woo

~uturesVittorio Storaro, ASC, AlC

recalls the photographicchallenges he confronted

during the tumultuousproduction of Francis Ford

Coppola's hallucinatoryVietnam War epic

Apocalypse Now.

Interview by Stephen Burum, ASCand Stephen Pizzello

Edited by Stephen Pizzello

- Unit photography by Josh Weiner

After a grueling IS-month shootin the Philippines, ApocalypseNow was finally released onAugust 15, 1979. At the time,critics were sharply divided in

their assessments of the film, butFrancis Coppola's visionary VietnamWar epic is now regarded as amodern classic. The film's spectacu­lar images earned Vittorio Storaro,ASC, AlC his first Academy Awardand cemented his reputation as oneof the world's most brilliant andinnovative cinematographers.

Storaro's philosophicalapproach to the picture incorporatedthe careful us~ of deeply saturatedcolors, silhouettes and artificial lightsources that selectively pierced thedarkness of the story's jungle

94 February 2001

settings. He further enhanced thefilm's dramatic look by flashing thenegative. The result was an immer­sive experience that took viewers on asurrealistic and hallucinatory upriverjourney through an array ofwartimehorrors.

What follows are some fasci­nating excerpts from a roundtablediscussion held at the ASCClubhouse, during which Storaroresponded to questions posed byStephen Burum, ASC, who super­vised the second-unit cinematogra-

phy on Apocalypse Now, and ACexecutive editor Stephen Pizzello.Also participating in the discussionwere cinematographers John Bailey,ASC and Dante Spinotti, ASC, AlC,as well as AC associate editor DougBankston.

Stephen Pizzello: Vittorio,before I turn the floor over to Mr.Burum, I'd like to ask how you gotthe assignment to shoot ApocalypseNow, which was your first collabora­tion with Francis Coppola.

Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AlC:Actually, I initially refused to shootthe picture, because I didn't want tointerfere in the relationship betweenFrancis and Gordon Willis [ASC].They'd done such wonderful workon the Godfather films that I thoughtit would be wrong for someone elseto shoot Apocalypse. But when Ispoke with Gordon about it, heassured me that he was not a part ofthe project, even though there wasnothing wrong between him andFrancis.

Ironically enough, around thesame day that [Apocalypse co­producer] Fred Roos came to Rometo speak with me about the picture, Imet with Alejandro Jodorowsky; hewas planning to direct Dune, and heoffered me the chance to shoot it. Iloved Frank Herbert's book, and atthat time I thought Apocalypse Nowwas just another war picture. ToItalians in the year 1975, the topic ofthe Vietnam War was not thatcompelling, because it was so faraway from us. But Francis told me,'Read Joseph Conrad's Heart ofDarkness, because I took some of thespirit of Apocalypse from that book:When I read it, I understood that themain theme of the story was thesuperimposition of one culture ontop of another culture. I realized thatthe darkness mentioned in thebook's title did not belong to thejungle culture, but to the supposedly'civilized' culture that was making itsway up the river. That idea became

very interesting to me, and I ulti­mately accepted the job.

Pizzello: Steve, can you tell ushow you came to serve as second-unitcinematographer on Apocalypse?

Stephen Burum, ASC: I'dbeen trying to get into the union for13 years, and I got my chance byshooting television. I'd been doingthat for about two years when I got acall from Fred Roos, who told me,'Francis wanted me to ask if you'dcome to the Philippines to shootsecond-unit footage for Apocalypse:I'd been reading in the papers thatthe production had been shut downbecause a terrible typhoon haddestroyed the sets, but I said, 'Well,

sure: I went to an office at SamuelGoldwyn to talk to Francis, and hewanted to discuss the aerial footage.When I asked him who was going todirect those scenes, he said, 'You will:I suggested that maybe [director]Carroll Ballard should supervisethose scenes with me shooting them,but Francis replied, 'Carroll told methat you should do it: [Laughs.]

I agreed to head up the secondunit, so about a month later I got ona plane and flew to the Philippines.About a day and a half after I gotthere, I met Vittorio, who introducedme to Piero Servo, who would be

operating the camera for me.Vittorio then said to me, 'I want youto watch me shoot two scenes beforeyou do anything: So first, I watchedVittorio shoot [the military briefing]involving Martin Sheen, G.D.Spradlin, Harrison Ford and JerryZiesmer. Then I watched the filmingof the picture's opening sequence inthe hotel room, when Willard ishorribly drunk.

I was looking very carefully atwhat Vittorio was doing, because Iknew I had to duplicate exactly whathe was doing not only technically,but spiritually. I'd gone to school [atUCLA] with Francis, so I understoodhow he thought, but I didn't yet

understand how Vittorio thought,and it was very interesting to observethe way in which he used the light.Coming from the industry in LosAngeles, I was used to having all ofthis equipment; we had more gadgetsand tools than anybody else in theworld. Vittorio, on the other hand,was just using Brute arcs andPhotofloods with blue gels on them.In the hotel room, he had two arcscoming in through the windows anda little cluster of lights bouncing upon the ceiling to provide a bit of fill.Then, back in this dark corner, hehad a lamp on with a lampshade over

Opposite page:Kurtz's minions,backed by agarrulousphotojournalist(Dennis Hopper),await Willardand his men asthey disembarkfrom their patrolboat. Storaro'ssurrealistictreatment of thejungle sceneswas partiallyinspired by theart of BurneHogarth, whosebold use of colorbrought theTarzan comicstrip to vivid lifeduring the late1930s. This page:Within theshadowy interiorof his jungletemple, ColonelKurtz (MarlonBranda) outlineshis worldviewfor CaptainWillard (MartinSheen). Storaroexplains that"Colonel Kurtzrepresents theunconscious,which we allhave inside ofus. He representsthe dark side ofthe UnitedStates, which iswhy black issuch animportant colorin the film."

American Cinematographer 95

A Clash ofTwo CulturesRight: "Charlie

don't surf!"Despite heavyenemy fire, agroup of U.S.

soldiersprepares to

hang ten.Storaro saysthat the key

conceptbehind his

photographicapproach wasthe notion of"one culture

superimposingitself on

another." As aresult,

ApocalypseNow is rife with

moments inwhich the

American wayof life clashes

with the harshrealities of

Vietnam.Below: Storaro

(kneeling atcenter) and his

crew line uptwo cameras on

location in thePhilippines.

FlankingStoraro, from

the left, arecamera

assistant RinoBernardini,

operator EnricoUmetelli and

cameraassistant Mauro

Marchetti.In the

background,Francis Coppola

(seated) chatswith assistantdirector Jerry

Ziesmer (whiteshirt) as Dennis

Hopper (incamouflage

pants) finds hismotivation for

the scene.

96 February 2001

it. By doing that, he made the black inthe corner look better, because hehad that bright reference in theframe. He also had this elaboratesystem of cutting pieces of paper orgels for the shades in order to blockout the light coming toward thecamera, and have as much of it aspossible hitting the wall instead.

From watching all of thisactivity on the sets, I immediatelyunderstood that the color black wasvery important to Vittorio. Abouttwo days after watching those scenes,we starting working out this bigsequence set at the Do Lung Bridge.[Special-effects coordinator] Joe

Lombardi was going to demonstratethese parachute tlares; he was plan­ning to shoot them into the air,where they would hang and light upa whole, huge area. Well, the tlaresdidn't work, because the air was sohumid that they wouldn't even burn.Vittorio's solution was to really usethe black areas [of the scene] and thehighlights provided by the arc lightsand Phototloods that we did use inthe scene.

Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AlC:That sequence at the Do Lung Bridgereally demonstrates the main photo­graphic concept for Apocalypse Now,which sprang directly from this idea I

mentioned of one culture superim­posing itself on another. Every coun­try that has ever conquered anothercountry - whether you're talkingabout Egypt, Italy, Spain, France,England or the United States - hasalways imposed its own language andculture upon the conquered region.Everyone from these conqueringcountries always believes that they'reonly exporting the good aspects oftheir culture, but that's simply nottrue. Everyone has a good side and abad side - a conscious and anunconscious. America was the sameway in Vietnam, and in ApocalypseNow, Colonel Kurtz represents theunconscious, which we all haveinside of us. He represents the darkside of the United States, which iswhy black is such an important colorin the film.

When I was planning thevisual strategy for the film, I beganthinking that I could convey theconflict of cultures by creating avisual conflict between artificial lightand natural light. The first time I sawthat we would be using coloredsmoke to convey specific militarymessages, I thought it was wonderful,because when these artificial colorswere placed next to the natural colorsof Vietnam, it created that sense ofconflict that I wanted.

I also sought to create thattype of conflict in the lighting. forexample, consider the scene in whichthe Playboy girls put on their show inthe middle of the jungle. The lightingI used for that scene came about fortwo reasons. First, at that point in mycareer, I had never used a reallyextensive lighting package; thebiggest picture I had ever done was1900, on which I'd used a singlethousand-amp generator! When Iarrived -to do Apocalypse Now, Ibrought just one thousand-ampgenerator, without any backup ­that's how crazy I was! Given the rela­tively low budgets that I'd had, I wasaccustomed to simply using theminimum lighting I required. To

A Clash ofTwo CulturesPlayboybunnies

descend fromthe heavens in

one of HughHefner's

corporatechoppers. Afterhe realized that

lighting thesequence from

beyond thestage area was

impossible,Storaro optedto pierce the

nighttimedarkness with

Photofloodsbuilt into the

set byproduction

designer DeanTavoularis. Hereasoned thatthis approachwould"create

this intrusion ofartificial light in

the jungle­the incredible

force of thelight would

serve toenhance theblackness ofthe jungle."

light that huge Playboy sequencefrom beyond the stage area was basi­cally impossible, so instead I came upwith the idea of using lights set upwithin the stage area. I asked theproduction designer, Dean Tavoularis,to design a set that would incorporatea number of Photofloods. However,the second reason for doing the scenethat way was that I wanted to createthis intrusion of artificial light in thejungle - the incredible force of thelight would serve to enhance theblackness of the jungle.

The same idea applied to thesequence at Do Lung Bridge. WhenFrancis showed me his idea for thescene - which involved panningfrom the patrol boat to the bridge, at

night, on a river in the middle of thejungle - I thought to myself, 'Howin the world am I going to light sucha huge amount ofspace with just onethousand-amp generator?!' My solu­tion was to have the crew erectseveral towers, each ofwhich had onearc on it. We had an electrician oneach tower, and I would talk to themby walkie-talkie and tell them whereto aim the light. I also remembercillg Joe Lombardi to create some~~ ~o - in spots where I needed=-=:: ~.:'-:. r: you watch the scene,_-=.~ :::::: ::::.:;:-~ pan above the:--~ -_.:.:::: == 0:11:" the silhou-~ u _ _ -c-" - aracters~~~~ ~:::x-m them.- - -

Burum: I find it interestingthat you were able to take those tech­nical limitations and use them tocreate a distinctive visual style.

Storaro: In my mind, thedifferent scenes in the film becamelike parts of a puzzle. We would onlyshow certain things amid all of thedarkness, and we would reveal differ­ent pieces of the puzzle as we wentfurther up the river.

Burum: Exactly. If you'dshown the whole jungle, it wouldn'thave been as effective.

Storaro: In Italy, we have asaying: 'When the wolf is hungry, hewill come out of his cave: In otherwords, necessity will force you tocome up with an idea! Back in those

days, the Italian film industry didn'thave much money, so we did every­thing with very low budgets. In thatregard, 1900 was really an exception;when I did The Spider's Stratagem,we had no generator at all! On all ofthose pictures, I really had to workout the visual strategies with thedirector, because we couldn't affordto do a master shot, an over-the­shoulder and then a close-up; thatapproach took too much time andmoney. We really had to have a goodplan, because we knew we'd onlyhave one chance to shoot eachsequence. We could do multipletakes, ofcourse, but we had to get thescenes right on the days when they

were scheduled.Burum: Don't you think that

in some ways, you have more of animpact on the audience when youwork with limited technicalresources? You don't have a safetynet, so you have to present a visionthat comes from your heart.

Storaro: No doubt. Whenyou're in that type of situation, youmust push yourselfa bit more and bevery creative. You also have to thinkthings through really carefully. Evennow, when I have all of the time,money and equipment that I need, Ialways try to employ that type ofcreative approach. Sometimes, I haveto fight with the director or the editorif they push me to get coverage 'justin case: In case of what? In case ourplan is no good? That way of work­ing costs the film industry a lot ofmoney, and it drains the quality ofthe filmmaking.

Today, unfortunately, editorsare used to working on the Avidsystem or something similar. Theyhave a very small screen in front ofthem, and it's very hard to see anemotion from an actor, or a particu­lar action. On some pictures, theydon't even print dailies anymore, soeditors can't even double-checkfootage on the big screen to makesure that the cuts, the rhythms or theemotions are right. They work onlyfrom a small monitor, so they'reprobably editing the picture withtelevision in mind, at least subcon­sciously. That's the worst thing youcan do to the film industry, becauseyou're reducing everything to videoquality. Digital technology is a greattool, but in my opinion everyoneshould be able to look at theirfootage on big video projectors, or atleast a large, television-sized monitor.

Pizzello: Which camera andlenses did you use on ApocalypseNow?

Storaro: We shot the film withMitchell reflex cameras, which weremodified by [the Italian company]Technovision to accept Cooke

Hobson Taylor anamorphic lensesfrom England.

Because the Italian film indus­try was so poor at the time, we couldnot afford Panavision equipment,and the only serious company overthere was Technovision. I developeda really strong relationship withHenryk Chroscicki, who unfortu­nately died last spring. No matterwhat I needed, he was always ready tomake any changes or adjustments tothe camera.

Burum: We had the mostwonderful Cooke anamorphic zoomlens on Apocalypse. It converted byjust unscrewing the back and screw­ing on the anamorphic [attachment].It was one of the best anamorphiclenses I've ever seen or used, andFrancis eventually bought it.

Vittorio, let's talk a bit aboutthe way Francis handles people,because he does it in a very interest­ing way. When I got to thePhilippines, I went into his office,and he said, 'Steve, I'm in so muchtrouble now that the only waywe canget out of this is to do everythingperfectlY: I answered, 'Francis, I'vebeen waiting all mylife to hear some­one say that to me. We'll do it: Iwalked out of that office, down thosestairs, and back to my hotel, and allthe way I was thinking to myself,'This is going to be great.' Then all ofa sudden, I began asking myself,'What is perfect? What am I going todo?' I sometimes wound up sittingon the riverbank for three days to geta shot, because Francis had told menot to shoot anything unless it wasperfect!

Storaro: On any picture, whenyou meet the director for the firsttime, you have to have a very strongconnection in order to share a trulyspiritual collaboration. Going backto my meeting about Dune withAlejandro Jodorowsky, I rememberthat the tone of it was quite cold. Iknew he had a reputation for doingeverything on his pictures, includingthe cinematography, so I asked him

why he had called me. And heanswered, 'I know that on this movie,I need much more in terms of theoperating and the lighting, and Ithink that you can do better.' But Icouldn't tell if he was being sincerewith me or not, which made me a bithesitant.

On a picture like ApocalypseNow, you know right away that it'sgoing to be a long, expensive, danger­ous shoot in a location that's very faraway. But from our very first meet­ing, Francis was so friendly that I feltas if I'd known him forever. In theprofessional sense, he also made mefeel totally comfortable. He told methat he had admired mywork on TheConformist, and he never let me feelthat I was out of place, or too young,or that I didn't know enoughEnglish. Apocalypse became my firstpicture outside ofItalywith a foreignproduction company, because priorto meeting Francis, I'd never feltcomfortable with any of the otherforeign directors I'd met.

When I arrived in thePhilippines, he wanted to show mesome color sketches of the helicopterattack sequence - Francis had actu­ally filmed these sketches inCinemaScope and edited themtogether with music, and he showedme this footage on a big screen! Thecamera operator, Enrico Umetelli,was sitting next to me, and Francistold us, 'Remember, this is just arough idea for the sequence; we'regoing to do it much better when wereally shoot it.' I watched that footagewith my mouth open, and I whis­pered to Enrico, 'Do you think we'llbe able to do that!?' I thought therewas no way I could meet thoseexpectations, but I think Francispicked up on my concern, and hewas very reassuring. Without hisenergy, we never would have beenable to make Apocalypse Now.

Burum: I do remember thatwhen I got to the Philippines, therewas a general feeling that Apocalypsewas going to be a great picture. I

don't think anybody on the crewdoubted that. I don't think anybodyknew how we were going to achievethat greatness, but there was defi­nitely a sense that we were doing thebest work we could do. To me, thewhole project had an aura about it.

Storaro: Honestly, I neverthought it would be great, because Iwas so scared to be working at thatlevel! But Francis told me, 'Vittorio,this is the first picture that I've reallyproduced completely. I have totalcontrol, but I also have total respon­sibility. I have complete trust in yourexpertise with the camera, so pleasefeel free to do anything you think iscorrect. We don't need any go-aheadfrom anybody else, but pleaseremember that all of the responsibil­ity is on me personally.' I always takemy work very seriously, but afterFrancis said that to me, I really triedto give a maximum effort with theminimum equipment that I needed.

Burum: The way Francishandles everyone on a set is worthdiscussing. For example, when I wasshooting The Outsiders and RumbleFish, he'd show me the scene and ask,'What do you want to do?' I'd tellhim, 'Well, we should do this, thisand this.' If he liked what I said, he'dreply, 'Okay, where do you want tostart?' If he didn't like what I wassaying, he'd tell me some allegoricalstory! [Laughs.] At that point, I'dknow enough to offer him an alter­native, and he'd say, 'I think that'sbetter.' But he always made me feelthat I was really contributing, andthat he valued my input. That type ofdirector really knows how to get thebest out of people.

Storaro: Francis is, without adoubt, the director who gave me themost freedom to express myself. Butat the same time, he was also veryclear about the main concepts for thefilm.

The first day of any shoot iswhen you really begin to discoveryour relationship with a director, andwhat your contribution will be. On

American Cinematographer 99

A Clash ofTwo CulturesWillard's patrolboat glides into

the Kurtzcompound. Thetemple set wasbuilt with realstone, and the

filmmakersused both

explosives andheavy-dutytractors to

destroy it for aspectacular

sequence thatonly appeared

over the endcredits of theinitial 35mm

release prints.When the

controversialsequence

caused rampantspeculation

about the film'sdenouement,

Coppola had itexcised fromsubsequent

prints. He laterexplained that

the scenesubverted hisdesire to endthe film on ahopeful note.

100 February 2001

the first day of Apocalypse, Francisgave me an anamorphic viewfinderwith my name on it, and he had oneof his own. We were in this bar,preparing to shoot a scene that is nolonger in the picture with HarveyKeitel, who was originally hired toplay Martin Sheen's part. We wereboth wandering around with thesefinders, and it probably looked a bitridiculous. But he took me aside andtold me his concept for that scene,and every morning after that, hewould tell me his main idea for thatday's work, usually addressing thingson a metaphorical level. I would thentry to use my knowledge to figure out

how to achieve those concepts tech­nically. I would present my ideas, andif he didn't think they would work, Iwould come up with something else.But once he was sure that I had comeup with the best way to translate hisconcept onto film, he would give metotal freedom to put together theentire sequence. He would some­times make a few little changes to ourplan while we were shooting, butusually we wouldn't deviate muchfrom that initial plan we had workedout in the morning.

Pizzello: What were some ofyour visual influences for the film?

Storaro: Just before I startedApocalypse, a very good filmmaker

friend of mine wanted to do a movieabout Tarzan. Unfortunately, thatfilm was never made, but my friendshowed me a book by a great illustra­tor named Burne Hogarth, who haddrawn the Tarzan comic strip [in the1930s and '40s]. In 1972, just beforewe began working on Apocalypse,Hogarth had published two newbooks ofhis Tarzan art [Tarzan oftheApes and Jungle Tales ofTarzan], andthey really focused on the principlesof movement. I think Hogarth wasvery aware of an Italian style ofpainting known as Futurism, whichis exemplified by the work ofGiacomo Balla and Umberto

Boccioni. The main aesthetic princi­ples of Futurism are beauty andspeed; Balla, for example, paintedthings like dogs with eight legs, inorder to show their speed in onesingle image. A lot of comic-strip artwas also influenced by studies doneduring the Italian Renaissance,particularly those by Michelangelo,who portrayed figures in a way thatwas very much like sculpture. Thephysical action of Tarzan inHogarth's art was unbelievablydynamic, and every color in thedrawings was so strong and saturatedthat the overall impact became verysurrealistic.

I became very fascinated with

the images in Hogarth's books, and Ishowed them to Francis during ourearly meetings. I told him that Iwanted to portray the jungle in asimilar way, with very aggressivecolors. That style is really apparent inthe sequence where the tiger jumpsout at Martin Sheen and FredericForrest; I didn't want the color of thejungle to be a naturalistic color.Francis and I were very much in syncon that concept; whenever he talkedto me about the helicopter attack, theDo Lung Bridge sequence, or theexplosion of the Kurtz compound,he would always say, 'Vittorio, I don'twant to do something realistic. Iwant to create a big show, somethingthat's magnificent to see. EverywhereAmericans go, they make a greatshow of things, and I want to create aconflict between beauty and horror:

That approach is completelyapparent in the Wagnerian helicopterattack and the subsequent scene inwhich Robert Duvall's character says,'I love the smell of napalm in themorning. It smells like ... victory: Itdoesn't matter to him how manypeople are dying; he's somehowenchanted by the beauty of napalm.This is the point of view that Kurtz isdenouncing.

Pizzello: Was your use ofdramatic silhouettes in the film alsoinspired by comic-book art?

Storaro: Yes. In that regard,Burne Hogarth was really my guide.However, the silhouettes were alsoinspired by the French naive painterHenri Rousseau. He did some paint­ings set in the jungle that had veryaggressive colors, and in one that Iremember there was a man in silhou­ette with a woman and a tiger behindhim.

Burum: While I was shootingpass-bys of the patrol boat, Vittoriosaid to me, 'We should see naturebefore we see man: I would thereforecompose those shots so that the boatwas hidden in silhouette, and the firstthing you saw was the wake of theboat - this little silver ripple. When

the ripple broke the surface of thewater, it symbolized man disturbingthe natural environment.

Storaro: We always strove toshow the conflict between the soldiersand both the jungle and the nativepeople. That concept is conveyed verywell in the shot where Martin Sheen isin the boat examining the confidentialdossier about Kurtz. Larry Fishburneis dancing to the Rolling Stones song"Satisfaction" on the radio, and SamBottoms is surfing behind the boat. Ashe's surfing, he's spraying water on thenatives, which reinforces that idea thatthe Americans are imposing them­selves upon this culture in a ratherarrogant manner.

To me, the most importantand powerful moment in the movieoccurs just before the helicopterattack on the village, right afterColonel Kilgore turns on the Wagnermusic. We suddenly cut to a quietshot of a teacher leading this groupofchildren out of their school, and asa viewer you say to yourself, 'Oh myGod, are they going to attack thoselittle children?' In most previous warmovies, you always saw the cavalryarriving to save the day by attackingthe bad guys.

Pizzello: Let's talk a bit aboutthe explosion of the Kurtzcompound, which was only shownover the end credits of the initial35mm release prints. That footagenever appeared in the 70mm prints,and Mr. Coppola has acknowledgedthat its inclusion in the 35mm cred­its caused some confusion about thefilm's ending.

Burum: Everybody tried tomake a big deal out of that footage,but the only reason Francis includedit in the 35mm prints was becauseJoe Lombardi got really upset when itwas removed from the original cut.Francis arranged this work-in­progress screening for the cast andcrew at the Bruin Theater inWestwood, and when it was over, Joegrabbed Francis in the lobby andjumped all over him: 'Dammit, I had

A Clash ofTwo Cultures

Storaro isflanked by

presenters Jamielee Curtis and

George Hamiltonat the 1980

Academy Awardsceremony,where the

cinematographer'sspectacular work

on ApocalypseNow earned him

his first Oscar.

102 February 2001

my effects guys all over the jungle toshoot that scene!' 50 in order toplacate Joe, Francis put the footageover the credits, which led to all ofthis speculation about the film'sending.

Of course, that footage wasdefinitely a challenge to shoot. Whatdo you remember about working onthat sequence, Vittorio?

5toraro: It took nine nights toshoot that scene, and we set up about10 cameras - a VistaVision camera,an infrared camera, a high-speedcamera and normal cameras. Beforewe began shooting, I had constantnightmares that someone was goingto get hurt. I kept asking Joe wherewe should put the crew membersand the cameras to keep them safe,and at first, he couldn't say for sure- the temple was built out of realstone, and he was planning to usereal dynamite to blow it all up! Hefinally gave us the minimumdistances where we'd be safe from theexplosions, and we also built thesemoveable metal bunkers to protectthe cameras and the operators. Whenthe explosions went off, all of thesebig stone blocks were flying around,so you couldn't even look throughthe camera.

Pizzello: Why was the temple

set built with real stone?Storaro: Dean Tavoularis

wanted it to look authentic, ofcourse, but I think it was simplyeasier to use real materials in thatparticular location, rather than ship­ping materials in.

Burum: That temple was well­built, too. When we first attemptedthose shots, it simply wouldn't godown! Finally, we attached thesecables to both heavy-duty tractorsand the set, and when the explosionhappened we just pulled the templedown.

I'll tell you, when those explo­sions went off, they were so powerfulthey would lift you right off theground. All of the air would besucked away from you, and then thisrush of hot air would come back atyou. Joe also warned us, 'Keep undercover, because once the blast goes off,it's gonna be raining snakes: And itwas! [Laughter all around.]

Storaro: In the end, not oneperson was hurt, which was a realtestament to Joe and his crew. Theykept everybody informed about whatwas going to happen every step oftheway. All of the camera operators andeffects guys were communicatingwith walkie-talkies, and I can stillremember hearing the explosionsgoing off in my ears.

Burum: Vittorio, can you tellus about the lab work and the specialprocesses used on Apocalypse Now?

Storaro: Well, I had severalproblems in that regard. For the firsttwo weeks of shooting, the dailieswere being sent to TechnicolorRome, which was just what I wanted.But then Gray Frederickson, the co­producer, said to me, 'We only haveone airplane a week that can go toRome, but we have two or three thatcan go to Los Angeles, so we're goingto have to do the dailies atTechnicolor L.A. from now on. Whodo you want to deal with there?'Francis was very nervous, because hewanted to see dailies sooner than oneweek afterwards. But I told Gray,

'Well, tell me who your next cine­matographer is going to be, becauseI'm leaving. How can I have the samecollaboration with the people at thelab [in Los Angeles] if I don't knowanybody there? They don't know me,and they won't know what to do:Ernesto Novelli [of TechnicolorRome] had done The Spider'sStratagem [1970], The Conformist[1971], Last Tango in Paris [1973],1900 [1977] and several otherpictures with me, so he knew exactlywhat kind of look I wanted.Fortunately, after I threatened toleave, they continued to let me sendthe dailies to Rome.

Also, around that time, Kodakhad just introduced its new colornegative stock [5247]. I did sometests with the new stock for 1900, butI didn't really like it. When I didScandal [1976] just before ApocalypseNow, Kodak Italy told me, 'You haveto use the new stock, because there'snone of the old stock left: I thereforerefused to buy the film in Rome, andwe called Kodak in Rochester, NewYork. They had enough of the previ­ous stock for us, so we bought it fromthem instead for Scandal. By the timeI was doing Apocalypse, there was noway I could use the older stock again,because the [change to the newstock] was almost complete. I wasn'thappy with the contrast of the newstock, and when I did some tests inRome with Ernesto Novelli, wedecided to flash the negative ofApocalypse Now. After exposing thenegative, we would sent it to Rome,where they would flash it beforedeveloping. Frankly, I don't knowhow many other producers or direc­tors would have allowed me to dosomething like that - Francis gaveme his complete support.

After I came back from theApocalypse shoot, we did the firsttiming of the film in Los Angeleswith Ernesto Novelli and LarryRovetti supervising the work. Later,in Rome, I told Ernesto that I wasunhappy with the blacks in the film,

because black was one of the mostimportant colors in terms of thevisual strategy. Black represented theunconscious, particularly in thesequences where we discover the truemeaning of Kurtz; we were trying toshow some portions of the truthemerging from the depths of theunconscious. Those scenes weredesigned to come together like thefinal pieces of the puzzle we hadcreated, and if the blacks weren'tblack enough, that aspect of the storywould not make as strong an impactvisually.

When I told Ernesto I wasn'thappy with the blacks, he remindedme of an incident that had occurredseveral years earlier, during the film­ing of 1900. On that picture, we hadused an original matrix dye-transfersystem, because I wanted to adjustthe look to suit the four differenttime periods in the story. The dye­transfer system was the only way Icould accomplish that strategy, and itlooked wonderful. At one point, wewere shooting in Parma, Italy, andevery day we were sending dailies toErnesto in Rome; occasionally, hewould visit me on the set so we coulddiscuss things. One day he came tome with a roll of film, and he saidthat it had been treated with a newprocess that he'd invented. I told himI didn't want to see it, though,because I had settled on myapproach for 1900 and I felt that thisnew process would distract me.

Well, later on, when I washaving my problems with the blackson Apocalypse, he finally showed mean example of this new process hehad developed. He had me look atsome images from Cadavari eccellenti[1976, a.k.a. The Context or TheIllustrious Corpses], a film directed byFrancesco Rosi and shot byPasqualino De Santis. The movie wasa crime thriller that required strongblacks and a very dramatic look, soRosi and De Santis used Ernesto'snew system for all of the dailies;unfortunately, for the usual distribu-

tion reasons, they didn't use thesystem on the release prints - theyonly used it for the dailies. It lookedgreat, so I performed some testsduring [the postproduction phaseof] Apocalypse Now, and the denseblacks we got were exactly what I'dhad in mind for the scenes withKurtz. That process, of course, waswhat came to be known as ENR [inhonor of its inventor, whose fullname is Ernesto Novelli-Rairnond].While I couldn't apply ENR to thefirst release prints of Apocalypse, Ilater used the process on Reds [1981].

Pizzello: What can you tell usabout the current restoration ofApocalypse Now for theatrical re­release?

Storaro: This new version isbeing supervised by the film's soundeditor, Walter Murch, and it will have55 minutes of footage that was cutfrom the original picture.

Burum: I'll be glad to see thatfootage back in the film - especiallythe key sequence in which the soldiersget off the boat and stumble across aFrench plantation, where they havedinner with the people who live there.I was so ticked off when that was cutout of the picture, because it reallyaddressed the central philosophicalconcept that Vittorio mentionedearlier - one culture imposing itselfupon another. During the dinner, theFrench tell the Americans, 'We're notafraid of the Vietcong. These are ourpeople: A big philosophical discus­sion ensues, during which the Frenchessentially denounce the Americansas colonialists.

Storaro: I think that scene wascut because of the line in the scriptthat says, 'Never get out of the boat:When the men do get out of thepatrol boat, they run into trouble,and after the scene with the tiger,Francis wanted them to stay on theboat. In my experience, that's still avery good piece of advice! [Heartylaughter around the table.] •