Behind the Scenes: A Messy History of Outstanding Films

Typhoons and heart attacks; passive-aggressive disagreements and fully aggressive disputes. A giant malfunctioning shark head. A fallout between friends. Though they might sounds like plot points in a film, these were actually events that occurred behind the camera. Some film sets are entrenched in scandal, controversy and history. Sometimes, someone had the foresight to pull out their own camera and capture the drama behind the scenes. They capture the world we don’t see on the big screen:that of the directors, actors, costumiers, writers, set decorators and consultants and the people who create a giant mechanical shark head. These documentaries, old and new, take us behind the scenes of favourite and classic films of our pop culture. Find out more in Behind the Scenes: A Messy History of Outstanding Films.

In the glitzy and glamorous world of Hollywood, things are not always what they seem. These behind-the-scenes films look at famous sets and give us a look at the real people (and the drama) behind a handful of the films we love. Some of them became as talked about as the films themselves.

Hearts of Darkness: A Film-Maker’s Apocalypse

“Apocalypse Now” is famous as director Francis Ford Coppola’s ragged and haunting tale of soldiers during the Vietnam War, yet it’s also infamous for the way it seemed to devour time, money and its creators’ sanity. Between monsoons during filming, the lead actor’s heart attack and director Francis Ford Coppola’s near bankruptcy, it was a battle to get the film made. During filming, Coppola’s wife Eleanor recorded the process, and her footage was then used for “Hearts of Darkness: A Film-Maker’s Apocalypse:” a behind-the-scenes look at this notorious set.

In “Hearts of Darkness,” the audience gets a clear grasp of Francis Ford Coppola’s concerns for the film: namely, that it won’t be any good. On the very first day, Coppola fired the actor originally hired to play the film’s Captain Willard and replaced him with Charlie Sheen, a wild-card performer whose heavy smoking, drinking, and improvisational tendencies seemed to have lives of their own. Meltdowns from Coppola and illicit drug use added to the chaos, and “Hearts of Darkness” recounts it all. As Coppola said at a press conference, “The film is not about Vietnam; it is Vietnam.”

Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner

The classic science fiction film “Blade Runner” runs one hour and fifty-seven minutes. Yet the documentary about its making runs three and a half hours. It chronicles every part of the filmmaking process in detail, including hostile disagreements on and off set and the colossal challenge of creating the film’s special effects before the age of CGI. With time for the dust to settle (“Blade Runner” came out in 1982 while “Dangerous Days” was released in 2007), the players involved are perhaps a little older and wiser, and the breakdowns are thorough. The documentary may be best suited for the biggest “Blade Runner” fans, but the drama of this process could draw in even the rom-com and reality TV lovers.

The Making of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws

Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws” has earned him (and sharks) their role in popular culture, via the ominous score, famous mechanical shark (nicknamed Bruce), of course, the iconic line, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” But Spielberg described the process of making “Jaws” as a “living nightmare.” In 1995, director Laurent Bouzereau released “The Making of Jaws,” a documentary chronicling that time.

Instead of filming in a flooded soundstage where they’d have more control over conditions, Spielberg opted to film in the real Atlantic Ocean, because he didn’t want the film to feel “stylised” or fake, it would only be scary if audiences felt like the ocean was real. But in addition to allowing no escape from the fictional shark, the open ocean makes it awfully difficult to film. While different parts of the crew floated away, Spielberg and his team were about at their wits’ end. Fortunately for them, the film has stayed very relevant in popular culture, but if you’d said that during its creation, they’d probably have laughed in your face.

Burden of Dreams

Inspired by a true story, Werner Herzog decided to film the dragging of a giant ship across the Peruvian rainforest for his film “Fitzcarraldo.” In the film, Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald (Klaus Kinski) embarks on a quest to build his own opera house and finds the only way to get the resources he needs is by dragging the ship carrying them over a stretch of land. Herzog set out to film this without any special effects. Les Blank’s reverential documentary “Burden of Dreams” chronicles that struggle.

Uncomfortable and dangerous, filming in the jungle (let alone dragging a steamboat through it) posed many challenges to the team. Members of the cast dropped out due to illness and discomfort. Weather stopped filming for months at a time. Planes crashed. At one point, the group was attacked by poison arrows. The documentary, released the same year as the film, skirts around some of the worst drama, but it gives a thorough tale of how Herzog and his crew overcame this massive task.

Full Metal Jacket

And this tradition of behind-the-scenes storytelling continues today. In July of next year, Stephen Rigg’s “A Modern Art Masterpiece: The Untold Story of Full Metal Jacket” will be released. Stanley Kubrick, known for directing such classics as “The Shining” and “2001: A Space Odyssey,” created “Full Metal Jacket,” a dark and enduring Vietnam War film, in 1987. The new documentary combines never-before-seen footage from the film’s set and interviews with the late Kubrick with new interviews from members of the cast and creative team.

This process is largely a mystery, a massive undertaking, and likely a gruelling filming process. The documentary seeks to bare all. Produced by “Full Metal Jacket” star Matthew Modine, “A Modern Art Masterpiece” is a visually stunning account of this process, told in the moment and with the retrospection of today.

These films are meta; they’re storytelling about storytelling. But they’re also very human. They introduce us to the people behind the stories we love, and even when those histories are fraught, they’re a fascinating look at the world behind the films we love. And those stories will continue to be told today.

If you enjoyed A Messy History of Outstanding Films, why not try Film Shorts in a Real World.

.Cent Magazine, London. Luxury Minded.