Emulsion Ep. 11 - Restoring Hearts of Darkness with Fax Bahr and James Mockoski

Raise the subject of documentaries about filmmaking and you'll probably first go to Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse. Or the film you’re thinking about instead was directed by somebody was thinking about Hearts of Darkness. Or, assuming the film came out earlier, it was perhaps directed by someone who later saw Hearts of Darkness and wishes they made a film as good. Which is no disrespect to any other film that fits into its genre––just to say that no other such documentary seems to mirror and match the subject. Though long available, the film has––very much contra Apocalypse Now––only just been restored by American Zoetrope and is now rolling out in theaters. The effort was overseen by James Mockoski, who has served as a guiding hand for the recent spate of Coppola restorations and recuts. I was accordingly pleased to speak with him and Hearts' co-director, Fax Bahr, about the film’s legacy, its restoration, and what Francis Ford Coppola has planned after Megalopolis.