. In the context, it feels like it's quite a stressful job. Yeah. So he makes it to the hospital. He asks for a priest along the way, presumably to deliver the last rites. Yeah. H translator manages to find a priest to stand at his bedside as his wife, Janet, sleeps on the floor beside his bed Oh it's heartbreaking. This is Mart andhine. I completely fell apart. My spirit was exposed. I cried and cried. I turned gay, my eyes, my beard all greay I was in intensive care. Wow. It's not ideal, is it? No. well, if you're the lead in a film. It's not, but it does feel like all roads were pointing to this sort of point. It does, doesn't it? Yeahah? Look at the drug use, lookook at the stress he's under. The fact that his family are there. Yeah and having to witness all this stuff, it feels like the perfect storm. If anyone's going have a heart attack, it's probably him. Yeah. pooor guy, that must be horrific. That also must be just so awful of the family and everyone, you know who's there with I mean just horrendous. So Alan Kopola says last night Franc is called for Manila He said that Marty had had a heart attack He was alive but in a critical condition He, as in Frances wanted to keep working unless heard otherwise because the company was in a state of shock and needed to focus on the day's shooting to keep up morale and not fall into chaos. Okay. He said the production manager had started drinking and wanted to close down the production How are you feeling if mid afternoon that last leg you have a heart attack And the other two are like, I think it's important we just keep working Let's just focus on tonight's show. Yeah, come on, guys. I know he's in hospital. I know he's had a heart attack, but let's just keep pushing on. okay, we' got a show to see. Ex. I think part of me would be like, come on guys. comeome on. Maybe twenty twenty four hour breather to see if I can gonna make it Yeah before yeah. Yeah Picking up other seats. Unbelieful. Yeah. Do you think he's done the right thing there? I think in a way, you have to continue. Well, to some extent, probably has doesnn't he? absolutely. And with hope that the guy's going to be okay. Yeah. I mean, with a less cynical eye, you can see that it's, you know, Also there's hundreds of people there just stopped and they want to get back to their families and the more you can do now means the less there is to do when Seen is back. Yeah. So I suppose for the good of the crew and also I suppose as you say, like it takes your mind off the horror of the fact that someone you care about is very ill. So with a lessitical eye than he probably has. Yeah. It doesn't help that Franis Volkopa deeply identifies with the character of Willard. So Eleanor writes Francis has said that he is the Willard character. And when Marty was close to death, Francis collapsed too. It's not all about you, Francis. He said he was as near death as he's ever experienced. He said he could see reality receding down a dark tunnel, and he was totally scared couldn't get back. This feels like whenever I'm ill, my seven year old says he's going down with exactly the same thing at that point. Yeah. It's like your mom. ye You can't steal it. You can't steal this Exactly. This is my man flu. Someone's had a heart attack. Yeah. You've got to let them have that. You can't then go, well, I do identify with the character, so I think I'm dying as well. Exactly. So we're both going through this together. Yeah. If anything, me mores be h on it Yeah, yeah yeah Okay, that's remarkable. Yeah. so Coppola is told by his insurers to keep shooting, otherwise their cover would be invalidated. So that's, you know understandable. We didn't know if he was going to make it The shooting was three quarters done It was all him what was left. So the only scenes that are left are Martin Sheens scenes. Incredible. Enter Joe Esteves, the brother of Martin Sheheen, who looks incredibly like Martin Sheheen. All right. Would you like that if your brother had a heart attack and they said, could you just replace him at work for a bit So they're not actually filming scenes with him, are they? Wellow, They've got identical physical builds. so they dress him in the same uniform and they filming from behind in low lighting or out of focus for the wide shots and the boat scenes while he's recovering in hospital. So they try and pick up. You know that really stressful job that's just given your brother a heart attack? Do you want to do it now? Yeah. dressed as him. Dressed as him. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So they're filming him from behind slightly misty shots. Yeah, tryrying to pick up what they can Yeah with a man who looks a bit like Martin She. Okay Brilliant. Yeah, exactly. yeah Years later, during post production Popola realizes they need the narrative voice. and martin sheine is unavailable. So Joe does the voiceover as well. Oh really? Because he's got the same voice as well. That's incredible. Yeah. so he records the Captain Willard narration track. and to maintain the illusion The machine's doing the whole role Totally uncredited Joe Esteveves. Reill Yeah, both for physical acting and vocal work. I'm not happy about that. not? Just give some different you know with thanks too or something like that. Yeah. Credit them, but just don't write that name next to it. Gotta do something in the credit, surely. If you've stepped in and saved the day, I also don't think it's a problem to let people know that that's happened. If anything, I'd say, I suppose it's quite distracting. What at the end, if you see it in the credits. If it's public knowledge that the brothers replaced him for certain things. Yeah, it's quite a distracting way to watch it because you're always thinking, Ohh, is that one of the shots with the brother? Okay, yeah, yeah yeah I don't know how much that's troubling you though, during apocalypse now whether it's really ripping you out of the reality of I think if you go to the cinema, there' think will be a lot of muttering saying which of theachines is that. I think it's just Youd just enjoy the film, wouldn't you? It's not so much Yeah. I suppose so yet. Well other brothers could do that by the way I suppose the Chuckle Bothers, you could swap those around a bit. The Chuckle Brothers could do it, yeah. I don't think Phil Neville could play Gary Neville. No, that's right, couldn't do that. Even in the M United shirts, filmed from the other side of the pitch, you can still tell which it is. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Phil never had his pace for a start did he Exactly couplepla says When he re watchatches apocalypse now, he can no longer distinguish which were Martin and which were Joe scenes because they were so similar. Okay The thought that after all of this He rewatches it still is mind blowing. I wouldn't ever rewatch anything I did, let alone something this Catastrophically awful to go through But then this is further on in his life than you are now. So maybe with a long gap of time. when you're in your retirement village, you might go Just watch Apocalypse now you might be re you never know. I could see you a ninety re watchatching moop the week just to see What it was like back then. Just to tell how the glory is. Yeah, exactly So the strain of making apocalypse now has taken a huge toll on couopplers' marriage as well Which won't surprise you. No, no, I can see how that could be tested. They have a huge argument which ends with him saying he wants to divorce Eleanor has become aware of several reported affairs he's had. During filming. I don't know. Everything comes to a head when they're working their way around Martin Sine's heart attack. Just as the heart attack things being dealt with, the affairs. A divorce j into the mix. The divorce and the affairs comes into the mix. He is, let's be very clear about this, a shager And if anything's gonna to make you horny It ye. experperience like filming apocalypse now Yeah really For me, that's the sort of situation to we get someone going, isn't it really? Exactly. Lads of drugs, everything going wrong in the jungle. Yeah. That's only going one way Exactly, exactly. So Martin Sheheen returns to work, they manage to pick up the reverse shots they need for the scenes and they carry on with the remaining Willard scenes. And after initially blaming Franis for Coppola, which I'd say would be fair, Martin Sheen himself takes responsibility for the nervous breakdown of the heart attack and admits that he hadn't confronted and dealt with his alcoholism. Okay, so that's another person that finds sobriety. He's thirty six when he has his heart attack. Is he really? Yeah. Wow. He's living a hard life in that case, isn't he? Yeah. That is wild, isn't it Yeah. It's interesting how many people are going through this process and coming out the other side with a sort of renewed view on how they should live their life. It's like the priory isn't it, basically they working on apocalypse now You're saying that actually it's the best way to sober A apocalypse now There's a scene that Fred Fororerest, the act who plays chehef in Apocalypse now talks about where he and Martin Sheheen confront a tiger in the jungle. And there's the trainer who's called Marty Cox, and on the day of shooting, he brings the tiger onto set along with a live pig that they're can use to tempt the tiger into leaping towards the actors. Right. There's just no way I'd do that. No, of course not. Yeah ye. There's just absolutely no way. Does it work? The trainer assures the actors and Coppola that the tiger hasn't been fed for a week and so should respond to the temptation of the pig by doing exactly what Coppola wants. That's the last thing I want to hear. My main concern there is that the tiger might be more keen on humans. Yeah at that point. a pig's not enough Yeah, exactly. yeah. If you't. The thing I want to hear is the tiger hasn't been fed for a week. The tiger is looking at that scene and it's seeing the pig essentially as a starter. That's what we're looking at there. Yeah, yeah yeah and a pair of teeth Yeah the frrespl Yeah. And then you're the main courseuse. That's my main concern there. Absolutely awful. Can you imagine? Don't worry, there's a pig there. Apparently during the filming, Fran V Kobler is shouting at them getet closer to the tiger on the set and they're yelling back at him, you get closer Amazing It's so mad, isn't it? And What happened to the pig? I want to know what happened to the pig? I think the pig's definitely not still with us one way or the other. Okay yeah. Yeahah. It's not the one from Bay Pig in the city. No, no, no, no. D didn't onto have a really healthy life in the movie. No, You saw this a turning point. Yeah. That wass his moment when he decided to get out of the industry, was it? Yeah, exactly, yeah Yeah, it's like the way I'm being treated here is not acceptable. Yeah. abbsolutely. takeake me back to my sty. I'm off. So we get to the bit with Kurtz's compound where he's basically Copola doesn't want to dress Filipino extras every day. So he hires a local tribe the Ifeo Indians to play Kurch's army There's a rumour that the tribe is still practicing head hunting until quite recently. Okay Head hunting is hunting humans and taking the skull as a trophy. Yeah. So it's good to get them involved. And I think often shrinking it down as well. as a final little thing, I think there's often sort some kind of shrinkage as well that they can just displayed, isn't there? Yeahah. Yeah. It's all very pleasant. Yeah. It's all very pleasant By head hunting just to be clear, notot like findinding good executives for you. Yeah, yeah. They don't work in recruitment. They don't work in recruitment no. A key part of the horror of the compound when Willard arrives is that there's severed heads decorating the stairs to the temple How do you think they achieve this look? I'm hoping It's the art department. Yeah. That's what you'd hope, isn't it? I'm hoping when you tap the head, you realise it's Polla's dyare But I have an awful fear that we're now dealing with actual skulls The only reason I say that is because of everything you've told me so far up u toil this point suggests it might be actual skulls. They're not skulls, they're flesh heads, but rather new special effects He hires actors to be buried up to their necks to play the heads. Wow in the baking heat as well. Well, yes. Oh, that's horrendous. So this is a description of it. thirirty eight takes and Francis said it was never the way he wanted it. Imagine how angry you'd be as you're buried. And you're having to sit there playing dead as well. The people who were playing the Svered headad sat in their boxes buried in the ground from eight in the morning until six at night. No. That's the worst acting job in the history of mankind. That is horrendous. Yes. All day they were in the hot sun with smoke blowing on them een takes they were covered with umbrellas. They got out for lunch but the rest of time they were in place. Gom. I'd rather be the pig. Oh During one take, Dennis Hopper backed up and stepped right on a girl's cheek and collapsed part of the container she was in nearly stepping on her face. Wow, rememarkable. Oh my god, It was one of those days where the dry ice mist or the orange smoke or the performance or the light or something just never came together for the take that Frances was satisfied with It must be that Francis by this point is completely set on just making the film exactly to how he wants it to be and ye that he's become. I don't think you need the words at this point. I think that's been clear from day one But I feel skid probably the environment and the context will make that even worse, that you become numb some of the concerns for other people, any empathy you might have had for the lot of extras and stuff like that probably has now gone out of the window. If you're twice over time and everyone's been having heart attacks and you themselellves are on drugs, you can see that If you're already like that, you then add to that the experience of by the end of it. you're basically part of those last few scenes. Yeah, you're going to have no chance of being respected whatsoever because you know, the madness has taken hold basically It's mad, isn't it? Yeah She writes, at one point, I was sitting there looking around The severed heads were drinking Cokes. Okay, How With a strawy wheel? Oh those hats with the two cs. That that what we're deing with, it? Ohr there's Coke pour it. It could be I under try work It could be a runner is going from person to person saying you some coke tipping something into your mouth. No, I think it's probably straw, isn't it? Okay, right. One girl had a wrapped skirt, bare brereast and pink plastic hair rollers in Yeah And there was a man with a bo constrictor giving it a drink of water Absolutely incredible. I've never thought about a snake drinking before. No, image isn't it? You don't really imagine that, do you? Is it lack with its tongue or what does it sort of sip Like we would from a cat. Yeah, I don't think it's house. I think it ros in its drink. Like a cat, I imagine Well it is basically a straw, isn't it anake? That's what basically what it is. Natures straw, isn't it? Exactly. it's ready made for drink. You just suck on its tail. Stick Stick his mouth in the can of Coke and suck on the other end. You get a rather snaky Coke. On the two hundred and thirty eighth day of shooting, the original one hundred and seventeen, Coppola walked into Doug Clayor in the Assistant director's office and said, let's pull the plug. Doug Let's call and pull the let' us pull the plug duck Yeah. So this is the twoune thirty eighth day and he says, I've just realized today you can't make a perfect movie. Let's rap doog, let's go home Had they got all the shots by that point? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. This' not really funny about himkay I've had enough now, you know This is a point. Yeah, yeah, that's fine. There must be enough stuff. You've gott to be able to coubble that together. J credits at the end of, be right So the film wraps prrincipal photography on may twenty first, nineteen seventy seven. Over twice as long as the shoot was originally scheduled for, at least fifteen million in debt to United artists with all the extra costs. The budget started at fourteen million do. byy the time they wrapped, they've spent twenty five million dollars Wow. Why am I imagining as well when they leave that theyve forgotten they left fifteen extras buried up to their necks in the mud? I've just got visions of the entire crew pulling out those guys still sat there. E me exes me Still there. opoll's flying home yet again. J just left alone in the jungle. So fourteen million dollars should have been? Yeah, it was twenty five million do. So on his return to the states, United arrtists ask Copar to undergo a medical, having heard rumours of his health on set. They immediately take out a life insurance policy on him of fifteen million dollars because that's what he owes them. Francis says he's worth more to them dead than alive because he owes them fourteen million dollars sorry. Was part of them concerned take his own life is that what' No I don'bt Okay, okay. I don't think that's covered in life insurance anyway. Okay right. So it's more that the impact of this might mean that he has a heart attack much like sheeen or whatever it hass to be. yeah, okay. Yeah, exactly. post production now, but at least they're in America for this. Okay, yeah. takes a huge amount of time, no shit. Copple are regularly showing different cuts and different endings to various people. At one point, one of the editors sees Frances flirt with his girlfriend at an event disappears with all the footage of the famous bridge sequence and sends a couple of packagage Burned ashes No saying that's real one. I have eleven more to go. Wow, Wow. They eventually sit down with the editor who says the reels are safe and he's willing to come back to work. He'd just done it to shake up Coppola and obtain working conditions he wanted. Yeah yeah. Also, I'm sure Copola is are al right with Re one because there's no way he's using the first takes. Yeah. I'm imagining Coppola' doing like fifty or sixty takes of anything. So it's basically real seven or eight is where you're getting towards the stuff the Copola is actually using Exactly. Yeah. You know when I was talking about how can he rewatch the film? Cffa? So Martin Sheen is brought back in to record his voiceover, yeah. the experience of seeing the film and going through multiple voiceover recording days. makes him relapse to alcohol so badly that he has to be bailed out of prison the next morning. Wow. That's incredible. So It's just too much. PTSD of it is enough that yeah, poor guy. And then the post production takes so long that the deer hunter opens in december nineteen seventy eight. it beats them to it with mostly glowing reviews And that the media call it apocalypse first, bit of fun, is right And then the release dates are pushed back And there's rumours that the film is unreleasable. Can you imagine after all that?. And then they had an LA preview screening just before the Cannes Film Festival that year. Four years, nearly thirty million dollars spent. I'm almost finishing this film at this point and it's still a work in progress. incredolutely wild. He asks for honest feedback. And the LA preview couldn't go better There's very few dissenters Rapptuous praise from the audience. Oh really. amazing. And then in nineteen seventy nine, May They take the work in progress to C where it's well received. it wins the palm door It's his second time winning the Palm door. so You know. He's done it. He's done it. Yeah. But not everyone's enthusiastic. The original writer, do you remember John Millius, your favorite, the writer The surfer guy? Yeah, when he sees the film, he allegedly puts his fist through a door. Okay. in anger at the film And actually the reviews are mixed of it initially. Roment Town, the write of Chinatown, describes it as apocalypse now and then. People love a pun on them. Yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah It's released in American Cinemaas august nineteen seventy nine. The final cost of the film by this point is around forty million dollars. Wow. And did you say the original was it fourteen million was basically the projected cost to begin with? Yeah, half of which Koppola has a personal liability for startarts slowly at the box office But it goes on to take eighty million dollars in its first run, thankfully. So Coplper is able to pay back what he owes cover the contractual obligations, the actors gets to keep his house And eventually you get some profits. sayine. He's made a bit of money. Ey your money, isn't it It is a real cinema film as well, I suppose, isn't it? Just the spectacle of it all. Yeah. So you can see how if it's getting good reviews, it would also have a real word of mouth quality from people who are going to see it because it is just perfectly suited to the huge screen Yeah the incredible sounds and that's kind of really where you want to be seeing these sort of films F more likeight more intimate Soxy sort of things. More good news, Tom. After years of affairs, he decides to work on his marriage with Eleanor. What a great guy. A It's a really happyending. Yeah, absolutely. So really apocalyse now is a love story if you think about it. Exactly, yeah, it's the perfect fairy tale. Yeah. He says if he left this family he'd likely leave the next one too, so apologizes for behaviour and decides to make things work. I don't think that's a lovely r. I'm not show how reassured I am as No, It's a partner at this point. Just saying I've realized that if I keep Keep doing this. I'm just keep doing this, I'm gonna stop Just because it's a vicious loop that I'm caughting I'm not really that into you, but I just haven't got the energy to go through this again. Yeah, exactly ye You know, better the devil, you know. D that. But then Eleanor's friends read her diary from Apocalypse now and they say she should publish it. Frances reads it and agrees it'll have universal appeal and it becomes a huge hit her diaries. some of which obvious have quoted here. Yeah. And she becomes a big name. She's no longer seen as the wife of Frances F Copola, but someone whose perspective seen it in her own right. This annoys Francces Yes. There's an ego there, isn't there with that guy to be honest ye? Because he sees that people start to see him negatively when they read the book people start to see the truth. Yeah. And he asks her to back out of a book tour and she reluctantly agrees. That's really g is. Come on, Francis. Come on, mate. But the critical consensus around the film is that it's a classic.'s ranked nineteenth the best film ever in Sound in the most recent survey. Wow. And then in nineteen ninety one, the documentary about the making of it is released Heart of Darkness of Filmmakers' Apocalypse, where Eleanor has filmed she was just filming behind the scenes and extracts from my journal and it's brilliant and the documentary wins several awards, which I can't imagine reallyally pisses Francis off. And Franancecis says, I'd rather didn't go to the awards as I return those. turn them down. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We m them that. Exactly ye Beause it's making people think that I didn't win that award and I don't like people thinking that I didn't win that particular award. So I think it's better if you don't win it. Yeah. Yeah. He goes on to make more films but nothing beats the run of for the Goddfather of the conversation, the gofather part to apocalypse now. That's a real That's a run. Yeah, yeah. He has quite a few flops. Also, he doesn't mend his approach to filmmaking Okay, his career is littered with these stories kind of huge swings for the fences, artistic and financial leaps. So there's one from the heart in nineteen eighty two, where he gambles everything on a radical idea basically to reinvent how movies are made. Okay. So it's a romantic musical set in Las Vegas, following a couple drifting apart and tentively finding their way back to each other. He invests heavily in Zoe Trope, his production company's compomuter Division. So Scenes are pres shot on video, edited in advance, and then they're recreated on film. I don't quite understand that. So explain that one more time. So they're filming scenes that you would in a normal movie. I think they film basically rushes on video. Yes. Eedit it. Okay. And then they've got the film so they know exactly what they're shooting when they come to doing it on film So he says, I allowed to edit the movie before I shot it. So you're basically doing a first draft of a movie. It allows him to plan camera movements precisely, treat filmmaking like a live performance. I suppose there's sort of overlap there with the way that animation is done as well, Ver very detailed storyboarding there. L you can see the way the animated films are structured before they're then properly animated Every angle, everything it basically exists on the page in a sort a true sense, it's then just translated into doesn't work brilliantly in terms of cutting down his budget. But you can see the logic behind it to be honest. As Michaels sting there with expensive films, there's an ingenuity there. Yeah. But the budget for this balloon's twenty six million dollars Okay Which is huge for a non blockbuster romance in nineteen eighty two. It's a financial disaster. He's in massive personal debt after this. He's basically deeply in debt liable for loans. It basically has to abandon his idea of an independent studio system. says had to make films to pay off debts. I became a kind of hired gun. So in nineteen ninety he makes Godfather P three, which is not a project he wanted to make and was driven by financial necessity. wasn't very good. Yeah, it's not considered as strong as it, yeah. No. But I think that happens a lot. There's a lot of sort of like brilliant creative people who get trapped in financial difficulties and then end up doing lots of stuff that they're not particularly proud of. That's not why you're here, Tom Exactly. ye, yeah completely because I'm forty five million pounds in debt in the studio I she's going touch it. It's barely. The interest that's acccruing while you're recording this is higher We should have discussed thesees. But the kind of mad genius approach continues. He does a film called Megalopolis. So he's been discussing and developing this for forty years and he sells parts of his wine empire and invests a hundred million dollars of his own money in this which gives him total control, which I'd say is probably not the best idea I mean, it's interesting when you say he was in debt and all this sort of stuff. You think, Oh poor guy, but then you hear the sentence, he was forced to sell part of his wine empire. Yeah, well of course which just make me feel slightly less sympathetic to quite how hard up he was ' notion most people have So he does this on his own terms. He frames the project with the phrase, you don't have to be afraid, you can take a chance, which I just think you've just got to be a bit more careful in your life sometimes It dates back to the early eighties shortly after he completed apocalypse now. So Megarropolis, it's a modern retelling of the fall of the Roman Republic, set in a futuristic New York, often referred to as New Rome, focused on a visionary architect attempting to reshape society. So throughout the eighties and nineties he tries to do this project multiple drafts. Table reads for the major actors, refining the script, but studiosity is too abstract, too risky The budget is considered excessive. hisis own career becomes unstable after the financial fail of one from the heart. In the nineties it comes close to being made. He shoots second unit footage in New York, assembles a cast But then the nine eleven attacks happen And the destruction of the skyline of New York make the themes of urban collapse catastrophe New York. N ideal, should we say Yes, yes. So abandons the project and explains that reality' overtaken the film's premise. Deades later, he returns to it. And so he's basically, everything is on this He's already high octane directing and intense style. He's magnified by total financial stake in the project. So what year is this? So it's recently in the last few years, right? Okay. And he wants to push beyond conventional filmmaking As if more problems are needed. He's pursuing a vision of like's basically the parallels with apocalypse now this huge personal artistic vision and production. between chaos and control. And his wife's got her diary out again, and his wife' got her diary out, yeah The iPhone's ready. Exactly. He's going, I'm not going to let you release that this time. He previews, it's one of the most anticipated films in the years. Critics are sharply divided. It's often seen as his kind of late career counterpoint to apocalypse. Now, have you seen it, Michael? I haven't seen it. Yeah, it's really bad. It's not good Well, he says obviously he's an artist he's willing to risk everything. He says, you learn that the only thing you can do is follow your instincts, which I think is perfect quote for him to end on. I'd say Is that the learnings I don't know if that's what I've learned from this. Yeah. But then I suppose movie making, writing a book music, any of these creative endeavourors, there is no exact science to it, is there? No And like if you're not willing to risk and explore and these greats are willing to do that to the truest sense That is How you will end up with the best stuff always. Yeah. But it also comes with the greatest risk. Yes. financially, you're exposing yourself just by really following your own path. It might be different to other people. That means that you're far more at risk at being attacked. if it doesn't go right. So there's all these things that a lot of people aren't willing to risk, even if they are in a situation where they can do that Yeah. So it has to be applauded and you can't expect it always to work because that is the beauty of art, I suppose, isn't it? Yeah that sometimes it sings, sometimes it's colorful, sometimes it's wonderful, and sometimes it doesn't work out. And it's hard to work out why that is, but that's just the truth of it, and that's the risk and the joy in it, I suppose. too finish with the question I asked you at the start of this episode D you feel apocalypse now was worth it? It's a weird one, isn't it? My feeling is it probably was because nothing awful happened to people on set. So yeah. obviously it lasted far longer than it should. It cost far more than it should. It had an effect on his marriage. There was a heart attack, reason an idea. There was too much drug use and stuff You're not telling me a story where he's ruined someone's life. People were abused or yeah, exactly. doesn't feel like there's cruelty there. Yeah ye yeah. just like not intentional. Yeah, exactly. They thoughtic madness. That's exactly it. Would you sign up for the sequel It meas what it pays Three billion dollars for three weeks, I'll do it. Yeah, exactly.. so in that regard, it probably is. There are other films where you hear about horrific behaviourors on set and stuff like that in a different way, where you think no Actually with this one, say maybe it does tip the balance. It's obviously a horrific experience for people there and it costs far more etcera, etcetera. But what a piece of art at the end of it. Yeah. So yes, I say just about. what do you think? Yeah, I think you're right. You know, we've actually covered things where someone's died ores someone's had something awful happen to them And that's a very different world, isn't it? Exactly. It's a very different thing. Maybe if Mart and Shine hadn't survived, you'd go, okay, yeah. I think that's a fair point. I'd say they got away with it is the way I'd style it. Yes. I wonder how the actors feel about it now. Yeah, that would be an interesting chat. Looking back. where they're watching it back? Whether they kind of it's something they are glad they went through because of course time heals and changes the way you feel about things and the fact that this has been lauded and won all these awards Yeah. Maybe in time they themselves have come to go, well, you know, I'm really glad because it's legacy. That's what this is. Yeah. It's part of the legacy of these great actors. own Hoppera dead, but my machine still li. This will live on as a movie that people will talk about orever really, because it is one of those great movies. You say the nineteenth greatest movie ever? Well, they just have for three whole episodes. Thanks for joining me, Tom. I loved it. It's so interesting. We'll cover another incredible story next time. There's many more stories like that. If you want to go back through the episodes or if you want to join the fan Club, If you enjoyed this, can I recommend the Island of Doctor Moreae, which was a great two p we did on the fan Club. I love that so much. yeah, that was great. And so sign up to that Otherwise, we will see you next time for another insane story. Absolutely. And if you know what happened to the pig, do let us know. Yeah Does that Does the pig think it was worth it That's it for this series of Archive of pop culture. Thank you for listening. It was an absolute pleasure. If you want to hear a similar but even madder story, head over to the Fan Club to listen to our two specials on the Island of Dctor Moreae. Absolutely incredible Archive of Pop Culture is a Keep it light media production hosted by me, Josh Whitakam, Research by David Price and Cheyne Barnes, adddditional editing Will Fits Practic Design, John Gregory. Music by Pickle and Button No