1) What does Deborah Scranton mean by the “disconnect” she hopes to “bridge” with her documentary?
The disconnection between our society in North America and our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. There is almost no information given to us about the war in Iraq.
2) How does media (television, news, documentaries, film) contribute to creating this disconnect?
They are the ones who are supposed to be giving us the information on what's happening over there but they can and do leave out information.
3) How can a documentary like "War Tapes" help remedy or bridge this disconnect?
It lets us see through the soldiers eyes and brings a new light/viewpoint to something that not many North Americans know.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Hearts Of Darkness Review
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmakers Apocalypse, directed by Fax Bahr and George Hickenlooper with Eleanor Coppola’s footage. Hearts of Darkness is a documentary about the difficulties of making Apocalypse Now and the journey that Francis Ford Coppola (director of Apocalypse) took into the darkness of his own heart and the problems when one is faced with making a movie. The film is structured chronologically but interview footage from recent years is used to put old footage, sound clips, pictures ect. Into context. This works quite effectively because you see or hear someone speaking on set and then the same person thirty years later explaining their feelings at the time. It makes for a very well rounded view of how everyone was feeling.
Hearts of Darkness was a mix between an observational and an expository documentary. It definitely took on the role of “fly on the wall” and at the same time was telling us what we were watching and interpreting the images for us. Eleanor Coppola was the fly on the wall in the film and we watch through her lens. She was probably the only person who could have been around Ford Coppola all day, filming and not gotten grief about it. At parts it did seem as though it was from Francis’s perspective but it was really Eleanor’s view of how her husband and his crew were handling the film and its effect on them. For example the scene in which Francis is saying he has been thinking about killing himself. This was not shot from Francis’s view, it was shot from Eleanor’s, hearing her husband talking about suicide and her responding.
The film was very well done. It was very interesting to watch and understand the severe conditions Apocalypse Now was made under and, as deeper look into humans in general. One scene that grabbed me the most was the interview with Martin Sheen when he was talking about filming his scene in the hotel. It used footage from the film and the interview itself extremely effectively, cutting between the two with Sheen telling you exactly how he was feeling at certain parts in the scene and how Ford Coppola was using Sheen’s real emotions, actions and drunkenness to create reality. Another effective scene was the where Dennis Hopper and Ford Coppola were arguing over why Hopper had not learned his lines yet. This showed Ford Coppola’s patience and the problems that he took on when he had to deal with actors who were constantly high on something. Any other man would have cracked and broken down by that time in the shoot but Ford Coppola stayed on and finished because he had to.
It didn’t seem like there were any unnecessary scenes in the film. Without one scene we would lose the feeling of chaos that was constantly on set. The one scene that added the least amount of plot development was the French plantation scene. It made it clear that many of the shots that took up lots of time and money were not put in but other than that nothing was added. I think that the entire film was extremely well done and for an hour and a half documentary was very informative.
Hearts of Darkness was a mix between an observational and an expository documentary. It definitely took on the role of “fly on the wall” and at the same time was telling us what we were watching and interpreting the images for us. Eleanor Coppola was the fly on the wall in the film and we watch through her lens. She was probably the only person who could have been around Ford Coppola all day, filming and not gotten grief about it. At parts it did seem as though it was from Francis’s perspective but it was really Eleanor’s view of how her husband and his crew were handling the film and its effect on them. For example the scene in which Francis is saying he has been thinking about killing himself. This was not shot from Francis’s view, it was shot from Eleanor’s, hearing her husband talking about suicide and her responding.
The film was very well done. It was very interesting to watch and understand the severe conditions Apocalypse Now was made under and, as deeper look into humans in general. One scene that grabbed me the most was the interview with Martin Sheen when he was talking about filming his scene in the hotel. It used footage from the film and the interview itself extremely effectively, cutting between the two with Sheen telling you exactly how he was feeling at certain parts in the scene and how Ford Coppola was using Sheen’s real emotions, actions and drunkenness to create reality. Another effective scene was the where Dennis Hopper and Ford Coppola were arguing over why Hopper had not learned his lines yet. This showed Ford Coppola’s patience and the problems that he took on when he had to deal with actors who were constantly high on something. Any other man would have cracked and broken down by that time in the shoot but Ford Coppola stayed on and finished because he had to.
It didn’t seem like there were any unnecessary scenes in the film. Without one scene we would lose the feeling of chaos that was constantly on set. The one scene that added the least amount of plot development was the French plantation scene. It made it clear that many of the shots that took up lots of time and money were not put in but other than that nothing was added. I think that the entire film was extremely well done and for an hour and a half documentary was very informative.
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