10 Genius Ways Movies Fixed Their Own Mistakes

9. Marlon Brando Was Filmed In Shadow To Hide His Weight - Apocalypse Now

On paper, Marlon Brando seemed like a perfect casting choice to play the deranged Colonel Kurtz in Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam war epic, but the already immensely problematic shoot was further complicated when Brando arrived to the Manila set in less-than-ideal condition.

Brando was roughly 40 pounds overweight, giving him a stocky build that was far away from the thin Kurtz envisioned in both the script and Joseph Conrad's source material, Heart of Darkness

Furthermore, Brando hadn't read the script so didn't know his lines, and constantly argued with Coppola about the arc and even the name of his character.

After taking time to re-group, Brando and Coppola came to a compromise: to conceal his undulating gut, Brando would be dressed in slimming black clothes, shot primarily in shadow and filmed largely from the waist-up, while a body double would be used to make him look taller.

Though this was a purely desperation move on Coppola's part given that he couldn't locate combat fatigues that would fit Brando, it ended up lending Kurtz a greater sense of operatic mystery and intrigue, and no doubt contributed to the movie's third act being as brilliantly surreal as it was.

A great filmmaker needs to possess the ability to think on their feet, and between this and the rest of Apocalypse Now's hellish production, Coppola proved his mettle beyond all doubt.