How to overcome the 'messy middle'
On March 20th 1976, filming began on Francis Ford Coppola’s sixth blockbuster movie.
At the start of the month, he had flown with his family to the bustling city of Manila to prepare for the shoot.
The plan was for production to last four months and to release the film the following summer.
From the outset, however, everything related to the filming was a disaster.
The weather was appalling, the schedule kept getting delayed, and the costs were spiralling out of control.
In the middle of scenes, extras recruited from the Philippine army and half of their supplied helicopters would leave to go and fight rebels.
To make matters worse, the director was in a constant battle with his actors, who were regularly drunk or high.
Harvey Keitel was fired because of his inability to capture the essence of his character and Martin Sheen was so strung out that he was read his last rites on set despite being only 36 years old.
The biggest star, Marlon Brando, was so incapacitated and unable to remember his lines that they had to be stuck up all over the set so he could read them to camera.
Coppola was so discouraged that he was tempted to quit the project altogether.
It seemed that everything was conspiring against him.
In reality, he was simply experiencing an extreme version of what is sometimes described as the ‘messy middle’.
This is the difficult ‘in-between’ stage that every creative project goes through. It’s when things don’t seem to be working out, and the project appears doomed.
It’s also when self-doubt creeps in and you start to lose faith in your abilities.
You begin to ask yourself questions like “Is this too much for me to handle?” and “Will this ever turn out ok?”
The truth is every creative journey is full of twist and turns.
They never follow a linear path.
The skill lies in identifying these moments and holding on.
Ultimately, creative success is forged by overcoming this ‘messy middle’.
Francis Ford Coppola understood this instinctively on set in the Philippines and so persisted instead of giving up.
Eventually, things started to go his way.
The weather improved, the actors gave some memorable performances, and the film came together.
Despite it being released two years behind schedule, Apocalypse Now ended up winning two Academy Awards and was nominated for many others.
The film critic Roger Ebert declared it to be the finest film on the Vietnam War and others consider it as one of the greatest movies of all time.
As Bill Withers said, “You can’t get to wonderful without passing through alright.”
