10 Times Movie Directors Went Too Far To Get A Scene

Francis Ford Coppola famously likened the making of Apocalypse Now to the U.S. Army's involvement in Vietnam. At Cannes Film Festival he once said "There were too many of us. We had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little, we went insane."

For anyone who's seen Heart of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991), you'll know Coppola was not using hyperbole when he made that statement. Production of the film stretched on for months, the budget was blown out of proportion, and half the cast and crew, including Coppola, either descended into wild drug binges or else suffered mental breakdowns.

The entire production was an incident of a director going too far for the sake of art. But one scene in particular became a point of contention for animal rights activists. The movie climaxes with a scene of Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) killing Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando) with a machete. The moment is intercut with images of a water buffalo being butchered. It was a stunning way to portray the brutality of Kurtz's death, the problem was the buffalo was killed for real.

Coppola had witnessed the ritual slaughter of a buffalo by a Filipino tribe, and got the idea to incorporate the act into his film. Unrestricted by animal protection laws while filming on location, Coppola was able to get members of the tribe to recreate the moment and capture it on film.