Original novel Pierre Schoendoerffer originally wrote the story as a film script. He then turned it into
a novel, which was published in 1969 and became a best seller in France, selling over 300,000 copies in hardback. He made the lead character Irish because "the Irish are mad and I like mad people." "I was wanting to make a great symphonic book on life and death: on how a man can struggle until the very end, without hope and without reason, just to be alive, even though half dead., even though suffering terribly, because life is so powerful. But on the other hand I was wanting to show that if suddenly a man discovers that he is not fulfilling his dream, then he does not want to live anymore."
Development The film was originally going to be made in 1972, directed by Schoendoerffer and produced by Robert Dorfman, starring
Donald Sutherland. However, it was not made. John Milius was interested in the themes of the book. In 1976, he said: "I liked the story because it was such a wonderful
Kiplingesque adventure tale," Milius later said. "It was a theme I always respond to, a guy living free in the wild, and the world catching up to him. In many ways it's similar to
Jeremiah Johnson. I thought if I kept plugging away at it, sooner or later I'd get to do it." Milius described the film as his "most ambitious work - something I've wanted to do for 15 years... It's a story that explores loyalties, concepts of freedom and justice. And contrasts a seemingly violent but also very innocent society with the most corrupt society of them all, the outside world. Milius added, "Learoyd is a character who could have come out of one of those barbershop magazines of the '50s: 'I fought the (Japanese) with the headhunters in Borneo where I was king.' He's sitting on a throne with sloe-eyed beauties all around—a mai tai in one hand, a Thompson submachine gun in the other. There is some sort of primitive appeal in that to all of us. But the studios were never very excited about it. I don't know if they are now." "I'm a story teller," said Milius. "I'm a modern technology version of the Borneo tribal storyteller who squats near the fire in the long house and tells his tale. We're all telling the same tale. It's about the struggle of people to survive and, more important, to be free. It's about the necessity of making moral choices - and their costs. But it seems more real when you see where it really happened - and the people it really happened to. It's set in the 1940s and many people lost their freedom in the 1940s and were taking action and having adventures to get it back. Human beings like to hear stories about how they've survived and stayed free."
Anne Coates, the editor, called it "a terrific script. And everybody said, whatever you do, do not work with John Milius, you will hate him. He’s not your kind of person, and he’s a bully and he’s a this and that and the other, and you won’t really get on with him. But it was a three months location in Borneo, and so, rather stupidly, I went for a meeting with John Milius, and he was very charming to me, but, I didn’t like him. And he ran down everybody that I admired and liked... But he was being his sort of, most charming to me and everything. And so I thought, oh well, maybe it’ll be all right."
Filming Filming started August 24, 1987. The film was shot on location in Borneo (
Bau District,
Sarawak, Malaysia). Nolte arrived in Borneo a month before filming began. Anne Cotes, who had done an initial rough cut, left the project during this stage. In February 1989 he said, "Orion isn't behind it. They don't think it is going to be big at the box office. You put all the sweat and blood you can into it, and the outcome is whatever happens." He was also unhappy the edit removed how Learoyd managed to unify the Dyak tribes by getting the women to hold a sex strike. He later said [The film] was thrown away. I, as usual, was attacked viciously but in time it's come to be regarded as one of my best. In a way - I don't know why - I guess this film is more heartfelt than anything I've done since
Big Wednesday... The producers - Al Ruddy and Andre Morgan - who are friends of mine now - were lied to by Orion executives. They did a very careful divide-and-conquer and turned us against each other. They [Ruddy and Morgan] would love to recut it the way I wanted... We'd all love to recut that movie and rerelease it. According to Anne Coates, "they changed the story, because it was Nigel’s story. It was a botanist’s story, and then they changed it to Nick’s story... when it was the botanist’s story, it was much better." == Reception ==