Stoned Soup

Is "stone soup" really just a reference to a grassroots breed of collaborative productivity? Honest question. Because that is exactly what it sounds like to me. That being said, I have not seen one single film, heard a band's album, or walked into a building that could not be considered a stone soup. All movies are are massive (and in some incredible cases, small) collaborations of artists and engineers working with whatever materials accessible in order to create one unified piece. Ok, so a lot of films we see or hear about today happen to be backed by millions of dollars and are not exactly democratic in the nature of production, which would arguably conflict with the "grassroots" part of my definition of stone soup. So then shall we limit films worthy of the label to indie flicks? I suppose I can get on board with that.

Sam Bottoms as Gunner's Mate Lance Johnson, Apocalypse Now

But allow me to indulge, for a moment, the idea that all it takes to consider a work stone soup is that it must be a wide scale collaborative endeavor using whatever tools are available. In this sense I'd like to call attention to the film Apocalypse Now (1979) as a remarkable example of such an endeavor. I'm came to this conclusion after watching the documentary chronicling the near fatal trials and tribulations that plagued the production of the film — Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991). Before watching the documentary, I was still asking myself "What qualifies as 'stone soup' anyway?" However I barely made it past the introduction before deciding "This is it!" I mean, I'd labor over the precise definition of a whimsical term used metaphorically to describe a process with no purpose other than to promote inspiration and good old fashioned kindergarten style teamwork, but what's the use? Fauvism, Impressionism, Neo-post-abstract-expressionistic-brushed-steel-exhibitionism, whatever-ism. The lines are fuzzy any which way you look at it, so I'd prefer to just stick with my gut when it tells me "This is it!"

Francis Ford Coppolla, on the set of Apocalypse Now

So now that I've [probably not] made you curious: What makes Apocalypse Now worthy of the [not really] coveted title of stone soup? If you've already seen either, or preferably both, of the two previously mentioned titles, you're likely to see what I mean. The film's basic plot itself is an adaptation of a story published in 1902 called Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. The story was rewritten and adapted into a contemporary setting as a movie, and the project was ultimately taken up by director Francis Ford Coppolla (dare I mention Mario Puzo's The Godfather? … I totally just did). But that doesn't make it very stone soupy yet, does it? No that's not a sincere question, so don't bother answering. I won't go into much excruciating detail, or any at all for that matter, but in order to go through with this project, Coppolla had to put up the entire film's budget out of his own pockets. In that sense, he was putting the small fortune he'd acquired for his work on the first two Godfathers on the line, risking bankruptcy for failure to either complete the project successfully or complete it at all — which he viewed as incredibly likely within months of shooting. The most interesting part about the film is that it partially acts as a Vietnam war exposé during the war, so in order to shoot the warlike scenery deep in the Vietnam-esque tropical climate, the crew went to the Philippines and actually worked with Philippino government and army to participate. The exotic tribesmen and some of the rituals they performed such as killing the bull were in fact real traditions that they'd presented to the filmmakers ceremoniously. These are a couple of the numerous unrehearsed contributions that went into the film and I won't go any further because it's just something you will have to see for yourself… if you haven't already.