Paris (AFP)

Forty years after its release in 1979, Francis Ford Coppola has not finished with his obsession with "Apocalypse Now": his acclaimed film at the accursed shoot returns to the screens in a new version restored, half an hour longer than the 'original.

Despite the success of his film on the Vietnam War - Palme d'Or tied for the Cannes Film Festival in 1979 and become a reference for the 7th Art - Coppola was never really satisfied with his work of 1979, that he had condensed in 2H33.

He released in 2001 a new extended version of 49 minutes, "Apocalypse Now Redux", with additional scenes.

"Apocalypse Now Final Cut", a 3:01, released Thursday in the United States and next Wednesday in France, before a Blu-Ray edition, appears as a compromise between previous versions, with a restoration for the first time to from the original negative, which took almost a year, and picture quality and its optimum, in 4K Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision.

"Best version of the film in the world", according to the filmmaker, this "Final cut", presented for the first time in April at the Tribeca Festival in New York, "brings a quality of image and sound even higher than what she was, "he says. "The audience will be able to see, hear and feel this film as I have always dreamed."

In New York, the 80-year-old filmmaker said he had "always regretted certain cuts" that he had to make in 1979, but that the second version seemed "perhaps too long", hence this third.

- "obsessional madness" -

The fact of still putting on the book his film also testifies the obsessive relationship that the director of the "Godfather" has continued to maintain with this work.

In his "Dictionary of the Cannes Film Festival", the former president of the Gilles Jacob Festival, who was then the general delegate, remembers that in 1979, Coppola "had reached such a level of obsessional madness that, the months before Cannes ", he created" one end per week ".

He also tells that the American director had presented to Cannes two possible endings to festival-goers: "a first ending in the great hall of the old palace (festivals) and, alternatively, another, in a small room".

An "ultimate hesitation" that came to crown his "inability" to "mount fifty thousand meters of film" and "to decide between different montages", a work that took him more than two years, says Gilles Jacob.

The legendary filming of this free adaptation of Joseph Conrad's "In the Darkness", chronicling the journey of Captain Willard (Martin Sheen), responsible for locating and eliminating Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), had previously encountered all the difficulties imaginable.

- "I was scared" -

"We were in the jungle, we were too many, we had too much money, we had too much equipment, and little by little we went crazy," Coppola told the Cannes Film Festival.

Filming begins on March 20, 1976 in the Philippines. Scheduled to last a few weeks, it will finally spread over 238 days.

Problems will occur first with the actors: chosen after the refusal of Steve McQueen, Harvey Keitel displeased Coppola. He replaces him with Martin Sheen, but he has a heart attack in 1977, and will have to be away for several weeks.

As for Marlon Brando, he will arrive without preparation.

The climatic conditions will also be very difficult: at the end of May 1976, Typhoon Olga destroyed decor and equipment, interrupting production for six weeks.

In addition to this, Coppola's paranoid attacks, under the influence of drugs, which has lost about forty kilos and had to mortgage his property to finance the film. The budget, originally $ 13 million, will increase to $ 30 million, leading it to the brink of ruin.

"Let's be honest, I was scared," Coppola told the Tribeca Film Festival.

"Terrible things happened on this film," he admitted. But, "if you want to make art, you must also accept the risk".

© 2019 AFP