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~ u t u r e sVittorio Storaro,ASC,AlCrecalls the photographicchallenges he confrontedduring the tumultuousproduction ofFrancis FordCoppola's hallucinatoryVietnamWar epicApocalypseNow.

Interviewby Stephen Burum,ASCand Stephen PizzelloEdited by Stephen Pizzello

- Unit photographyby Josh Weiner

After a grueling IS-month shootin the Philippines, ApocalypseNow was finally released onAugust 15, 1979. At the time,critics were sharply divided intheir assessments of the film, butFrancis Coppola's visionaryVietnamWar 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 u s 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 tookviewers on asurrealistic and hallucinatory upriverjourney through an array ofwartimehorrors.

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


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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 ushowyou came toserveas 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 i f 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 himwho 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 metVittorio, 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 itwas 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 thewindows anda little cluster of lights bouncing upon the ceiling to provide a bit of fill.Then, back in this dark corner, hehad a lamp onwith a lampshade over

Opposite page:Kurtz's minions,backed by agarrulousphotojournalist(Dennis Hopper),awaitWillardand 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


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A Clash ofTwo CulturesRight: "Charliedon't surf!"Despite heavyenemy fire, agroup of U.S.soldiersprepares tohang ten.Storaro saysthat the keyconceptbehind hisphotographicapproach wasthe notion of"one culturesuperimposingitself onanother." As aresult,ApocalypseNow is rife withmoments inwhich theAmerican wayof life clasheswith the harshrealities ofVietnam.Below: Storaro(kneeling atcenter) and hiscrew line uptwo cameras onlocation in thePhilippines.FlankingStoraro, fromthe left, are

cameraassistant RinoBernardini,operator EnricoUmetelli andcameraassistant MauroMarchetti.In thebackground,Francis Coppola(seated) chatswith assistantdirector JerryZiesmer (white

shirt) as DennisHopper (incamouflagepants) finds hismotivation forthe scene.

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it. By doing that, hemade 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 theywould hang and light upa whole, huge area. Well, the tlaresdidn't work, because the air was sohumid that theywouldn'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 theDo LungBridgereally demonstrates the main photographic concept for Apocalypse Now,which sprang directlyfrom this ideaI

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 itwas wonderful,because when these artificial colorswere placednext 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 Playboygirls put on their showinthemiddle of the jungle. The lightingI used for that scene came about fortwo reasons. First, at thatpoint inmycareer, 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 howcrazy Iwas! Given the relatively low budgets that I'd had, I wasaccustomed to simply using theminimum lighting I required. To


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AClash ofTwo CulturesPlayboybunniesdescend fromthe heavens inone of HughHefner'scorporatechoppers. After

he realized thatlighting thesequence frombeyond thestage area wasimpossible,Storaro optedto pierce thenighttimedarkness withPhotofloodsbuilt into theset byproductiondesigner DeanTavoularis. Hereasoned thatthis approachwould"createthis intrusion ofartificial light inthe jungle-the incredibleforce of thelight wouldserve toenhance theblackness ofthe jungle."

light that huge Playboy sequencefrom beyond the stage areawas 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 thatwould 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 lightsucha huge amount of space 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 thembywalkie-talkie and tell them whereto aim the light. I also remembercillg Joe Lombardi to create some

~ - in spots where I needed=-=:: ~ . : ' - : . r: you watch the scene,_ - = . ~ :::::: : : : : . : ; : - ~ pan above the: - - ~ -_.:.:::: == 0:11:" the silhou-

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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, of course, butwe 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 andbevery 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 withthe directoror the editori f 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-sizedmonitor.

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


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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 wi thHenryk Chroscicki, who unfortunately died last spring. No matterwhatI needed, hewas 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 nowthat the onlywaywe canget out of this is to do everythingperfectlY: I answered, 'Francis, I'vebeenwaitingallmy life 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 i t 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 thismovie,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 sincerewithme or not,whichmademe 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 admiredmywork 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, bu t 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 howwe 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 showme 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 valuedmy 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 themain concepts for thefilm.

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

American Cinematographer 99


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AClash ofTwo CulturesWillard's patrolboat glides intothe Kurtzcompound. Thetemple set wasbuilt with realstone, and thefilmmakers

used bothexplosives andheavy-dutytractors todestroy it for aspectacularsequence thatonly appearedover the endcredits of theinitial 35mmrelease prints.When thecontroversialsequencecaused rampantspeculationabout the film'sdenouement,Coppola had itexcised fromsubsequentprints. He laterexplained thatthe scenesubverted hisdesire to endthe film on ahopeful note.

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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 presentmy ideas, andi f he didn't think theywould 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 ofmine wanted to do a movieabout Tarzan. Unfortunately, thatfilm was never made, but my friendshowedme a bookby 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 of hisTarzan ar t [Tarzan of theApes and Jungle Tales of Tarzan], 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 thedrawingswas 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 por tray 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'twan t 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 theWagnerianhelicopterattack and the subsequent scene inwhichRobert 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 reallymy 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 therewas aman in silhouettewith awoman and a tiger behindhim.

Burum: While I was shootingpass-bys of the patrol boat, Vittoriosaid to me, 'We should see naturebeforewe seeman: 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


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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 shotwhere 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 surfingbehind the boat.Ashe's surfing, he's sprayingwater 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 those


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AClash ofTwo Cultures

Storaro isflanked bypresenters Jamielee Curtis andGeorge Hamilton

at the 1980Academy Awardsceremony,where thecinematographer'sspectacular workon ApocalypseNow earned himhis first Oscar.

102 February 2001

my effects guys all over the jungle toshoot that scene!' 50 in order toplacate Joe, Francis pu t the footageover the credits, which led to all ofthis speculation about th e 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, an dwe set up about10 cameras - a VistaVision camera,an inf rared camera, a high-speedcamera an d normal cameras. Beforewe began shooting, I ha d constantnightmares that someone was goingto get hur t. I kept asking Joe wherewe should pu t the crew membersan d the cameras to keep them safe,an d at first, he couldn't say for sure- the temple was built ou t of realstone, an d he was planning to usereal dynamite to blow it all up! Hefinally gave us th e minimumdistances wherewe'd be safe from theexplosions, an d we also buil t thesemoveable metal bunkers to protectthe cameras an d the operators.Whenthe explosions went off, all of thesebig stone blocks were flying around,so you couldn't even look throughthe camera.

Pizzello: Wh y was the temple

set built with real stone?Storaro: Dean Tavoularis

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

Burum: That temple waswellbuilt, too. When we first attemptedthose shots, i t simply wouldn't godown! Finally, we at tached thesecables to both heavy-duty tractorsan d the set, an d when the explosionhappened we just pulled the templedown.

I'll tell you, when those explosions went off, theywere so powerfulthey would lift you right off theground. All of th e air would besucked away from you, an d then thisrush of ho t air would come back atyou. Joe also warned us, 'Keep undercover, because once the blast goes off,it's gonna be raining snakes: An d itwas! [Laughter all around.]

Storaro: In the end, no t oneperson was hurt, which was a realtestament to Joe an d his crew. Theykept everybody informed about whatwas goingto happen every step of theway. All of the camera operators an deffects guys were communicatingwith walkie-talkies, an d I can stillremember hearing the explosionsgoing off i n m y ears.

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

Storaro: Well, I ha d severalproblems in that regard. For the firsttwo weeks of shooting, the dailieswere being sent to TechnicolorRome, which was justwhat I wanted.But then Gray Frederickson, the coproducer, said to me, 'We only haveone airplane a week that can go toRome, bu t we have two or three thatcan go to Los Angeles, so we're goingto have to do th e dailies atTechnicolor L.A. from no w on. Wh odo 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.Ho w can I have the samecollaboration with the people at thelab [in Los Angeles] if I don 't knowanybody there? They don't knowme,an d they won't know what to do:Ernesto Novelli [o f TechnicolorRome] ha d done The Spider'sStratagem [1970], The Conformist[1971], Last Tango in Paris [1973],1900 [1977] an d 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, Kodakha d just introduced its new colornegative stock [5247]. I did sometests with the newstock for 1900, bu tI didn't really like it. When I di dScandal [1976] just beforeApocalypseNow, Kodak Italy told me, 'You haveto use the new stock, because there'snone of the old stock left: I thereforerefused to bu y the film in Rome, an dwe called Kodak in Rochester, NewYork. They ha d enough of the previous stock for us, sowebought it fromthem instead for Scandal. By the timeI was doing Apocalypse, there was noway I could use the older stock again,because th e [change to the newstock] was almost complete. I wasn'thappy with the contrast of the newstock, an d when I did some tests inRome with Ernesto Novelli, wedecided to flash th e negative ofApocalypse Now. After exposing thenegative, we would sent it to Rome,where they would flash it beforedeveloping. Frankly, I don't knowho w 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 th e firsttiming of the film in Los Angeleswith Ernesto Novelli an d LarryRovetti supervising the work. Later,in Rome, I told Ernesto that I wasunhappy with the blacks in the film,


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because black was one of the mostimportant colors in terms of thevisual strategy. Black represented theunconscious, particularly in thesequences wherewe discover the truemeaning ofKurtz; 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;

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 itwill 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 havedinnerwith the peoplewho 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, duringwhich 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.]

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