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Classic Movies:The Facts
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8
8.1
Director:Michael Cimino
Starring:Robert De Niro,Christopher Walken,John Savage,Meryl Streep,John Cazale,George Dzundza
The film was based in part on a screenplay called "The Man Who Came To Play" by Louis Garfinkle and Quinn K. Redeker about Las Vegas and Russian Roulette. Producer Michael Deeley, who bought the script, hired writer/director Michael Cimino who, with Deric Washburn, rewrote the script, taking the Russian Roulette element and placing it in the Vietnam War. The film went over-budget and over-schedule and ended up costing $15 million.
Full cast
Robert De Niro as S/Sgt. Michael "Mike" Vronsky. Producer Deeley pursued De Niro for The Deer Hunter because he felt that he needed De Niro's star power to sell a film with a "gruesome-sounding storyline and a barely known director".âI liked the script, and [Cimino] had done a lot of prep,â said De Niro. âI was impressed.âDe Niro prepared by socializing with steelworkers in local bars and by visiting their homes. Cimino would introduce De Niro as his agent, Harry Ufland. No one recognized him.De Niro claims this was his most physically exhausting film. He explained that the scene where Michael visits Steve in the hospital for the first time was the most emotional scene that he was ever involved with.
Christopher Walken as Cpl. Nikanor "Nick" Chevotarevich. His performance garnered his first Academy Award, for Best Supporting Actor.
John Savage as Cpl. Steven Pushkov. Savage was a last-minute replacement for Roy Scheider, who dropped out of the production two weeks before the start of filming due to "creative differences"; Universal managed to keep Scheider to his three-picture contract for them by forcing him into doing Jaws 2.
Meryl Streep as Linda. Prior to Deer Hunter, Streep was seen briefly in Fred Zinnemann's Julia and the eight-hour miniseries Holocaust.In the screenplay, Streep's role was negligible. Cimino explained the set-up to Streep and suggested that she write her own lines.
John Cazale as Stanley Stosh. All scenes involving Cazale, who had terminal cancer, had to be filmed first. Because of his illness, the studio initially wanted to get rid of him, but Streep, who he was dating at the time, and Cimino threatened to walk away if they did.He was also uninsurable, and according to Streep, De Niro paid for his insurance because he wanted him in the film. This was his last film, as he died shortly after filming wrapped. Cazale never saw the finished film.
George Dzundza as John Welsh
Chuck Aspegren as Peter "Axel" Axelrod. Aspegren was not an actor, he was the foreman at an East Chicago steel works visited early in pre-production by De Niro and Cimino. They were so impressed with him that they offered him the role. He was the second person to be cast in the film, after De Niro.
Shirley Stoler as Steven's mother
Rutanya Alda as Angela Ludhjduravic-Pushkov
Amy Wright as Bridesmaid
Joe Grifasi as Bandleader
The Vietcong Russian roulette scenes were shot in real circumstances, with real rats and mosquitoes, as the three principals (De Niro, Walken, and Savage) were tied up in bamboo cages that had been erected along the River Kwai. The woman tasked with casting the extras out in Thailand had much difficulty finding a local to play the vicious individual who runs the Russian roulette game. The first actor hired turned out to be incapable of slapping De Niro in the face. The female caster thankfully knew a local Thai man with a particular dislike of Americans, and cast him accordingly. De Niro suggested that Walken be slapped for real from one of the guards without any forewarning to Walken. The reaction on Walken's face was genuine. Producer Deeley has said that Cimino shot the brutal Vietcong Russian roulette scenes brilliantly and more efficiently than any other part of the film.
De Niro and Savage performed their own stunts in the fall into the river, filming the 30 ft drop 15 times in two days. During the helicopter stunt, the runners caught on the ropes and as the helicopter rose, it threatened to seriously injure De Niro and Savage. The actors gestured and yelled furiously to the crew in the helicopter to warn them. Footage of this is included in the film.
According to Cimino, De Niro requested a live cartridge in the revolver for the scene in which he subjects John Cazale's character to an impromptu game of Russian roulette, to heighten the intensity of the situation. Cazale agreed without protest,but obsessively rechecked the gun before each take to make sure that the live round wasn't next in the chamber.
While appearing later in the film, the first scenes shot upon arrival in Thailand are the hospital sequences between Walken and the military doctor. Deeley believes that this scene was "the spur that would earn him an Academy Award."
In the final scene in the gambling den between Mike and Nick, Cimino had Walken and De Niro improvise in one take. His direction to his actors: "You put the gun to your head, Chris, you shoot, you fall over and Bobby cradles your head."
One of the most talked-about sequences in the film, the Vietcong's use of Russian roulette with POWs, was criticized as being contrived and unrealistic since there were no documented cases of Russian roulette in the Vietnam War.Associated Press reporter Peter Arnett, who had won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the war, wrote in the Los Angeles Times, âIn its 20 years of war, there was not a single recorded case of Russian roulette.⊠The central metaphor of the movie is simply a bloody lie.â
Director Cimino was also criticized for one-sidedly portraying all the North Vietnamese as despicable, sadistic racists and killers. Cimino countered that his film was not political, polemical, literally accurate, or posturing for any particular point of view.He further defended his position by saying that he had news clippings from Singapore that confirm Russian roulette was used during the war (without specifying which article).
In the 2010 hit video game, Call of Duty: Black Ops the level Payback pays homage to the Russian roulette scene in the opening.
According to Christopher Walken, the historical context wasn't paramount: âIn the making of it, I donât remember anyone ever mentioning Vietnam!â De Niro added to this sentiment: âWhether [the filmâs vision of the war] actually happened or not, itâs something you could imagine very easily happening. Maybe it did. I donât know. Allâs fair in love and war.â Producer Spikings, while proud of the film, regrets the way the Vietnamese were portrayed. "I donât think any of us meant it to be exploitive,â Spikings said. âBut I think we were ⊠ignorant. I canât think of a better word for it. I didnât realize how badly weâd behaved to the Vietnamese people..."
The final scene in which all the main characters gather and sing "God Bless America" became a subject of heated debate among critics when the film was released.
The Deer Hunter won Academy Awards in 1978 for Best Picture, Best Director (Michael Cimino), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Christopher Walken), Best Film Editing, and Best Sound.In addition, it was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Robert De Niro), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Meryl Streep), Best Cinematography (Vilmos Zsigmond) and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen (Michael Cimino, Deric Washburn, Louis Garfinkle and Quinn Redeker).John Wayne's final public appearance was to present the Best Picture Oscar to The Deer Hunter.
Starring:Robert De Niro,Christopher Walken,John Savage,Meryl Streep,John Cazale,George Dzundza
The film was based in part on a screenplay called "The Man Who Came To Play" by Louis Garfinkle and Quinn K. Redeker about Las Vegas and Russian Roulette. Producer Michael Deeley, who bought the script, hired writer/director Michael Cimino who, with Deric Washburn, rewrote the script, taking the Russian Roulette element and placing it in the Vietnam War. The film went over-budget and over-schedule and ended up costing $15 million.
Full cast
Robert De Niro as S/Sgt. Michael "Mike" Vronsky. Producer Deeley pursued De Niro for The Deer Hunter because he felt that he needed De Niro's star power to sell a film with a "gruesome-sounding storyline and a barely known director".âI liked the script, and [Cimino] had done a lot of prep,â said De Niro. âI was impressed.âDe Niro prepared by socializing with steelworkers in local bars and by visiting their homes. Cimino would introduce De Niro as his agent, Harry Ufland. No one recognized him.De Niro claims this was his most physically exhausting film. He explained that the scene where Michael visits Steve in the hospital for the first time was the most emotional scene that he was ever involved with.
Christopher Walken as Cpl. Nikanor "Nick" Chevotarevich. His performance garnered his first Academy Award, for Best Supporting Actor.
John Savage as Cpl. Steven Pushkov. Savage was a last-minute replacement for Roy Scheider, who dropped out of the production two weeks before the start of filming due to "creative differences"; Universal managed to keep Scheider to his three-picture contract for them by forcing him into doing Jaws 2.
Meryl Streep as Linda. Prior to Deer Hunter, Streep was seen briefly in Fred Zinnemann's Julia and the eight-hour miniseries Holocaust.In the screenplay, Streep's role was negligible. Cimino explained the set-up to Streep and suggested that she write her own lines.
John Cazale as Stanley Stosh. All scenes involving Cazale, who had terminal cancer, had to be filmed first. Because of his illness, the studio initially wanted to get rid of him, but Streep, who he was dating at the time, and Cimino threatened to walk away if they did.He was also uninsurable, and according to Streep, De Niro paid for his insurance because he wanted him in the film. This was his last film, as he died shortly after filming wrapped. Cazale never saw the finished film.
George Dzundza as John Welsh
Chuck Aspegren as Peter "Axel" Axelrod. Aspegren was not an actor, he was the foreman at an East Chicago steel works visited early in pre-production by De Niro and Cimino. They were so impressed with him that they offered him the role. He was the second person to be cast in the film, after De Niro.
Shirley Stoler as Steven's mother
Rutanya Alda as Angela Ludhjduravic-Pushkov
Amy Wright as Bridesmaid
Joe Grifasi as Bandleader
The Vietcong Russian roulette scenes were shot in real circumstances, with real rats and mosquitoes, as the three principals (De Niro, Walken, and Savage) were tied up in bamboo cages that had been erected along the River Kwai. The woman tasked with casting the extras out in Thailand had much difficulty finding a local to play the vicious individual who runs the Russian roulette game. The first actor hired turned out to be incapable of slapping De Niro in the face. The female caster thankfully knew a local Thai man with a particular dislike of Americans, and cast him accordingly. De Niro suggested that Walken be slapped for real from one of the guards without any forewarning to Walken. The reaction on Walken's face was genuine. Producer Deeley has said that Cimino shot the brutal Vietcong Russian roulette scenes brilliantly and more efficiently than any other part of the film.
De Niro and Savage performed their own stunts in the fall into the river, filming the 30 ft drop 15 times in two days. During the helicopter stunt, the runners caught on the ropes and as the helicopter rose, it threatened to seriously injure De Niro and Savage. The actors gestured and yelled furiously to the crew in the helicopter to warn them. Footage of this is included in the film.
According to Cimino, De Niro requested a live cartridge in the revolver for the scene in which he subjects John Cazale's character to an impromptu game of Russian roulette, to heighten the intensity of the situation. Cazale agreed without protest,but obsessively rechecked the gun before each take to make sure that the live round wasn't next in the chamber.
While appearing later in the film, the first scenes shot upon arrival in Thailand are the hospital sequences between Walken and the military doctor. Deeley believes that this scene was "the spur that would earn him an Academy Award."
In the final scene in the gambling den between Mike and Nick, Cimino had Walken and De Niro improvise in one take. His direction to his actors: "You put the gun to your head, Chris, you shoot, you fall over and Bobby cradles your head."
One of the most talked-about sequences in the film, the Vietcong's use of Russian roulette with POWs, was criticized as being contrived and unrealistic since there were no documented cases of Russian roulette in the Vietnam War.Associated Press reporter Peter Arnett, who had won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the war, wrote in the Los Angeles Times, âIn its 20 years of war, there was not a single recorded case of Russian roulette.⊠The central metaphor of the movie is simply a bloody lie.â
Director Cimino was also criticized for one-sidedly portraying all the North Vietnamese as despicable, sadistic racists and killers. Cimino countered that his film was not political, polemical, literally accurate, or posturing for any particular point of view.He further defended his position by saying that he had news clippings from Singapore that confirm Russian roulette was used during the war (without specifying which article).
In the 2010 hit video game, Call of Duty: Black Ops the level Payback pays homage to the Russian roulette scene in the opening.
According to Christopher Walken, the historical context wasn't paramount: âIn the making of it, I donât remember anyone ever mentioning Vietnam!â De Niro added to this sentiment: âWhether [the filmâs vision of the war] actually happened or not, itâs something you could imagine very easily happening. Maybe it did. I donât know. Allâs fair in love and war.â Producer Spikings, while proud of the film, regrets the way the Vietnamese were portrayed. "I donât think any of us meant it to be exploitive,â Spikings said. âBut I think we were ⊠ignorant. I canât think of a better word for it. I didnât realize how badly weâd behaved to the Vietnamese people..."
The final scene in which all the main characters gather and sing "God Bless America" became a subject of heated debate among critics when the film was released.
The Deer Hunter won Academy Awards in 1978 for Best Picture, Best Director (Michael Cimino), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Christopher Walken), Best Film Editing, and Best Sound.In addition, it was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Robert De Niro), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Meryl Streep), Best Cinematography (Vilmos Zsigmond) and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen (Michael Cimino, Deric Washburn, Louis Garfinkle and Quinn Redeker).John Wayne's final public appearance was to present the Best Picture Oscar to The Deer Hunter.
propelas's rating:
1740
8
8
Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Director:Sidney Lumet
Starring:Al Pacino,John Cazale,Chris Sarandon,Charles Durning,Lance Henriksen
The film was inspired by P.F. Kluge's article "The Boys in the Bank",which tells a similar story of the robbery of a Brooklyn bank by John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturile on August 22, 1972. This article was published in Life in 1972.The film received critical acclaim upon its September 1975 release by Warner Bros. Pictures (now part of Time Warner), some of which referred to its anti-establishment tone.
The Life article described Wojtowicz as "a dark, thin fellow with the broken-faced good looks of an Al Pacino or Dustin Hoffman".Hoffman would later be offered the role when Pacino briefly quit the production. An 18-year-old actor was originally to be cast in the role of Sal to match the age of the actual Salvatore,but Al Pacino said to Sidney Lumet to take John Cazale.In the beggining Lumet refuse but after Cazale read the first line on the script Lumet says:This is Sal
The film was based on the story of John Wojtowicz and adheres to the basic facts of what happened, according to the Life article "The Boys in the Bank". According to the article, Wojtowicz, along with Sal Naturile, held up a Chase Manhattan Bank branch in Brooklyn, New York on August 22, 1972.
After being apprehended, Wojtowicz was convicted in court and sentenced to twenty years in prison, of which he served ten.
Wojtowicz wrote a letter to The New York Times in 1975 out of concern that people would believe the version of the events portrayed in the film, which he said was "only 30% true". Some of Wojtowicz's objections included the portrayal of his wife Carmen Bifulco, the conversation with his mother that Wojtowicz claimed never happened, and the refusal of police to let him speak to his wife Carmen (unlike what was portrayed in the film). He did, however, praise Al Pacino and Chris Sarandon's portrayals of him and his boyfriend Ernest Aron as accurate.Also, Sal was 18 years old, yet is portrayed in the film by a 39-year-old.
The film shows Sonny making out a will to give Leon his life insurance so that even if Sonny should be killed, Leon might still be able to pay for the operation. The real-life Wojtowicz was paid plus 1% of the film's net profits for the rights to his story, of which he gave to Ernest Aron to pay for her sexual reassignment surgery.Aron became Elizabeth Debbie Eden[8] and lived out the rest of her days in New York.[citation needed] She died of complications from AIDS in Rochester in 1987.Wojtowicz died of cancer in January 2006.
The bank where the robbery took place was a branch of the Chase Manhattan Bank, at Avenue P in Brooklyn, at the cross street of East 3rd Street, in Gravesend Brooklyn.
Although Dog Day Afternoon was released nationally in 1975, it is based on events that took place in Brooklyn three years earlier, in 1972. During this era of thick and extremely heavy opposition to the Vietnam war, "anti-establishment" Sonny repeatedly reminds people he is a Vietnam veteran and repeats the counter-cultural war cry of "Attica!" in reference to the Attica Prison riots.Another point made clear in the film is that Sonny never quite adjusted to civilian life after Vietnam.
Dog Day Afternoon won the Academy Award for Writing â Original Screenplay (Frank Pierson) and was nominated for other Oscars:
Best Picture (Martin Bregman and Martin Elfand)
Best Director (Sidney Lumet)
Best Actor in a Leading Role (Al Pacino)
Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Chris Sarandon)
Best Film Editing (Dede Allen)
Starring:Al Pacino,John Cazale,Chris Sarandon,Charles Durning,Lance Henriksen
The film was inspired by P.F. Kluge's article "The Boys in the Bank",which tells a similar story of the robbery of a Brooklyn bank by John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturile on August 22, 1972. This article was published in Life in 1972.The film received critical acclaim upon its September 1975 release by Warner Bros. Pictures (now part of Time Warner), some of which referred to its anti-establishment tone.
The Life article described Wojtowicz as "a dark, thin fellow with the broken-faced good looks of an Al Pacino or Dustin Hoffman".Hoffman would later be offered the role when Pacino briefly quit the production. An 18-year-old actor was originally to be cast in the role of Sal to match the age of the actual Salvatore,but Al Pacino said to Sidney Lumet to take John Cazale.In the beggining Lumet refuse but after Cazale read the first line on the script Lumet says:This is Sal
The film was based on the story of John Wojtowicz and adheres to the basic facts of what happened, according to the Life article "The Boys in the Bank". According to the article, Wojtowicz, along with Sal Naturile, held up a Chase Manhattan Bank branch in Brooklyn, New York on August 22, 1972.
After being apprehended, Wojtowicz was convicted in court and sentenced to twenty years in prison, of which he served ten.
Wojtowicz wrote a letter to The New York Times in 1975 out of concern that people would believe the version of the events portrayed in the film, which he said was "only 30% true". Some of Wojtowicz's objections included the portrayal of his wife Carmen Bifulco, the conversation with his mother that Wojtowicz claimed never happened, and the refusal of police to let him speak to his wife Carmen (unlike what was portrayed in the film). He did, however, praise Al Pacino and Chris Sarandon's portrayals of him and his boyfriend Ernest Aron as accurate.Also, Sal was 18 years old, yet is portrayed in the film by a 39-year-old.
The film shows Sonny making out a will to give Leon his life insurance so that even if Sonny should be killed, Leon might still be able to pay for the operation. The real-life Wojtowicz was paid plus 1% of the film's net profits for the rights to his story, of which he gave to Ernest Aron to pay for her sexual reassignment surgery.Aron became Elizabeth Debbie Eden[8] and lived out the rest of her days in New York.[citation needed] She died of complications from AIDS in Rochester in 1987.Wojtowicz died of cancer in January 2006.
The bank where the robbery took place was a branch of the Chase Manhattan Bank, at Avenue P in Brooklyn, at the cross street of East 3rd Street, in Gravesend Brooklyn.
Although Dog Day Afternoon was released nationally in 1975, it is based on events that took place in Brooklyn three years earlier, in 1972. During this era of thick and extremely heavy opposition to the Vietnam war, "anti-establishment" Sonny repeatedly reminds people he is a Vietnam veteran and repeats the counter-cultural war cry of "Attica!" in reference to the Attica Prison riots.Another point made clear in the film is that Sonny never quite adjusted to civilian life after Vietnam.
Dog Day Afternoon won the Academy Award for Writing â Original Screenplay (Frank Pierson) and was nominated for other Oscars:
Best Picture (Martin Bregman and Martin Elfand)
Best Director (Sidney Lumet)
Best Actor in a Leading Role (Al Pacino)
Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Chris Sarandon)
Best Film Editing (Dede Allen)
propelas's rating:
4107
7.5
8.1
The Exorcist (1973)
Director:William Friedkin
Starring:Ellen Burstyn,Max Von Sydow,Jason Miller,Linda Blair
The Exorcist is a 1973 American horror film directed by William Friedkin, adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty and based on the exorcism case of Robbie Mannheim,[1][2] dealing with the demonic possession of a young girl and her motherâs desperate attempts to win back her daughter through an exorcism conducted by two priests.
Casting
Although the agency representing Blair did not send her for the role, Blair's mother brought her to meet with Warner Bros.' casting department and then with Friedkin. Pamelyn Ferdin, a veteran of science fiction and supernatural drama, was a candidate, but the producers may have felt she was too well-known. Denise Nickerson, who played Violet Beauregarde in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, was considered, but her parents pulled her out, troubled by the material. Anissa Jones, the adorable Buffy from Family Affair, actually auditioned for the role but was rejected for much the same reason as Ferdin. At one point the search for a young actress capable of playing Regan was so trying that Friedkin claims he even considered auditioning adult dwarf actors. The part went instead to Blair, a relative unknown except for a role in The Way We Live Now.
The studio wanted Marlon Brando for the role of Father Lankester Merrin.Friedkin immediately vetoed this by stating it would become a "Brando movie." Jack Nicholson was up for the part of Father Karras before Stacy Keach was hired by Blatty. Friedkin then spotted Miller in a Broadway play. Even though Miller had never acted in a movie, Keach's contract was bought out by Warner Bros. and Miller was cast. Jane Fonda and Shirley MacLaine were approached to play Chris MacNeil. Both refused to do the film, and Fonda reportedly called the project a "capitalist piece of shit."Audrey Hepburn was approached, but said she would only agree if the film were to be shot in Rome. Anne Bancroft was another choice, but she was in her first month of pregnancy. Burstyn then agreed to do the movie. Lee J. Cobb was Friedkins first and only choice for Lt. Kinderman.
Friedkin originally intended to use Blair's voice, electronically deepened and roughened, for the demon's dialogue. Although Friedkin felt this worked fine in some places, he felt scenes with the demon confronting the two priests lacked the dramatic power required and selected legendary radio actress Mercedes McCambridge, an experienced voice actor, to provide the demon's voice. After filming, Warner Bros. attempted to conceal McCambridge's participation which led to a lawsuit from McCambridge and a grudge between her and Friedkin that was never healed.
Direction
Warner had approached Arthur Penn (who was teaching at Yale), Peter Bogdanovich (who wanted to pursue other projects, subsequently regretting the decision), and Mike Nichols (who did not want to shoot a film so dependent on a child's performance) and John Boorman - who would direct the second film - said he did not want to direct it because it was "cruel towards children". Originally Mark Rydell was hired to direct, but William Peter Blatty insisted on Friedkin instead, because he wanted his film to have the same energy as Friedkin's previous film, The French Connection. After a standoff with the studio, which initially refused to budge over Rydell, Blatty eventually got his way. Stanley Kubrick was offered the film (and later on its first sequel) but declined.
Urban legends and on-set incidents
Many of the film's participants claimed the film was cursed. Writer Blatty stated on video that there were some strange occurrences during the filming.Lead actress Burstyn indicated some rumors are true in her 2006 autobiography Lessons in Becoming Myself. Due to a studio fire, the interior sets of the MacNeil residence (with the exception of Regan's bedroom) had to be rebuilt and caused a setback in pre-production. Friedkin claimed that a priest was brought in numerous times to bless the set. After difficulties encountered in the New York production, Blatty asked Fr. King (see reference above) to bless the Washington crew on its first day of filming at the foot of Lauinger Library's steps to 37th Street. The incident was recounted in Fr. King's 2009 Washington Post obituary. Other issues include Blair's harness breaking when she is thrashing on the bed causing permanent damage to the actor's spine. While filming the vaginal crucifix stabbing scene, Ellen Burstyn was seriously injured when the crew pulled her harness too hard after Blair hits her across the bedroom.
Irish actor Jack MacGowran died from influenza shortly after he filmed his role as director Burke Dennings. The son of Mercedes McCambridge killed himself, his wife, and children in a murder-suicide in 1987.
The Exorcist was nominated for a total of ten Academy Awards in 1973, only winning 2. At the 46th Annual Academy Awards ceremony, the film won two statuettes(highlighted in bold)
The film was nominated for:
Academy Award for Best Picture - William Peter Blatty and Noel Marshall
Academy Award for Best Actress - Ellen Burstyn
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor - Jason Miller
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress - Linda Blair
Academy Award for Best Director - William Friedkin
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay - William Peter Blatty
Academy Award for Best Cinematography - Owen Roizman
Academy Award for Film Editing - Norman Gay
Academy Award for Best Art Direction - Bill Malley and Jerry Wunderlich
Academy Award for Sound - Robert Knudson, Chris Newman
Starring:Ellen Burstyn,Max Von Sydow,Jason Miller,Linda Blair
The Exorcist is a 1973 American horror film directed by William Friedkin, adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty and based on the exorcism case of Robbie Mannheim,[1][2] dealing with the demonic possession of a young girl and her motherâs desperate attempts to win back her daughter through an exorcism conducted by two priests.
Casting
Although the agency representing Blair did not send her for the role, Blair's mother brought her to meet with Warner Bros.' casting department and then with Friedkin. Pamelyn Ferdin, a veteran of science fiction and supernatural drama, was a candidate, but the producers may have felt she was too well-known. Denise Nickerson, who played Violet Beauregarde in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, was considered, but her parents pulled her out, troubled by the material. Anissa Jones, the adorable Buffy from Family Affair, actually auditioned for the role but was rejected for much the same reason as Ferdin. At one point the search for a young actress capable of playing Regan was so trying that Friedkin claims he even considered auditioning adult dwarf actors. The part went instead to Blair, a relative unknown except for a role in The Way We Live Now.
The studio wanted Marlon Brando for the role of Father Lankester Merrin.Friedkin immediately vetoed this by stating it would become a "Brando movie." Jack Nicholson was up for the part of Father Karras before Stacy Keach was hired by Blatty. Friedkin then spotted Miller in a Broadway play. Even though Miller had never acted in a movie, Keach's contract was bought out by Warner Bros. and Miller was cast. Jane Fonda and Shirley MacLaine were approached to play Chris MacNeil. Both refused to do the film, and Fonda reportedly called the project a "capitalist piece of shit."Audrey Hepburn was approached, but said she would only agree if the film were to be shot in Rome. Anne Bancroft was another choice, but she was in her first month of pregnancy. Burstyn then agreed to do the movie. Lee J. Cobb was Friedkins first and only choice for Lt. Kinderman.
Friedkin originally intended to use Blair's voice, electronically deepened and roughened, for the demon's dialogue. Although Friedkin felt this worked fine in some places, he felt scenes with the demon confronting the two priests lacked the dramatic power required and selected legendary radio actress Mercedes McCambridge, an experienced voice actor, to provide the demon's voice. After filming, Warner Bros. attempted to conceal McCambridge's participation which led to a lawsuit from McCambridge and a grudge between her and Friedkin that was never healed.
Direction
Warner had approached Arthur Penn (who was teaching at Yale), Peter Bogdanovich (who wanted to pursue other projects, subsequently regretting the decision), and Mike Nichols (who did not want to shoot a film so dependent on a child's performance) and John Boorman - who would direct the second film - said he did not want to direct it because it was "cruel towards children". Originally Mark Rydell was hired to direct, but William Peter Blatty insisted on Friedkin instead, because he wanted his film to have the same energy as Friedkin's previous film, The French Connection. After a standoff with the studio, which initially refused to budge over Rydell, Blatty eventually got his way. Stanley Kubrick was offered the film (and later on its first sequel) but declined.
Urban legends and on-set incidents
Many of the film's participants claimed the film was cursed. Writer Blatty stated on video that there were some strange occurrences during the filming.Lead actress Burstyn indicated some rumors are true in her 2006 autobiography Lessons in Becoming Myself. Due to a studio fire, the interior sets of the MacNeil residence (with the exception of Regan's bedroom) had to be rebuilt and caused a setback in pre-production. Friedkin claimed that a priest was brought in numerous times to bless the set. After difficulties encountered in the New York production, Blatty asked Fr. King (see reference above) to bless the Washington crew on its first day of filming at the foot of Lauinger Library's steps to 37th Street. The incident was recounted in Fr. King's 2009 Washington Post obituary. Other issues include Blair's harness breaking when she is thrashing on the bed causing permanent damage to the actor's spine. While filming the vaginal crucifix stabbing scene, Ellen Burstyn was seriously injured when the crew pulled her harness too hard after Blair hits her across the bedroom.
Irish actor Jack MacGowran died from influenza shortly after he filmed his role as director Burke Dennings. The son of Mercedes McCambridge killed himself, his wife, and children in a murder-suicide in 1987.
The Exorcist was nominated for a total of ten Academy Awards in 1973, only winning 2. At the 46th Annual Academy Awards ceremony, the film won two statuettes(highlighted in bold)
The film was nominated for:
Academy Award for Best Picture - William Peter Blatty and Noel Marshall
Academy Award for Best Actress - Ellen Burstyn
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor - Jason Miller
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress - Linda Blair
Academy Award for Best Director - William Friedkin
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay - William Peter Blatty
Academy Award for Best Cinematography - Owen Roizman
Academy Award for Film Editing - Norman Gay
Academy Award for Best Art Direction - Bill Malley and Jerry Wunderlich
Academy Award for Sound - Robert Knudson, Chris Newman
propelas's rating:
6382
8.7
9.2
The Godfather (1972)
Director:Francis Ford Coppola
Starring:Marlon Brando,Al Pacino,Robert Duvall,James Caan,Diane Keaton,Richard Castellano,John Cazale
The Godfather is a 1972 American gangster film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the 1969 novel by Mario Puzo.
The film had been ranked thirdâbehind Citizen Kane (1941) and Casablanca (1942)âon the AFI's 100 YearsâŠ100 Movies list by the American Film Institute. It was moved up to second when the list was published again in 2008.
Coppola and Production
Francis Ford Coppola was not the first choice to direct. Italian director Sergio Leone was offered the job first, but he declined in order to direct his own gangster opus, Once Upon a Time in America, which focused on Jewish-American gangsters.Peter Bogdanovich was then approached but he also declined the offer and made What's Up, Doc? instead. According to Robert Evans, head of Paramount Pictures at the time, Coppola also did not initially want to direct the film because he feared it would glorify the Mafia and violence, and thus reflect poorly on his Sicilian and Italian heritage; on the other hand, Evans specifically wanted an Italian-American to direct the film because his research had shown that previous films about the Mafia that were directed by non-Italians had fared dismally at the box office, and he wanted to, in his own words, "smell the spaghetti". When Coppola hit upon the idea of making it a metaphor for American capitalism, however, he eagerly agreed to take the helm.At the time, Coppola had directed five feature films, the most notable of which was the adaptation of the stage musical Finian's Rainbowâalthough he had also received an Academy Award for co-writing Patton in 1970.Coppola was in debt to Warner Bros. for $400,000 following budget overruns on George Lucas's THX 1138, which Coppola had produced, and he took The Godfather on Lucas's advice.
There was intense friction between Coppola and Paramount, and several times Coppola was almost replaced. Paramount maintains that its skepticism was due to a rocky start to production, though Coppola believes that the first week went extremely well. The studio thought that Coppola failed to stay on schedule, frequently made production and casting errors, and insisted on unnecessary expenses, and two producers unsuccessfully tried to convince another filmmaker to take Coppola's place. The producers scapegoated the other filmmaker when their attempt to fire Coppola became known. Because the producers told him that the other filmmaker had attempted a coup, Coppola says he was shadowed by a replacement director, who was ready to take over if Coppola was fired. Despite such intense pressure, he managed to defend his decisions and avoid being replaced.
Paramount was in financial trouble at the time of production and was desperate for a "big hit" to boost business, hence the pressure Coppola faced during filming. They wanted The Godfather to appeal to a wide audience and threatened Coppola with a "violence coach" to make the film more exciting. Coppola added a few more violent scenes to keep the studio happy. The scene in which Connie breaks dishes after finding out that her husband is cheating was added for this reason.
Casting
Coppola's casting choices were unpopular with studio executives at Paramount Pictures, particularly Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone. Coppola's first two choices for the role were both Brando and Laurence Olivier, but Olivier's agent refused the role, saying, "Lord Olivier is not taking any jobs. He's very sick. He's gonna die soon and he's not interested" (Olivier lived 18 years after the refusal). Paramount, which wanted Ernest Borgnine, originally refused to allow Coppola to cast Brando in the role, citing difficulties Brando had on recent film sets. One studio executive proposed Danny Thomas for the role citing the fact that Don Corleone was a strong "family man." At one point, Coppola was told by the then-president of Paramount that "Marlon Brando will never appear in this motion picture". After pleading with the executives, Coppola was allowed to cast Brando only if he appeared in the film for much less salary than his previous films, perform a screen-test, and put up a bond saying that he would not cause a delay in the production (as he had done on previous film sets).Coppola chose Brando over Borgnine on the basis of his screen test, which also won over the Paramount leadership. Brando later won an Academy Award for his portrayal, which he refused to accept.
The studio originally wanted Robert Redford or Ryan O'Neal to play Michael Corleone, but Coppola wanted an unknown who looked like an Italian-American, whom he found in Al Pacino.Pacino was not well known at the time, having appeared in only two minor films, and the studio did not consider him right for the part,[10] in part because of his height. Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, Warren Beatty, Martin Sheen, and James Caan also auditioned.At one point, Caan was the first choice to play Michael, while Carmine Caridi was signed as elder brother Sonny. Pacino was given the role only after Coppola threatened to quit the production; Caan stated that Coppola envisioned Michael to be the Sicilian-looking one and Sonny was the Americanized version. The studio agreed to Pacino on the condition that Caan was cast as Sonny instead of Caridi, despite the former's Jewish heritage and the latter closely matching the character in the novel (a six-foot-four, black-haired Italian-American bull). Coppola and Puzo would subsequently create a role for Caridi in the sequels.
Bruce Dern, Paul Newman, and Steve McQueen were considered for the role of Tom Hagen that eventually went to Robert Duvall. Sylvester Stallone auditioned for Carlo Rizzi and Paulie Gatto, Anthony Perkins for Sonny, and Mia Farrow auditioned for Kay. William Devane was seen for the role of Moe Greene. Mario Adorf was approached for a role as well. A then-unknown Robert De Niro auditioned for the roles of Michael, Sonny, Carlo, and Paulie. He was cast as Paulie, but Coppola arranged a "trade" with The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight to get Al Pacino from that film. De Niro later played the young Vito Corleone in Part II, winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for the role.
Director Stanley Kubrick believed that The Godfather was possibly the greatest movie ever made, and had without question the best cast.
Differences from the Novel
The novel and film differ on the fates of Michael's bodyguards in Sicily, Fabrizio and Calo. The film has them both surviving (Calo, in fact, appears in the third installment). In the book, however, it is stated that Calo dies along with Apollonia in the car explosion, and Fabrizio, implicated as an accomplice in the bombing, is shot and killed as one more victim in the famous "baptism scene" after he is tracked down running a pizza parlor in Buffalo. Fabrizio's murder was deleted from the film but publicity photos of the scene exist.(He is later killed in a completely different scene in The Godfather Saga which was deleted from The Godfather Part II.)
The Godfather won the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Writing (adapted screenplay) for Francis Coppola and Mario Puzo, and Best Actor in a Leading Role for Marlon Brando, who declined to collect the award and sent Native American actress Sacheen Littlefeather to the Oscars in his place to explain his reasons.The film had been nominated for eight other Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor for Al Pacino, James Caan, and Robert Duvall, Best Director, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, and Best Sound Mixing. The film also had a Best Original Score nomination but was disqualified when found out that Nino Rota used another score. Despite having three nominees of Best Supporting Actor award, they all lost to Joel Grey in Cabaret. It also lost the Best Director, Best Sound Mixing and Best Film Editing to Cabaret.
Starring:Marlon Brando,Al Pacino,Robert Duvall,James Caan,Diane Keaton,Richard Castellano,John Cazale
The Godfather is a 1972 American gangster film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the 1969 novel by Mario Puzo.
The film had been ranked thirdâbehind Citizen Kane (1941) and Casablanca (1942)âon the AFI's 100 YearsâŠ100 Movies list by the American Film Institute. It was moved up to second when the list was published again in 2008.
Coppola and Production
Francis Ford Coppola was not the first choice to direct. Italian director Sergio Leone was offered the job first, but he declined in order to direct his own gangster opus, Once Upon a Time in America, which focused on Jewish-American gangsters.Peter Bogdanovich was then approached but he also declined the offer and made What's Up, Doc? instead. According to Robert Evans, head of Paramount Pictures at the time, Coppola also did not initially want to direct the film because he feared it would glorify the Mafia and violence, and thus reflect poorly on his Sicilian and Italian heritage; on the other hand, Evans specifically wanted an Italian-American to direct the film because his research had shown that previous films about the Mafia that were directed by non-Italians had fared dismally at the box office, and he wanted to, in his own words, "smell the spaghetti". When Coppola hit upon the idea of making it a metaphor for American capitalism, however, he eagerly agreed to take the helm.At the time, Coppola had directed five feature films, the most notable of which was the adaptation of the stage musical Finian's Rainbowâalthough he had also received an Academy Award for co-writing Patton in 1970.Coppola was in debt to Warner Bros. for $400,000 following budget overruns on George Lucas's THX 1138, which Coppola had produced, and he took The Godfather on Lucas's advice.
There was intense friction between Coppola and Paramount, and several times Coppola was almost replaced. Paramount maintains that its skepticism was due to a rocky start to production, though Coppola believes that the first week went extremely well. The studio thought that Coppola failed to stay on schedule, frequently made production and casting errors, and insisted on unnecessary expenses, and two producers unsuccessfully tried to convince another filmmaker to take Coppola's place. The producers scapegoated the other filmmaker when their attempt to fire Coppola became known. Because the producers told him that the other filmmaker had attempted a coup, Coppola says he was shadowed by a replacement director, who was ready to take over if Coppola was fired. Despite such intense pressure, he managed to defend his decisions and avoid being replaced.
Paramount was in financial trouble at the time of production and was desperate for a "big hit" to boost business, hence the pressure Coppola faced during filming. They wanted The Godfather to appeal to a wide audience and threatened Coppola with a "violence coach" to make the film more exciting. Coppola added a few more violent scenes to keep the studio happy. The scene in which Connie breaks dishes after finding out that her husband is cheating was added for this reason.
Casting
Coppola's casting choices were unpopular with studio executives at Paramount Pictures, particularly Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone. Coppola's first two choices for the role were both Brando and Laurence Olivier, but Olivier's agent refused the role, saying, "Lord Olivier is not taking any jobs. He's very sick. He's gonna die soon and he's not interested" (Olivier lived 18 years after the refusal). Paramount, which wanted Ernest Borgnine, originally refused to allow Coppola to cast Brando in the role, citing difficulties Brando had on recent film sets. One studio executive proposed Danny Thomas for the role citing the fact that Don Corleone was a strong "family man." At one point, Coppola was told by the then-president of Paramount that "Marlon Brando will never appear in this motion picture". After pleading with the executives, Coppola was allowed to cast Brando only if he appeared in the film for much less salary than his previous films, perform a screen-test, and put up a bond saying that he would not cause a delay in the production (as he had done on previous film sets).Coppola chose Brando over Borgnine on the basis of his screen test, which also won over the Paramount leadership. Brando later won an Academy Award for his portrayal, which he refused to accept.
The studio originally wanted Robert Redford or Ryan O'Neal to play Michael Corleone, but Coppola wanted an unknown who looked like an Italian-American, whom he found in Al Pacino.Pacino was not well known at the time, having appeared in only two minor films, and the studio did not consider him right for the part,[10] in part because of his height. Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, Warren Beatty, Martin Sheen, and James Caan also auditioned.At one point, Caan was the first choice to play Michael, while Carmine Caridi was signed as elder brother Sonny. Pacino was given the role only after Coppola threatened to quit the production; Caan stated that Coppola envisioned Michael to be the Sicilian-looking one and Sonny was the Americanized version. The studio agreed to Pacino on the condition that Caan was cast as Sonny instead of Caridi, despite the former's Jewish heritage and the latter closely matching the character in the novel (a six-foot-four, black-haired Italian-American bull). Coppola and Puzo would subsequently create a role for Caridi in the sequels.
Bruce Dern, Paul Newman, and Steve McQueen were considered for the role of Tom Hagen that eventually went to Robert Duvall. Sylvester Stallone auditioned for Carlo Rizzi and Paulie Gatto, Anthony Perkins for Sonny, and Mia Farrow auditioned for Kay. William Devane was seen for the role of Moe Greene. Mario Adorf was approached for a role as well. A then-unknown Robert De Niro auditioned for the roles of Michael, Sonny, Carlo, and Paulie. He was cast as Paulie, but Coppola arranged a "trade" with The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight to get Al Pacino from that film. De Niro later played the young Vito Corleone in Part II, winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for the role.
Director Stanley Kubrick believed that The Godfather was possibly the greatest movie ever made, and had without question the best cast.
Differences from the Novel
The novel and film differ on the fates of Michael's bodyguards in Sicily, Fabrizio and Calo. The film has them both surviving (Calo, in fact, appears in the third installment). In the book, however, it is stated that Calo dies along with Apollonia in the car explosion, and Fabrizio, implicated as an accomplice in the bombing, is shot and killed as one more victim in the famous "baptism scene" after he is tracked down running a pizza parlor in Buffalo. Fabrizio's murder was deleted from the film but publicity photos of the scene exist.(He is later killed in a completely different scene in The Godfather Saga which was deleted from The Godfather Part II.)
The Godfather won the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Writing (adapted screenplay) for Francis Coppola and Mario Puzo, and Best Actor in a Leading Role for Marlon Brando, who declined to collect the award and sent Native American actress Sacheen Littlefeather to the Oscars in his place to explain his reasons.The film had been nominated for eight other Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor for Al Pacino, James Caan, and Robert Duvall, Best Director, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, and Best Sound Mixing. The film also had a Best Original Score nomination but was disqualified when found out that Nino Rota used another score. Despite having three nominees of Best Supporting Actor award, they all lost to Joel Grey in Cabaret. It also lost the Best Director, Best Sound Mixing and Best Film Editing to Cabaret.
propelas's rating:
827
8.1
8
Director:Robert Aldrich
Starring:Bette Davis,Joan Crawford,Victor Buono
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is a 1962 American psychological thriller film. The screenplay by Lukas Heller is based on the novel of the same name by Henry Farrell. In 2003, the character of Baby Jane Hudson was ranked #44 on the American Film Institute's list of the 50 Best Villains of American Cinema.
The small role of the neighbor's daughter was played by Davis' daughter B.D. Merrill who, following in the footsteps of Crawford's daughter Christina, later wrote a memoir that depicted her mother in a very unfavorable light.
Before, during and after the film's making and release, there was heavy fighting between Davis and Crawford, which included Davis actually kicking Crawford in the head (she went for small stitches) and Crawford putting weights in her clothes for the scene of Jane's dragging Blanche (Davis got muscular backache as a result.Not even director Aldrich could stop the fighting, which escalated in the coming months. At Oscar time, Crawford was infuriated when Davis was nominated for an Oscar and she was overlooked. She contacted the Best Actress nominees who were unable to attend the ceremonies and offered to accept the award on their behalf should they win. When Anne Bancroft was declared the winner for The Miracle Worker, Crawford triumphantly pushed her way past Davis saying "Step aside!", and swept onstage to pick up the trophy. Davis later commented, "It would have meant a million more dollars to our film if I had won. Joan was thrilled I hadn't."
Academy Award for Best Actress (Bette Davis, nominee)
Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Victor Buono, nominee)
Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Black and White (winner)
Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Black and White (nominee)
Academy Award for Best Sound (nominee)
Starring:Bette Davis,Joan Crawford,Victor Buono
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is a 1962 American psychological thriller film. The screenplay by Lukas Heller is based on the novel of the same name by Henry Farrell. In 2003, the character of Baby Jane Hudson was ranked #44 on the American Film Institute's list of the 50 Best Villains of American Cinema.
The small role of the neighbor's daughter was played by Davis' daughter B.D. Merrill who, following in the footsteps of Crawford's daughter Christina, later wrote a memoir that depicted her mother in a very unfavorable light.
Before, during and after the film's making and release, there was heavy fighting between Davis and Crawford, which included Davis actually kicking Crawford in the head (she went for small stitches) and Crawford putting weights in her clothes for the scene of Jane's dragging Blanche (Davis got muscular backache as a result.Not even director Aldrich could stop the fighting, which escalated in the coming months. At Oscar time, Crawford was infuriated when Davis was nominated for an Oscar and she was overlooked. She contacted the Best Actress nominees who were unable to attend the ceremonies and offered to accept the award on their behalf should they win. When Anne Bancroft was declared the winner for The Miracle Worker, Crawford triumphantly pushed her way past Davis saying "Step aside!", and swept onstage to pick up the trophy. Davis later commented, "It would have meant a million more dollars to our film if I had won. Joan was thrilled I hadn't."
Academy Award for Best Actress (Bette Davis, nominee)
Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Victor Buono, nominee)
Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Black and White (winner)
Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Black and White (nominee)
Academy Award for Best Sound (nominee)
propelas's rating:
871
8.2
7.8
Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972)
Director:Werner Herzog
Starring:Klaus Kinski,Helena Rojo,Ruy Guerra
Aguirre, the Wrath of God (German: Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes) is a 1972 West German adventure film written and directed by Werner Herzog.
The idea for the film began when Herzog borrowed a book on historical adventurers from a friend. After reading a half page devoted to Lope de Aguirre, the filmmaker became inspired and immediately devised the story. He fabricated most of the plot details and characters, although he did use some historical figures in purely fictitious ways.
Herzog and Kinski
Herzog's first choice for the role of Aguirre was actor Klaus Kinski. The two had met many years before when the then-struggling young actor rented a room in Herzogâs family apartment, and the boarderâs often terrifying and deranged antics during the three months he lived there left a lasting impression on the director. Years later, Herzog remembered the volatile actor and knew that he was the only possible man who could play the mad Aguirre, and he sent Kinski a copy of the screenplay. "Between three and four in the morning, the phone rang," Herzog recalled. "It took me at least a couple of minutes before I realized that it was Kinski who was the source of this inarticulate screaming. And after an hour of this, it dawned on me that he found it the most fascinating screenplay and wanted to be Aguirre."
From the beginning of the production, Herzog and Kinski argued about the proper manner to portray Aguirre. Kinski wanted to play a "wild, ranting madman", but Herzog wanted something "quieter, more menacing". In order to get the performance he desired, before each shot Herzog would deliberately infuriate Kinski. After waiting for the hot-tempered actor's inevitable tantrum to "burn itself out", Herzog would then roll the camera.
On one occasion, irritated by the noise from a hut where cast and crew were playing cards, the explosive Kinski fired three gunshots at it, blowing the top joint off one extra's finger.Subsequently, Kinski started leaving the jungle location (over Herzog's refusal to fire a sound assistant), only changing his mind after Herzog threatened to shoot first Kinski and then himself. The latter incident has given rise to the legend that Herzog made Kinski act for him at gunpoint. However, Herzog has repeatedly debunked the claim during interviews, explaining he only verbally threatened Kinski in the heat of the moment, in a desperate attempt to keep him from leaving the set.The famous incident is parodied in Incident at Loch Ness, which Herzog co-wrote.
Filming
The camera used to shoot the film was stolen by Herzog from the Munich Film School.Years later, Herzog recalled:
"It was a very simple 35mm camera, one I used on many other films, so I do not consider it a theft. For me, it was truly a necessity. I wanted to make films and needed a camera. I had some sort of natural right to this tool. If you need air to breathe, and you are locked in a room, you have to take a chisel and hammer and break down a wall. It is your absolute right."
To obtain the monkeys used in the climactic sequence, Herzog paid several locals to trap 400 monkeys; he paid them half in advance and was to pay the other half upon receipt. The trappers sold the monkeys to someone in Los Angeles or Miami, and Herzog came to the airport just as the monkeys were being loaded to be shipped out of the country. He pretended to be a veterinarian and claimed that the monkeys needed vaccinations before leaving the country. Abashed, the handlers unloaded the monkeys, and Herzog loaded them into his jeep and drove away, used them in the shot they were required for, and released them afterwards into the jungle.
Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film Apocalypse Now, a film based on Joseph Conrad's 1902 novella Heart of Darkness, was influenced also by Aguirre, as it contains seemingly deliberate visual "quotations" of Herzog's film.Coppola himself has noted, "Aguirre, with its incredible imagery, was a very strong influence. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it."
Several critics have noted that Aguirre appears to have had a direct influence on several other films. Martin Rubin has written that "[a]mong the films strongly influenced by Aguirre are Coppolaâs Apocalypse Now and Terrence Malick's The New World (2005)".J. Hoberman agreed, noting that Herzogâs "sui generis Amazon fever dreamâ was âthe influence Malick's over-inflated New World can't shake."Channel 4 opined "This is an astonishing, deceptively simple, pocket-sized epic whose influence, in terms of both style and narrative, is seen in films as diverse as Apocalypse Now, The Mission, Predator, and The Blair Witch Project (1999)."
Starring:Klaus Kinski,Helena Rojo,Ruy Guerra
Aguirre, the Wrath of God (German: Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes) is a 1972 West German adventure film written and directed by Werner Herzog.
The idea for the film began when Herzog borrowed a book on historical adventurers from a friend. After reading a half page devoted to Lope de Aguirre, the filmmaker became inspired and immediately devised the story. He fabricated most of the plot details and characters, although he did use some historical figures in purely fictitious ways.
Herzog and Kinski
Herzog's first choice for the role of Aguirre was actor Klaus Kinski. The two had met many years before when the then-struggling young actor rented a room in Herzogâs family apartment, and the boarderâs often terrifying and deranged antics during the three months he lived there left a lasting impression on the director. Years later, Herzog remembered the volatile actor and knew that he was the only possible man who could play the mad Aguirre, and he sent Kinski a copy of the screenplay. "Between three and four in the morning, the phone rang," Herzog recalled. "It took me at least a couple of minutes before I realized that it was Kinski who was the source of this inarticulate screaming. And after an hour of this, it dawned on me that he found it the most fascinating screenplay and wanted to be Aguirre."
From the beginning of the production, Herzog and Kinski argued about the proper manner to portray Aguirre. Kinski wanted to play a "wild, ranting madman", but Herzog wanted something "quieter, more menacing". In order to get the performance he desired, before each shot Herzog would deliberately infuriate Kinski. After waiting for the hot-tempered actor's inevitable tantrum to "burn itself out", Herzog would then roll the camera.
On one occasion, irritated by the noise from a hut where cast and crew were playing cards, the explosive Kinski fired three gunshots at it, blowing the top joint off one extra's finger.Subsequently, Kinski started leaving the jungle location (over Herzog's refusal to fire a sound assistant), only changing his mind after Herzog threatened to shoot first Kinski and then himself. The latter incident has given rise to the legend that Herzog made Kinski act for him at gunpoint. However, Herzog has repeatedly debunked the claim during interviews, explaining he only verbally threatened Kinski in the heat of the moment, in a desperate attempt to keep him from leaving the set.The famous incident is parodied in Incident at Loch Ness, which Herzog co-wrote.
Filming
The camera used to shoot the film was stolen by Herzog from the Munich Film School.Years later, Herzog recalled:
"It was a very simple 35mm camera, one I used on many other films, so I do not consider it a theft. For me, it was truly a necessity. I wanted to make films and needed a camera. I had some sort of natural right to this tool. If you need air to breathe, and you are locked in a room, you have to take a chisel and hammer and break down a wall. It is your absolute right."
To obtain the monkeys used in the climactic sequence, Herzog paid several locals to trap 400 monkeys; he paid them half in advance and was to pay the other half upon receipt. The trappers sold the monkeys to someone in Los Angeles or Miami, and Herzog came to the airport just as the monkeys were being loaded to be shipped out of the country. He pretended to be a veterinarian and claimed that the monkeys needed vaccinations before leaving the country. Abashed, the handlers unloaded the monkeys, and Herzog loaded them into his jeep and drove away, used them in the shot they were required for, and released them afterwards into the jungle.
Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film Apocalypse Now, a film based on Joseph Conrad's 1902 novella Heart of Darkness, was influenced also by Aguirre, as it contains seemingly deliberate visual "quotations" of Herzog's film.Coppola himself has noted, "Aguirre, with its incredible imagery, was a very strong influence. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it."
Several critics have noted that Aguirre appears to have had a direct influence on several other films. Martin Rubin has written that "[a]mong the films strongly influenced by Aguirre are Coppolaâs Apocalypse Now and Terrence Malick's The New World (2005)".J. Hoberman agreed, noting that Herzogâs "sui generis Amazon fever dreamâ was âthe influence Malick's over-inflated New World can't shake."Channel 4 opined "This is an astonishing, deceptively simple, pocket-sized epic whose influence, in terms of both style and narrative, is seen in films as diverse as Apocalypse Now, The Mission, Predator, and The Blair Witch Project (1999)."
propelas's rating:
323
6.7
6.5
Director:William Friedkin
Starring:Al Pacino,Paul Sorvino,Karen Allen
Cruising is a 1980 film directed by William Friedkin and starring Al Pacino. The film is loosely based on the novel, by New York Times reporter Gerald Walker, about a 1970s New York City serial killer targeting gay men, in particular those associated with the S&M scene.
Poorly reviewed by critics, Cruising was a modest financial success, though the filming and promotion were dogged by gay rights protesters. The title is a play on words between 'cruising' in the sense of patrolling and 'cruising' in the sexual sense, used particularly by gay men.
Philip D'Antoni, who had produced Friedkin's 1971 film The French Connection, approached Friedkin with the idea of directing a film based on New York Times reporter Gerald Walker's 1970 novel Cruising, about a serial killer targeting New York City's gay community. Friedkin was not particularly interested in the project. D'Antino tried to attach Steven Spielberg, but they were not able to interest a studio. A few years later Jerry Weintraub brought the idea back to Friedkin, who was still not interested. Friedkin changed his mind following a series of unsolved killings in gay leather bars in the early 1970s and the articles written about the murders by Village Voice journalist Arthur Bell. Friedkin also knew a police officer named Randy Jurgenson who had gone into the same sort of deep cover that Pacino's Steve Burns did to investigate an earlier series of gay murders, and Paul Bateson, a doctor's assistant who had appeared in Friedkin's 1973 film The Exorcist, who had confessed to some of those murders. All of these factors gave Friedkin the angle he wanted to pursue in making the film.Jurgenson and Bateson served as film consultants, as did Sonny Grosso, who had earlier consulted with Friedkin on The French Connection. Jurgenson and Grosso appear in bit parts in the film.
In his research, Friedkin worked with members of the Mafia, who at the time owned many of the city's gay bars.
Al Pacino was not Friedkin's first choice for the lead; Richard Gere had expressed a strong interest in the part, and Friedkin had opened negotiations with Gere's agent. Gere was Friedkin's choice because he believed that Gere would bring an androgynous quality to the role that Pacino could not.
The Motion Picture Association of America originally gave Cruising an X rating. Friedkin claims he took the film before the MPAA board "50 times" at a cost of $50,000 and deleted 40 minutes of footage from the original cut before he secured an R rating.
The deleted footage, according to Friedkin, consisted entirely of footage from the clubs in which portions of the film were shot and consisted of "[a]bsolutely graphic sexuality....that material showed the most graphic homosexuality with Pacino watching, and with the intimation that he may have been participating."
In some discussions, Friedkin claims that the missing 40 minutes had no effect on the story or the characterizations,but in others he states that the footage created "mysterious twists and turns (which [the film] no longer takes)", that the suspicion that Pacino's character may have himself become a killer was made more clear and that the missing footage simultaneously made the film both more and less ambiguous. When Friedkin sought to restore the missing footage for the film's DVD release, he discovered that United Artists no longer had it. He believes that UA destroyed the footage. Some obscured sexual activity remains visible in the film as released, and Friedkin intercut a few frames of gay pornography into the first scene in which a murder is depicted.
This movie represents the only film soundtrack work by the seminal Los Angeles punk rock band The Germs. They recorded a number of songs for the film, of which only one, "Lion's Share" appeared.
Friedkin asked noted gay author John Rechy, some of whose works were set in the same milieu as the film, to screen Cruising just before its release. Rechy had written an essay defending Friedkin's right to make the film, although not the film itself. At Rechy's suggestion, Friedkin deleted a scene showing the Gay Liberation slogan "We Are Everywhere" as graffiti on a wall just before the first body part is pulled from the river, and added a disclaimer:
This film is not intended as an indictment of the homosexual world. It is set in one small segment of that world, which is not meant to be representative of the whole.
Friedkin later claimed that it was the MPAA and United Artists that required the disclaimer, calling it "part of the dark bargain that was made to get the film released at all" and "a sop to organised gay rights groups".Friedkin claimed that no one involved in making the film thought it would be considered as representative of the entire gay community, but gay film historian Vito Russo disputes that, citing the disclaimer as "an admission of guilt. What director would make such a statement if he truly believed that his film would not be taken to be representative of the whole?"
Throughout the summer of 1979, members of New York's gay community protested the production of the film. Gay people were urged to disrupt filming, and gay-owned businesses to bar the filmmakers from their premises. People attempted to interfere with shooting by pointing mirrors from rooftops to ruin lighting for scenes, blasting whistles and air horns near locations, and playing loud music. One thousand protesters marched through the East Village demanding the city withdraw support for the film.
Al Pacino said that he understood the protests but insisted that upon reading the screenplay he never at any point felt that the film was anti-gay. He said that the leather bars were "just a fragment of the gay community, the same way the Mafia is a fragment of Italian-American life [referring to The Godfather]" and that he would "never want to do anything to harm the gay community".
Awards and nominations
1st Golden Raspberry Award
Nominated:Worst Picture
Starring:Al Pacino,Paul Sorvino,Karen Allen
Cruising is a 1980 film directed by William Friedkin and starring Al Pacino. The film is loosely based on the novel, by New York Times reporter Gerald Walker, about a 1970s New York City serial killer targeting gay men, in particular those associated with the S&M scene.
Poorly reviewed by critics, Cruising was a modest financial success, though the filming and promotion were dogged by gay rights protesters. The title is a play on words between 'cruising' in the sense of patrolling and 'cruising' in the sexual sense, used particularly by gay men.
Philip D'Antoni, who had produced Friedkin's 1971 film The French Connection, approached Friedkin with the idea of directing a film based on New York Times reporter Gerald Walker's 1970 novel Cruising, about a serial killer targeting New York City's gay community. Friedkin was not particularly interested in the project. D'Antino tried to attach Steven Spielberg, but they were not able to interest a studio. A few years later Jerry Weintraub brought the idea back to Friedkin, who was still not interested. Friedkin changed his mind following a series of unsolved killings in gay leather bars in the early 1970s and the articles written about the murders by Village Voice journalist Arthur Bell. Friedkin also knew a police officer named Randy Jurgenson who had gone into the same sort of deep cover that Pacino's Steve Burns did to investigate an earlier series of gay murders, and Paul Bateson, a doctor's assistant who had appeared in Friedkin's 1973 film The Exorcist, who had confessed to some of those murders. All of these factors gave Friedkin the angle he wanted to pursue in making the film.Jurgenson and Bateson served as film consultants, as did Sonny Grosso, who had earlier consulted with Friedkin on The French Connection. Jurgenson and Grosso appear in bit parts in the film.
In his research, Friedkin worked with members of the Mafia, who at the time owned many of the city's gay bars.
Al Pacino was not Friedkin's first choice for the lead; Richard Gere had expressed a strong interest in the part, and Friedkin had opened negotiations with Gere's agent. Gere was Friedkin's choice because he believed that Gere would bring an androgynous quality to the role that Pacino could not.
The Motion Picture Association of America originally gave Cruising an X rating. Friedkin claims he took the film before the MPAA board "50 times" at a cost of $50,000 and deleted 40 minutes of footage from the original cut before he secured an R rating.
The deleted footage, according to Friedkin, consisted entirely of footage from the clubs in which portions of the film were shot and consisted of "[a]bsolutely graphic sexuality....that material showed the most graphic homosexuality with Pacino watching, and with the intimation that he may have been participating."
In some discussions, Friedkin claims that the missing 40 minutes had no effect on the story or the characterizations,but in others he states that the footage created "mysterious twists and turns (which [the film] no longer takes)", that the suspicion that Pacino's character may have himself become a killer was made more clear and that the missing footage simultaneously made the film both more and less ambiguous. When Friedkin sought to restore the missing footage for the film's DVD release, he discovered that United Artists no longer had it. He believes that UA destroyed the footage. Some obscured sexual activity remains visible in the film as released, and Friedkin intercut a few frames of gay pornography into the first scene in which a murder is depicted.
This movie represents the only film soundtrack work by the seminal Los Angeles punk rock band The Germs. They recorded a number of songs for the film, of which only one, "Lion's Share" appeared.
Friedkin asked noted gay author John Rechy, some of whose works were set in the same milieu as the film, to screen Cruising just before its release. Rechy had written an essay defending Friedkin's right to make the film, although not the film itself. At Rechy's suggestion, Friedkin deleted a scene showing the Gay Liberation slogan "We Are Everywhere" as graffiti on a wall just before the first body part is pulled from the river, and added a disclaimer:
This film is not intended as an indictment of the homosexual world. It is set in one small segment of that world, which is not meant to be representative of the whole.
Friedkin later claimed that it was the MPAA and United Artists that required the disclaimer, calling it "part of the dark bargain that was made to get the film released at all" and "a sop to organised gay rights groups".Friedkin claimed that no one involved in making the film thought it would be considered as representative of the entire gay community, but gay film historian Vito Russo disputes that, citing the disclaimer as "an admission of guilt. What director would make such a statement if he truly believed that his film would not be taken to be representative of the whole?"
Throughout the summer of 1979, members of New York's gay community protested the production of the film. Gay people were urged to disrupt filming, and gay-owned businesses to bar the filmmakers from their premises. People attempted to interfere with shooting by pointing mirrors from rooftops to ruin lighting for scenes, blasting whistles and air horns near locations, and playing loud music. One thousand protesters marched through the East Village demanding the city withdraw support for the film.
Al Pacino said that he understood the protests but insisted that upon reading the screenplay he never at any point felt that the film was anti-gay. He said that the leather bars were "just a fragment of the gay community, the same way the Mafia is a fragment of Italian-American life [referring to The Godfather]" and that he would "never want to do anything to harm the gay community".
Awards and nominations
1st Golden Raspberry Award
Nominated:Worst Picture
propelas's rating:
2862
8.3
8.3
Director:Alfred Hitchcock
Starring:James Stewart,Kim Novak,Barbara Bel Geddes
Vertigo (1958) is a psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Barbara Bel Geddes. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor, based on the 1954 novel D'entre les morts by Boileau-Narcejac.
It is the story of a retired police detective suffering from acrophobia who is hired as a private investigator to follow the wife of an acquaintance to uncover the mystery of her peculiar behavior.
The screenplay is an adaptation of the French novel The Living and the Dead (D'entre les morts) by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. Hitchcock had previously tried to buy the rights to the same authors' previous novel, Celle qui n'était plus, but he failed, and it was made instead by Henri-Georges Clouzot as Les Diaboliques.Although François Truffaut once suggested that D'Entre les morts was specifically written for Hitchcock by Boileau and Narcejac, Narcejac subsequently denied that this was their intention. However, Hitchcock's interest in their work meant that Paramount Pictures commissioned a synopsis of D'Entre les morts in 1954, before it had even been translated into English.
Hitchcock originally hired playwright Maxwell Anderson to write a screenplay, but rejected his work, which was entitled Darkling I Listen. The final script was written by Samuel A. Taylor â who was recommended to Hitchcock due to his knowledge of San Francisco from notes by Hitchcock. Among Taylor's creations was the character of Midge.Taylor attempted to take sole credit for the screenplay, but Alec Coppel â the other screenplay writer hired by Hitchcock â protested to the Screen Writers Guild, which determined that both writers were entitled to a credit.
When actress Vera Miles, who was under personal contract to Hitchcock and had appeared on both his television show and in his film The Wrong Man, could not act in Vertigo owing to her pregnancy, the director declined to postpone shooting and cast Kim Novak as the female lead. Ironically, by the time Novak had tied up prior film commitments and a vacation promised by Columbia Pictures, the studio that held her contract, Miles had given birth and was available for the film. Hitchcock proceeded with Novak, nevertheless. Columbia head Harry Cohn agreed to lend Novak to Vertigo if Stewart would agree to co-star with Novak in Bell, Book and Candle, a Columbia production released in December 1958.
According to Herbert Coleman, Vertigo's associate producer and a frequent collaborator with Hitchcock, the director decided at the eleventh hour to remove Kim Novak's pivotal flashback sequence from the finished film, a significant re-edit which left the twist unrevealed until the very end. Hitchcock's decision was supported by Joan Harrison, another filmmaking associate, but eventually overturned by pressure from Paramount.
Vertigo premiered in San Francisco on May 9, 1958 at the Stage Door Theater at Mason and Geary (now the Ruby Skye nightclub). Its performance at the box office was average, and reviews were mixed. Variety said the film showed Hitchcock's "mastery", but was too long and slow for "what is basically only a psychological murder mystery".Similarly, the Los Angeles Times admired the scenery, but found the plot "too long" and felt it "bogs down" in "a maze of detail"; scholar Dan Aulier says that this review "sounded the tone that most popular critics would take with the film". However, the Los Angeles Examiner loved it, admiring the "excitement, action, romance, glamor and [the] crazy, off-beat love story".As well, New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther also gave Vertigo a positive review by explaining that "[the] secret [of the film] is so clever, even though it is devilishly far-fetched."
Additional reasons for the mixed response initially were that Hitchcock fans were not pleased with his departure from the romantic-thriller territory of earlier films and that the mystery was solved with one-third of the film left to go.
In an interview with François Truffaut, Hitchcock stated that Vertigo was one of his favorite films, with some reservations.Hitchcock blamed the film's failure on Stewart, at age 50, looking too old to play a convincing love interest for Kim Novak, who at 25 was half his age at the time.
In the 1950s, the French Cahiers du cinéma critics began re-evaluating Hitchcock as a serious artist rather than just a populist showman. However, even François Truffaut's important 1962 interviews with Hitchcock (not published in English until 1967) mentions Vertigo only in passing. Dan Aulier has suggested that the real beginning of Vertigo's rise in adulation was the British-Canadian scholar Robin Wood's Hitchcock's Films (1968), which calls the film "Hitchcock's masterpiece to date and one of the four or five most profound and beautiful films the cinema has yet given us".Adding to its mystique was the fact that Vertigo was one of five films owned by Hitchcock which was removed from circulation in 1973. When Vertigo was re-released in theaters in October 1983, and then on home video in October 1984, it achieved an impressive commercial success and laudatory reviews.Similarly adulatory reviews were written for the October 1996 showing of a restored print in 70mm and DTS sound at the Castro Theater in San Francisco.
In 1989, Vertigo was recognized as a "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant" film by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in the first year of the registry's voting.
The film ranked 4th and 2nd respectively in Sight and Sound's 1992 and 2002 critic polls of the best films ever made.In 2005, Vertigo came in second (to Goodfellas) in British magazine Total Film's book 100 Greatest Movies of All Time.
The film was nominated for Academy Awards in two technical categories:Best Art Direction - Black-and-White or Color (Hal Pereira, Henry Bumstead, Samuel M. Comer, Frank McKelvy) and Best Sound (George Dutton).
Starring:James Stewart,Kim Novak,Barbara Bel Geddes
Vertigo (1958) is a psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Barbara Bel Geddes. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor, based on the 1954 novel D'entre les morts by Boileau-Narcejac.
It is the story of a retired police detective suffering from acrophobia who is hired as a private investigator to follow the wife of an acquaintance to uncover the mystery of her peculiar behavior.
The screenplay is an adaptation of the French novel The Living and the Dead (D'entre les morts) by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. Hitchcock had previously tried to buy the rights to the same authors' previous novel, Celle qui n'était plus, but he failed, and it was made instead by Henri-Georges Clouzot as Les Diaboliques.Although François Truffaut once suggested that D'Entre les morts was specifically written for Hitchcock by Boileau and Narcejac, Narcejac subsequently denied that this was their intention. However, Hitchcock's interest in their work meant that Paramount Pictures commissioned a synopsis of D'Entre les morts in 1954, before it had even been translated into English.
Hitchcock originally hired playwright Maxwell Anderson to write a screenplay, but rejected his work, which was entitled Darkling I Listen. The final script was written by Samuel A. Taylor â who was recommended to Hitchcock due to his knowledge of San Francisco from notes by Hitchcock. Among Taylor's creations was the character of Midge.Taylor attempted to take sole credit for the screenplay, but Alec Coppel â the other screenplay writer hired by Hitchcock â protested to the Screen Writers Guild, which determined that both writers were entitled to a credit.
When actress Vera Miles, who was under personal contract to Hitchcock and had appeared on both his television show and in his film The Wrong Man, could not act in Vertigo owing to her pregnancy, the director declined to postpone shooting and cast Kim Novak as the female lead. Ironically, by the time Novak had tied up prior film commitments and a vacation promised by Columbia Pictures, the studio that held her contract, Miles had given birth and was available for the film. Hitchcock proceeded with Novak, nevertheless. Columbia head Harry Cohn agreed to lend Novak to Vertigo if Stewart would agree to co-star with Novak in Bell, Book and Candle, a Columbia production released in December 1958.
According to Herbert Coleman, Vertigo's associate producer and a frequent collaborator with Hitchcock, the director decided at the eleventh hour to remove Kim Novak's pivotal flashback sequence from the finished film, a significant re-edit which left the twist unrevealed until the very end. Hitchcock's decision was supported by Joan Harrison, another filmmaking associate, but eventually overturned by pressure from Paramount.
Vertigo premiered in San Francisco on May 9, 1958 at the Stage Door Theater at Mason and Geary (now the Ruby Skye nightclub). Its performance at the box office was average, and reviews were mixed. Variety said the film showed Hitchcock's "mastery", but was too long and slow for "what is basically only a psychological murder mystery".Similarly, the Los Angeles Times admired the scenery, but found the plot "too long" and felt it "bogs down" in "a maze of detail"; scholar Dan Aulier says that this review "sounded the tone that most popular critics would take with the film". However, the Los Angeles Examiner loved it, admiring the "excitement, action, romance, glamor and [the] crazy, off-beat love story".As well, New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther also gave Vertigo a positive review by explaining that "[the] secret [of the film] is so clever, even though it is devilishly far-fetched."
Additional reasons for the mixed response initially were that Hitchcock fans were not pleased with his departure from the romantic-thriller territory of earlier films and that the mystery was solved with one-third of the film left to go.
In an interview with François Truffaut, Hitchcock stated that Vertigo was one of his favorite films, with some reservations.Hitchcock blamed the film's failure on Stewart, at age 50, looking too old to play a convincing love interest for Kim Novak, who at 25 was half his age at the time.
In the 1950s, the French Cahiers du cinéma critics began re-evaluating Hitchcock as a serious artist rather than just a populist showman. However, even François Truffaut's important 1962 interviews with Hitchcock (not published in English until 1967) mentions Vertigo only in passing. Dan Aulier has suggested that the real beginning of Vertigo's rise in adulation was the British-Canadian scholar Robin Wood's Hitchcock's Films (1968), which calls the film "Hitchcock's masterpiece to date and one of the four or five most profound and beautiful films the cinema has yet given us".Adding to its mystique was the fact that Vertigo was one of five films owned by Hitchcock which was removed from circulation in 1973. When Vertigo was re-released in theaters in October 1983, and then on home video in October 1984, it achieved an impressive commercial success and laudatory reviews.Similarly adulatory reviews were written for the October 1996 showing of a restored print in 70mm and DTS sound at the Castro Theater in San Francisco.
In 1989, Vertigo was recognized as a "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant" film by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in the first year of the registry's voting.
The film ranked 4th and 2nd respectively in Sight and Sound's 1992 and 2002 critic polls of the best films ever made.In 2005, Vertigo came in second (to Goodfellas) in British magazine Total Film's book 100 Greatest Movies of All Time.
The film was nominated for Academy Awards in two technical categories:Best Art Direction - Black-and-White or Color (Hal Pereira, Henry Bumstead, Samuel M. Comer, Frank McKelvy) and Best Sound (George Dutton).
propelas's rating:
1520
8.5
8.3
M (1931)
Director:Fritz Lang
Starring:Peter Lorre,Otto Wernicke,Gustaf GrĂŒndgens
M (German: M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder) is a 1931 German drama-thriller directed by Fritz Lang and written by Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou. It was Lang's first sound film, although he had directed more than a dozen films previously.
The film has become a classic which Lang himself considered his finest work.
Cast
Peter Lorre as Hans Beckert. M was Lorre's first major starring role, and it boosted his career, even though he was typecast as a villain for years after in films such as Mad Love and the film adaptation of Crime and Punishment. Before M, Lorre was mostly a comedic actor. After fleeing from the Nazis, he landed a major role in Alfred Hitchcock's first version of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), picking up English along the way.
Otto Wernicke as Inspector Karl Lohmann. Wernicke made his breakthrough with M after playing many small roles in silent films for over a decade. After his part in M, he was in great demand due to the success of the film, including returning to the role of Karl Lohmann in The Testament of Doctor Mabuse, and he played supporting roles for the rest of his career.
Gustaf GrĂŒndgens as Der SchrĂ€nker. GrĂŒndgens received acclaim for his role in the film and established a successful career for himself under Nazi rule, ultimately becoming director of the "Staatliches Schauspielhaus".
Production
M is supposedly based on the real-life case of serial killer Peter KĂŒrten, the "Vampire of DĂŒsseldorf", whose crimes took place in the 1920s,although Lang denied that he drew from this case."At the time I decided to use the subject matter of M there were many serial killers terrorizing Germany â Haarmann, Grossmann, KĂŒrten, Denke," Lang told film historian Gero Gandert in a 1963 interview.
Lorre's character whistles the tune "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No. 1. However, Peter Lorre himself could not whistle â it is actually Lang who is heard.The film was one of the first to use a leitmotif, associating "In the Hall of the Mountain King" with the Lorre character. Later in the film, the mere sound of the song lets the audience know that he is nearby, off-screen. This association of a musical theme with a particular character or situation, a technique borrowed from opera, is now a film staple.
As with many other early talkies from the years 1930â1931, M was partially refilmed with actors (including Lorre) performing dialogue in other languages for foreign markets after the German original was completed, apparently without Lang's involvement. A complete print of the English version and selected scenes from the French version were included in 2010 Criterion Collection releases of the film.
Starring:Peter Lorre,Otto Wernicke,Gustaf GrĂŒndgens
M (German: M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder) is a 1931 German drama-thriller directed by Fritz Lang and written by Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou. It was Lang's first sound film, although he had directed more than a dozen films previously.
The film has become a classic which Lang himself considered his finest work.
Cast
Peter Lorre as Hans Beckert. M was Lorre's first major starring role, and it boosted his career, even though he was typecast as a villain for years after in films such as Mad Love and the film adaptation of Crime and Punishment. Before M, Lorre was mostly a comedic actor. After fleeing from the Nazis, he landed a major role in Alfred Hitchcock's first version of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), picking up English along the way.
Otto Wernicke as Inspector Karl Lohmann. Wernicke made his breakthrough with M after playing many small roles in silent films for over a decade. After his part in M, he was in great demand due to the success of the film, including returning to the role of Karl Lohmann in The Testament of Doctor Mabuse, and he played supporting roles for the rest of his career.
Gustaf GrĂŒndgens as Der SchrĂ€nker. GrĂŒndgens received acclaim for his role in the film and established a successful career for himself under Nazi rule, ultimately becoming director of the "Staatliches Schauspielhaus".
Production
M is supposedly based on the real-life case of serial killer Peter KĂŒrten, the "Vampire of DĂŒsseldorf", whose crimes took place in the 1920s,although Lang denied that he drew from this case."At the time I decided to use the subject matter of M there were many serial killers terrorizing Germany â Haarmann, Grossmann, KĂŒrten, Denke," Lang told film historian Gero Gandert in a 1963 interview.
Lorre's character whistles the tune "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No. 1. However, Peter Lorre himself could not whistle â it is actually Lang who is heard.The film was one of the first to use a leitmotif, associating "In the Hall of the Mountain King" with the Lorre character. Later in the film, the mere sound of the song lets the audience know that he is nearby, off-screen. This association of a musical theme with a particular character or situation, a technique borrowed from opera, is now a film staple.
As with many other early talkies from the years 1930â1931, M was partially refilmed with actors (including Lorre) performing dialogue in other languages for foreign markets after the German original was completed, apparently without Lang's involvement. A complete print of the English version and selected scenes from the French version were included in 2010 Criterion Collection releases of the film.
propelas's rating:
2588
7.8
8
Director:Roman Polanski
Starring:Mia Farrow,John Cassavetes,Ruth Gordon
Rosemary's Baby is a 1968 American horror film written and directed by Roman Polanski, based on the bestselling 1967 novel by Ira Levin.
Script
In Rosemary's Baby: A Retrospective, a featurette on the DVD release of the film, screenwriter/director Roman Polanski, Paramount Pictures executive Robert Evans, and production designer Richard Sylbert reminisce at length about the production. Evans recalled William Castle brought him the galley proofs of the book and asked him to purchase the film rights even before Random House released the publication. The studio head recognized the commercial potential of the project and agreed with the stipulation that Castle, who had a reputation for low-budget horror films, could produce but not direct the film adaptation. He makes a cameo appearance as the man at the phone booth waiting for Mia Farrow to finish her call.
Evans admired Polanski's European films and hoped he could convince him to make his American debut with Rosemary's Baby. He knew the director was a ski buff who was anxious to make a film with the sport as its basis, so he sent him the script for Downhill Racer along with the galleys for Rosemary. Polanski read the latter book non-stop through the night and called Evans the following morning to tell him he thought Rosemary was the more interesting project, and would like the opportunity to write as well as direct it.
Polanski, having never before adapted a screenplay, was unaware that he was allowed to make changes from the source material, so the film was extremely faithful to the novel and including many lines of dialogue drawn directly from Levin's book. Author Ira Levin claimed that during a scene in which Guy mentions wanting to buy a particular shirt advertised in The New Yorker, Polanski was unable to find the specific issue with the shirt advertised and phoned Levin for help. Levin, who had assumed while writing that any given issue of The New Yorker would contain an ad for men's shirts, admitted that he had made it up.
Casting
Polanski envisioned Rosemary as a robust, full-figured, girl-next-door type, and he wanted Tuesday Weld or his own wife Sharon Tate for the role. Since the book had not reached bestseller status yet, Evans was unsure the title alone would guarantee an audience for the film, and he felt a bigger name was needed for the lead. Patty Duke was considered for the lead (and ironically, would play the role of Rosemary during a brief sequence at the beginning of the TV movie Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby (1976), in which Ruth Gordon was the only actor to reprise her role from the 1968 movie). With only a supporting role in Guns at Batasi (1964) and the then unreleased A Dandy in Aspic (1968) as her only feature film credits, Mia Farrow had an unproven box office track record, but her role as Allison MacKenzie in the popular television series Peyton Place and her unexpected marriage to Frank Sinatra had made her a household name.
Despite her waif-like appearance (which would ultimately prove beneficial, as Rosemary became more frail as her pregnancy progressed), Polanski agreed to cast her. Her acceptance incensed Sinatra, who had demanded she forgo her career when they wed, and he served her divorce papers via a corporate lawyer in front of the cast and crew midway through filming. In an effort to salvage her relationship, Farrow asked Evans to release her from her contract, but he persuaded her to remain with the project after showing her an hour-long rough cut and assuring her she would receive an Academy Award nomination for her performance.
Robert Redford was the first choice for the role of Guy Woodhouse, but he turned down the offer. Jack Nicholson was considered briefly before Polanski suggested John Cassavetes.
Sylbert was a good friend of Garson Kanin, who was married to Ruth Gordon, and he suggested her for the role of Minnie Castevet. He also suggested that The Dakota, an Upper West Side apartment building known for its show business tenants, be used for the Bramford. Its hallways were not as worn and dark as Polanski wanted, but when the building's owners would not allow interior filming, that became academic and it was used for exterior shots only.
Polanski wanted to cast Hollywood old-timers as the coven members but did not know any by name. He drew sketches of how he envisioned each character, and they were used to fill the roles. In every instance, the actor cast strongly resembled Polanski's drawing. They included Ralph Bellamy, Patsy Kelly, Elisha Cook, Jr., Phil Leeds, and Hope Summers.
When Rosemary calls Donald Baumgart, the actor who goes blind and is replaced by Guy, the voice heard is that of actor Tony Curtis. Farrow, who had not been told who would be reading Baumgart's lines, recognized the voice but could not place it. The slight confusion she displays throughout the call was exactly what Polanski hoped to capture by not revealing Curtis' identity in advance.
Filming
Sydney Guilaroff designed the wig worn by Mia Farrow in the film's early scenes. It was removed to reveal the Vidal Sassoon hairdo that made headlines when Farrow cut her trademark long hair during filming of Peyton Place.
One of Mia Farrow's more emotionally charged scenes occurs in the midst of a party, when several of Rosemary's female friends lock Guy out of the kitchen as they console her in private. The scene was shot in a single day. That morning, just before the first take was filmed, a private messenger served Farrow with formal divorce papers from Frank Sinatra. As she read the documents, Farrow fell to her knees on the kitchen floor and openly wept in front of the cast and crew. Roman Polanski insisted that the day be canceled and filming be postponed until the next day, when he would start consecutively filming as many scenes as possible that did not contain Rosemary. Farrow openly would not accept this, insisting that nothing had changed. The day's filming concluded on time and without delay.
When Farrow was reluctant to film a scene that depicted a dazed and preoccupied Rosemary wandering into the middle of a Manhattan street into oncoming traffic, Polanski pointed to her pregnancy padding and reassured her, "no one's going to hit a pregnant woman". The scene was successfully shot with Farrow walking into real traffic and Polanski following, operating the hand-held camera since he was the only one willing to do it.
Academy Awards
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (Ruth Gordon, winner)
Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (nominee)
Starring:Mia Farrow,John Cassavetes,Ruth Gordon
Rosemary's Baby is a 1968 American horror film written and directed by Roman Polanski, based on the bestselling 1967 novel by Ira Levin.
Script
In Rosemary's Baby: A Retrospective, a featurette on the DVD release of the film, screenwriter/director Roman Polanski, Paramount Pictures executive Robert Evans, and production designer Richard Sylbert reminisce at length about the production. Evans recalled William Castle brought him the galley proofs of the book and asked him to purchase the film rights even before Random House released the publication. The studio head recognized the commercial potential of the project and agreed with the stipulation that Castle, who had a reputation for low-budget horror films, could produce but not direct the film adaptation. He makes a cameo appearance as the man at the phone booth waiting for Mia Farrow to finish her call.
Evans admired Polanski's European films and hoped he could convince him to make his American debut with Rosemary's Baby. He knew the director was a ski buff who was anxious to make a film with the sport as its basis, so he sent him the script for Downhill Racer along with the galleys for Rosemary. Polanski read the latter book non-stop through the night and called Evans the following morning to tell him he thought Rosemary was the more interesting project, and would like the opportunity to write as well as direct it.
Polanski, having never before adapted a screenplay, was unaware that he was allowed to make changes from the source material, so the film was extremely faithful to the novel and including many lines of dialogue drawn directly from Levin's book. Author Ira Levin claimed that during a scene in which Guy mentions wanting to buy a particular shirt advertised in The New Yorker, Polanski was unable to find the specific issue with the shirt advertised and phoned Levin for help. Levin, who had assumed while writing that any given issue of The New Yorker would contain an ad for men's shirts, admitted that he had made it up.
Casting
Polanski envisioned Rosemary as a robust, full-figured, girl-next-door type, and he wanted Tuesday Weld or his own wife Sharon Tate for the role. Since the book had not reached bestseller status yet, Evans was unsure the title alone would guarantee an audience for the film, and he felt a bigger name was needed for the lead. Patty Duke was considered for the lead (and ironically, would play the role of Rosemary during a brief sequence at the beginning of the TV movie Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby (1976), in which Ruth Gordon was the only actor to reprise her role from the 1968 movie). With only a supporting role in Guns at Batasi (1964) and the then unreleased A Dandy in Aspic (1968) as her only feature film credits, Mia Farrow had an unproven box office track record, but her role as Allison MacKenzie in the popular television series Peyton Place and her unexpected marriage to Frank Sinatra had made her a household name.
Despite her waif-like appearance (which would ultimately prove beneficial, as Rosemary became more frail as her pregnancy progressed), Polanski agreed to cast her. Her acceptance incensed Sinatra, who had demanded she forgo her career when they wed, and he served her divorce papers via a corporate lawyer in front of the cast and crew midway through filming. In an effort to salvage her relationship, Farrow asked Evans to release her from her contract, but he persuaded her to remain with the project after showing her an hour-long rough cut and assuring her she would receive an Academy Award nomination for her performance.
Robert Redford was the first choice for the role of Guy Woodhouse, but he turned down the offer. Jack Nicholson was considered briefly before Polanski suggested John Cassavetes.
Sylbert was a good friend of Garson Kanin, who was married to Ruth Gordon, and he suggested her for the role of Minnie Castevet. He also suggested that The Dakota, an Upper West Side apartment building known for its show business tenants, be used for the Bramford. Its hallways were not as worn and dark as Polanski wanted, but when the building's owners would not allow interior filming, that became academic and it was used for exterior shots only.
Polanski wanted to cast Hollywood old-timers as the coven members but did not know any by name. He drew sketches of how he envisioned each character, and they were used to fill the roles. In every instance, the actor cast strongly resembled Polanski's drawing. They included Ralph Bellamy, Patsy Kelly, Elisha Cook, Jr., Phil Leeds, and Hope Summers.
When Rosemary calls Donald Baumgart, the actor who goes blind and is replaced by Guy, the voice heard is that of actor Tony Curtis. Farrow, who had not been told who would be reading Baumgart's lines, recognized the voice but could not place it. The slight confusion she displays throughout the call was exactly what Polanski hoped to capture by not revealing Curtis' identity in advance.
Filming
Sydney Guilaroff designed the wig worn by Mia Farrow in the film's early scenes. It was removed to reveal the Vidal Sassoon hairdo that made headlines when Farrow cut her trademark long hair during filming of Peyton Place.
One of Mia Farrow's more emotionally charged scenes occurs in the midst of a party, when several of Rosemary's female friends lock Guy out of the kitchen as they console her in private. The scene was shot in a single day. That morning, just before the first take was filmed, a private messenger served Farrow with formal divorce papers from Frank Sinatra. As she read the documents, Farrow fell to her knees on the kitchen floor and openly wept in front of the cast and crew. Roman Polanski insisted that the day be canceled and filming be postponed until the next day, when he would start consecutively filming as many scenes as possible that did not contain Rosemary. Farrow openly would not accept this, insisting that nothing had changed. The day's filming concluded on time and without delay.
When Farrow was reluctant to film a scene that depicted a dazed and preoccupied Rosemary wandering into the middle of a Manhattan street into oncoming traffic, Polanski pointed to her pregnancy padding and reassured her, "no one's going to hit a pregnant woman". The scene was successfully shot with Farrow walking into real traffic and Polanski following, operating the hand-held camera since he was the only one willing to do it.
Academy Awards
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (Ruth Gordon, winner)
Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (nominee)
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8.4
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Director:Francis Ford Coppola
Starring:Martin Sheen,Marlon Brando,Robert Duvall,Dennis Hopper,Frederic Forest,Lawrence Fishburne
Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American war film set during the Vietnam War, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The central character is US Army special operations officer Captain Benjamin L. Willard (Martin Sheen), of MACV-SOG, an assassin sent to kill the renegade and presumed insane Special Forces Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando).
Coppola's and John Milius's script is based on Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness, and also draws from Michael Herr's Dispatches, the film version of Conrad's Lord Jim (which shares the same character of Marlow with Heart of Darkness), and Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972).
The film drew attention for its lengthy and troubled production. Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse documented Brando showing up on the set overweight, Sheen's heart attack, and extreme weather destroying several expensive sets. The film's release was postponed several times while Coppola edited millions of feet of footage.
Honored with the Palme d'Or at Cannes, and nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture â Drama, the film was also deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" and selected for preservation by the National Film Registry in 2001.
Casting
Steve McQueen was Coppola's first choice to play Willard, but the actor did not accept because he did not want to leave America for 17 weeks.Al Pacino was also offered the role but he too did not want to be away for that long a period of time and was afraid of falling ill in the jungle as he had done in the Dominican Republic during the shooting of The Godfather Part II.Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford, and James Caan were approached to play either Kurtz or Willard.
Coppola and Roos had been impressed by Martin Sheen's screen test for Michael in The Godfather and he became their top choice to play Willard, but the actor had already accepted another project and Harvey Keitel was cast in the role based on his work in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets.By early 1976, Coppola had persuaded Marlon Brando to play Kurtz for a then-enormous fee of $3.5 million for a month's work on location in September 1976. Dennis Hopper was cast as a kind of Green Beret sidekick for Kurtz and when Coppola heard him talking nonstop on location, he remembered putting "the cameras and the Montagnard shirt on him, and we shot the scene where he greets them on the boat".
Principal photography
On March 1, 1976, Coppola and his family flew to Manila and rented a large house there for the five-month shoot.[22] Sound and photographic equipment had been coming in from California on a regular basis since late 1975. Principal photography began three weeks later. Within a few days, Coppola was not happy with Harvey Keitel's take on Willard, saying that the actor "found it difficult to play him a passive onlooker".After viewing early footage, the director took a plane back to Los Angeles and replaced Keitel with Martin Sheen.
Typhoon Olga wrecked the sets at Iba and on May 26, 1976, production was closed down.Dean Tavoularis remembers that it "started raining harder and harder until finally it was literally white outside, and all the trees were bent at forty-five degrees".One part of the crew was stranded in a hotel and the others were in small houses that were immobilized by the storm. The Playboy Playmate set had been destroyed, ruining a month's shooting that had been scheduled. Most of the cast and crew went back to the United States for six to eight weeks. Tavoularis and his team stayed on to scout new locations and rebuild the Playmate set in a different place. Also, the production had bodyguards watching constantly at night and one day the entire payroll was stolen. According to Coppola's wife, Eleanor, the film was six weeks behind schedule and $2 million over budget.
Coppola flew back to the U.S. in June 1976. He read a book about Genghis Khan to get a better handle on the character of Kurtz.After filming commenced, Marlon Brando arrived in Manila very overweight and began working with Coppola to rewrite the ending.[25] The director downplayed Brando's weight by dressing him in black, photographing only his face, and having another, taller actor double for him in an attempt to portray Kurtz as an almost mythical character.
In the days after Christmas 1976, Coppola viewed a rough assembly of the footage he had to date but still needed to improvise an ending. He returned to the Philippines in early 1977 and resumed filming.On March 5, 1977, Sheen had a heart attack and struggled for a quarter of a mile to reach help.He was back on the set on April 19. A major sequence in a French plantation cost hundreds of thousands of dollars but was cut from the final film. Rumors began to circulate that Apocalypse Now had several endings but Richard Beggs, who worked on the sound elements, said, "There were never five endings, but just the one, even if there were differently edited versions".These rumors came from Coppola departing frequently from the original screenplay. Coppola admitted that he had no ending because Brando was too fat to play the scenes as written in the original script. With the help of Dennis Jakob, Coppola decided that the ending could be "the classic myth of the murderer who gets up the river, kills the king, and then himself becomes the king â it's the Fisher King, from The Golden Bough".
A water buffalo was slaughtered with a machete for the climactic scene. The scene was inspired by a ritual performed by a local Ifugao tribe which Coppola had witnessed along with his wife (who filmed the ritual later shown in the documentary Hearts of Darkness) and film crew. Although this was an American production subject to American animal cruelty laws, scenes like this filmed in the Philippines were not policed or monitored, and the American Humane Association gave the film an "unacceptable" rating.Principal photography ended on May 21, 1977 and everyone headed home.
The Endings
At the time of its release, many rumors surrounded the ending of Apocalypse Now. Coppola stated an ending was written in haste in which Willard and Kurtz joined forces and repelled the air strike on the compound; however, Coppola never fully agreed with the two going out in apocalyptic intensity, preferring to end the film in a more encouraging manner.
When Coppola originally organized the ending of the movie, he had two choices. One involved Willard leading Lance by the hand as everyone in Kurtz's base throws down their weapons, and ends with images of Willard's boat pulling away from Kurtz's compound superimposed over the face of a stone idol which then fades into black. Another option showed an air strike being called and the base being blown to bits in a spectacular display, consequently killing everyone left at the base.
The original 1979 70 mm exclusive theatrical release ended with Willard's boat, the stone statue, then fade to black with no credits, save for '"Copyright 1979 Omni Zoetrope"' right after the film ends. This mirrors the lack of any opening titles and supposedly stems from Coppola's original intention to "tour" the film as one would a play: the credits would have appeared on printed programs provided before the screening began.
There have been, to date, many variations of the end credit sequence, beginning with the 35mm general release version, where Coppola elected to show the credits superimposed over shots of Kurtz's base exploding.Rental prints circulated with this ending, and can be found in the hands of a few collectors. Some versions of this had the subtitle "A United Artists release", while others had "An Omni Zoetrope release". The network television version of the credits ended with "...from MGM/UA Entertainment Company" (the film made its network debut shortly after the merger of MGM and UA). One variation of the end credits can be seen on both YouTube and as a supplement on the current Lionsgate Blu-ray.
In any case, when Coppola heard that audiences interpreted this as an air strike called by Willard, Coppola pulled the film from its 35 mm run, and put credits on a black screen. In the DVD commentary, Coppola explains that the images of explosions had not been intended to be part of the story; they were intended to be seen as completely separate from the film. He had added them to the credits because he had captured the footage during the demolition of the sets (required by the Philippine government), which was filmed with multiple cameras fitted with different film stocks and lenses to capture the explosions at different speeds.
In the Redux Version, Willard silences the radio as the PBR is pulling away from Kurtz's compound. It is unclear whether Willard then points the boat upstream or downstream. Just before fading to black, Kurtz's last words "the horror" are echoed and there is a brief glimpse of helicopters and napalm that harkens back to the beginning of the film.
Extended bootleg versionThere is a longer 289 minute version which has never been officially released but circulates as a video bootleg, containing extra material not included in either the original theatrical release or the "redux" version.
Academy Award for Best Cinematography (Vittorio Storaro)WINNER
Academy Award for Best Sound (Walter Murch, Mark Berger, Richard Beggs, Nathan Boxer)WINNER
NOMINATIONS
Academy Award for Best Picture (Francis Ford Coppola, Fred Roos, Gray Frederickson and Tom Sternberg)
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (Robert Duvall)
Academy Award for Best Art Direction â Set Decoration (Angelo P. Graham, George R. Nelson and Dean Tavoularis)
Academy Award for Directing (Francis Ford Coppola)
Academy Award for Film Editing (Lisa Fruchtman, Gerald B. Greenberg, Richard Marks and Walter Murch)
Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium (Francis Ford Coppola and John Milius)
Starring:Martin Sheen,Marlon Brando,Robert Duvall,Dennis Hopper,Frederic Forest,Lawrence Fishburne
Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American war film set during the Vietnam War, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The central character is US Army special operations officer Captain Benjamin L. Willard (Martin Sheen), of MACV-SOG, an assassin sent to kill the renegade and presumed insane Special Forces Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando).
Coppola's and John Milius's script is based on Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness, and also draws from Michael Herr's Dispatches, the film version of Conrad's Lord Jim (which shares the same character of Marlow with Heart of Darkness), and Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972).
The film drew attention for its lengthy and troubled production. Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse documented Brando showing up on the set overweight, Sheen's heart attack, and extreme weather destroying several expensive sets. The film's release was postponed several times while Coppola edited millions of feet of footage.
Honored with the Palme d'Or at Cannes, and nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture â Drama, the film was also deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" and selected for preservation by the National Film Registry in 2001.
Casting
Steve McQueen was Coppola's first choice to play Willard, but the actor did not accept because he did not want to leave America for 17 weeks.Al Pacino was also offered the role but he too did not want to be away for that long a period of time and was afraid of falling ill in the jungle as he had done in the Dominican Republic during the shooting of The Godfather Part II.Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford, and James Caan were approached to play either Kurtz or Willard.
Coppola and Roos had been impressed by Martin Sheen's screen test for Michael in The Godfather and he became their top choice to play Willard, but the actor had already accepted another project and Harvey Keitel was cast in the role based on his work in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets.By early 1976, Coppola had persuaded Marlon Brando to play Kurtz for a then-enormous fee of $3.5 million for a month's work on location in September 1976. Dennis Hopper was cast as a kind of Green Beret sidekick for Kurtz and when Coppola heard him talking nonstop on location, he remembered putting "the cameras and the Montagnard shirt on him, and we shot the scene where he greets them on the boat".
Principal photography
On March 1, 1976, Coppola and his family flew to Manila and rented a large house there for the five-month shoot.[22] Sound and photographic equipment had been coming in from California on a regular basis since late 1975. Principal photography began three weeks later. Within a few days, Coppola was not happy with Harvey Keitel's take on Willard, saying that the actor "found it difficult to play him a passive onlooker".After viewing early footage, the director took a plane back to Los Angeles and replaced Keitel with Martin Sheen.
Typhoon Olga wrecked the sets at Iba and on May 26, 1976, production was closed down.Dean Tavoularis remembers that it "started raining harder and harder until finally it was literally white outside, and all the trees were bent at forty-five degrees".One part of the crew was stranded in a hotel and the others were in small houses that were immobilized by the storm. The Playboy Playmate set had been destroyed, ruining a month's shooting that had been scheduled. Most of the cast and crew went back to the United States for six to eight weeks. Tavoularis and his team stayed on to scout new locations and rebuild the Playmate set in a different place. Also, the production had bodyguards watching constantly at night and one day the entire payroll was stolen. According to Coppola's wife, Eleanor, the film was six weeks behind schedule and $2 million over budget.
Coppola flew back to the U.S. in June 1976. He read a book about Genghis Khan to get a better handle on the character of Kurtz.After filming commenced, Marlon Brando arrived in Manila very overweight and began working with Coppola to rewrite the ending.[25] The director downplayed Brando's weight by dressing him in black, photographing only his face, and having another, taller actor double for him in an attempt to portray Kurtz as an almost mythical character.
In the days after Christmas 1976, Coppola viewed a rough assembly of the footage he had to date but still needed to improvise an ending. He returned to the Philippines in early 1977 and resumed filming.On March 5, 1977, Sheen had a heart attack and struggled for a quarter of a mile to reach help.He was back on the set on April 19. A major sequence in a French plantation cost hundreds of thousands of dollars but was cut from the final film. Rumors began to circulate that Apocalypse Now had several endings but Richard Beggs, who worked on the sound elements, said, "There were never five endings, but just the one, even if there were differently edited versions".These rumors came from Coppola departing frequently from the original screenplay. Coppola admitted that he had no ending because Brando was too fat to play the scenes as written in the original script. With the help of Dennis Jakob, Coppola decided that the ending could be "the classic myth of the murderer who gets up the river, kills the king, and then himself becomes the king â it's the Fisher King, from The Golden Bough".
A water buffalo was slaughtered with a machete for the climactic scene. The scene was inspired by a ritual performed by a local Ifugao tribe which Coppola had witnessed along with his wife (who filmed the ritual later shown in the documentary Hearts of Darkness) and film crew. Although this was an American production subject to American animal cruelty laws, scenes like this filmed in the Philippines were not policed or monitored, and the American Humane Association gave the film an "unacceptable" rating.Principal photography ended on May 21, 1977 and everyone headed home.
The Endings
At the time of its release, many rumors surrounded the ending of Apocalypse Now. Coppola stated an ending was written in haste in which Willard and Kurtz joined forces and repelled the air strike on the compound; however, Coppola never fully agreed with the two going out in apocalyptic intensity, preferring to end the film in a more encouraging manner.
When Coppola originally organized the ending of the movie, he had two choices. One involved Willard leading Lance by the hand as everyone in Kurtz's base throws down their weapons, and ends with images of Willard's boat pulling away from Kurtz's compound superimposed over the face of a stone idol which then fades into black. Another option showed an air strike being called and the base being blown to bits in a spectacular display, consequently killing everyone left at the base.
The original 1979 70 mm exclusive theatrical release ended with Willard's boat, the stone statue, then fade to black with no credits, save for '"Copyright 1979 Omni Zoetrope"' right after the film ends. This mirrors the lack of any opening titles and supposedly stems from Coppola's original intention to "tour" the film as one would a play: the credits would have appeared on printed programs provided before the screening began.
There have been, to date, many variations of the end credit sequence, beginning with the 35mm general release version, where Coppola elected to show the credits superimposed over shots of Kurtz's base exploding.Rental prints circulated with this ending, and can be found in the hands of a few collectors. Some versions of this had the subtitle "A United Artists release", while others had "An Omni Zoetrope release". The network television version of the credits ended with "...from MGM/UA Entertainment Company" (the film made its network debut shortly after the merger of MGM and UA). One variation of the end credits can be seen on both YouTube and as a supplement on the current Lionsgate Blu-ray.
In any case, when Coppola heard that audiences interpreted this as an air strike called by Willard, Coppola pulled the film from its 35 mm run, and put credits on a black screen. In the DVD commentary, Coppola explains that the images of explosions had not been intended to be part of the story; they were intended to be seen as completely separate from the film. He had added them to the credits because he had captured the footage during the demolition of the sets (required by the Philippine government), which was filmed with multiple cameras fitted with different film stocks and lenses to capture the explosions at different speeds.
In the Redux Version, Willard silences the radio as the PBR is pulling away from Kurtz's compound. It is unclear whether Willard then points the boat upstream or downstream. Just before fading to black, Kurtz's last words "the horror" are echoed and there is a brief glimpse of helicopters and napalm that harkens back to the beginning of the film.
Extended bootleg versionThere is a longer 289 minute version which has never been officially released but circulates as a video bootleg, containing extra material not included in either the original theatrical release or the "redux" version.
Academy Award for Best Cinematography (Vittorio Storaro)WINNER
Academy Award for Best Sound (Walter Murch, Mark Berger, Richard Beggs, Nathan Boxer)WINNER
NOMINATIONS
Academy Award for Best Picture (Francis Ford Coppola, Fred Roos, Gray Frederickson and Tom Sternberg)
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (Robert Duvall)
Academy Award for Best Art Direction â Set Decoration (Angelo P. Graham, George R. Nelson and Dean Tavoularis)
Academy Award for Directing (Francis Ford Coppola)
Academy Award for Film Editing (Lisa Fruchtman, Gerald B. Greenberg, Richard Marks and Walter Murch)
Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium (Francis Ford Coppola and John Milius)
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