Francis Ford Coppola on How ‘Apocalypse Now’ Was Deemed a Failure — and Nearly Inventing Smartphones

Francis Ford Coppola recently worked cinephiles into a frenzy by saying that, after an eight-year absence from filmmaking, he’d finally begun work on long-planned passion project “Megalopolis,” a film that’s always been dogged by funding issues.

That followed his unspooling of “Apocalypse Now: Final Cut” at the Tribeca Film Festival in April, which cut certain scenes from 2001’s extended “Apocalypse Now Redux” while adding back some of the “weirder” elements lost from the 1979 theatrical cut.

“Final Cut” will be released on Blu-ray in August.“Apocalypse Now” — and what it says about how a work of art can shape-shift, in both its own form and in the minds of viewers and critics — was the reason for a wide-ranging new interview with Coppola conducted by Rolling Stone‘s David Fear.

The whole Q&A is a reminder of what a forward-looking thinker the “Godfather” filmmaker is; he even almost kicked

Read full article