Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad about a narrated voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State in the so-called "heart of Africa". Charles Marlow, the narrator, tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames. This setting provides the frame for Marlow's story of his obsession with the ivory trader Kurtz, which enables Conrad to create a parallel between what Conrad calls "the greatest town on earth", London, and Africa as places of darkness.
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse
The title is derived from the Joseph Conrad novella "Heart of Darkness", the source material for "Apocalypse Now". Using behind-the-scenes footage, and narrated by Eleanor Coppola, the documentary chronicles how production problems—among them bad weather, actors' poor health, and other issues—delayed the film, increasing costs and nearly destroying the life and career of its director, her husband, Francis Ford Coppola. In 1990, Coppola turned her material over to two young filmmakers, George Hickenlooper and Fax Bahr (co-creator of "MADtv"), who subsequently shot new interviews with the original cast and crew, and intercut them with her existing material. After a year of editing, Hickenlooper, Bahr, and Coppola debuted their film at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival to universal critical acclaim.