877: The Making Of
This American Life
This American Life
4.6 • 88.8K Ratings
🗓️ 21 December 2025
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How one block in Portland, Oregon became a movie-set war zone that lots of people think is a real war zone.
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- Prologue: What the movie Hearts of Darkness and right-wing influencers have in common. (8 minutes)
- Act One: Producers Zoe Chace and Suzanne Gaber follow a bunch of right-wing influencers as they search for Antifa in Portland. (31 minutes)
- Act Two: We meet the so-called leader of Antifa in Portland. (16 minutes)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeaped in today's episode of the show. |
| 0:05.2 | If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. |
| 0:11.6 | This American Life, Myra Glass. |
| 0:13.9 | And we've been talking here at the radio show recently about a certain genre of movie, which is the making of movie, a movie about the making of another film, |
| 0:22.9 | usually a much more famous one. A classic is Hearts of Darkness, which is a making of documentary |
| 0:28.8 | about the film Apocalypse Now, which has footage that the director Francis Ford Coppola's wife, |
| 0:33.7 | Eleanor, shot at the time the movie was being filmed. Plus, incredibly, these recordings that she made of her husband without him knowing it, where he's talking about his self-doubt, his despair. This film is a $20 million disaster. I'm thinking of shooting myself. They're candid moments with the actors, Dennis Hopper, Lawrence Fishburn, who's 14 years old when they were making that film. Martin Sheen, who plays the main character, has a heart attack when they're there. |
| 0:57.7 | 36. |
| 0:59.3 | Marlon Brando, the film's most expensive star. |
| 1:02.2 | At some point, Coppola realizes that Brando has not read the book that the movie is based on, |
| 1:07.2 | Heart of Darkness. |
| 1:08.4 | So he does not get who his character is. |
| 1:10.8 | He's being paid a million dollars a week. |
| 1:14.1 | And all throughout, there are hints and glimpses |
| 1:16.2 | of what's really happening in reality |
| 1:18.1 | in the place of they're filming this movie. |
| 1:20.9 | They're in the Philippines, |
| 1:22.0 | where a U.S. supported autocrat |
| 1:23.4 | is fighting a war against a communist insurgency. |
| 1:27.1 | The movie's helicopters are U.S.-made choppers |
| 1:29.3 | flown by pilots in the Philippine military. |
| 1:32.2 | We keep getting pulled away to go back to the real war. |
... |
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