Apocalypse Now

I first saw APOCALYPSE NOW in 1985 when it was broadcast on British television for the first time . I was shell shocked after seeing this masterpiece and despite some close competition from the likes of FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING this movie still remains my all time favourite nearly 20 years after I first saw it

This leads to the problem of how I can even begin to comment on the movie . I could praise the technical aspects especially the sound , editing and cinematography but everyone else seems to have praised ( Rightly too ) these achievements to high heaven while the performances in general and Robert Duvall in particular have also been noted , and everyone else has mentioned the stark imagery of the Dou Long bridge and the montage of the boat traveling upriver after passing through the border

How about the script ? Francis Ford Coppola is best known as a director but he's everyway a genius as a screenwriter as he was as a director , I said " was " in the past tense because making this movie seems to have burned out every creative brain cell in his head , but his sacrifice was worth it . In John Milius original solo draft we have a script that's just as insane and disturbing as the one on screen , but Coppola's involvement in the screenplay has injected a narrative that exactly mirrors that of war . Check how the screenplay starts off all jingoistic and macho with a star turn by Bill Kilgore who wouldn't have looked out of place in THE GREEN BERETS but the more the story progresses the more shocking and insane everything becomes , so much so that by the time reaches Kurtz outpost the audience are watching another film in much the same way as the characters have sailed into another dimension . When Coppola states " This movie isn't about Vietnam - It is Vietnam " he's right . What started off as a patriotic war to defeat communist aggression in the mid 1960s had by the film's setting ( The Manson trial suggests it's 1970 ) had changed America's view of both the world and itself and of the world's view of America

It's the insane beauty of APOCALYPSE NOW that makes it a masterwork of cinema and says more in its running time about the brutality of conflict and the hypocrisy of politicians ( What did you do in the Vietnam War Mr President ? ) than Michael Moore could hope to say in a lifetime . I've not seen the REDUX version but watching the original print I didn't feel there was anything missing from the story which like all truly great films is very basic . In fact the premise can lend itself to many other genres like a western where an army officer has to track down and kill a renegade colonel who's leading an injun war party , or a sci-fi movie where a UN assassin is to eliminate a fellow UN soldier who's leading a resistance movement on Mars , though this is probably down to Joseph Conrad's original source novel

My all time favourite movie and it's very fitting that I chose this movie to be my one thousandth review at the IMDb

Apocalypse Now is an interesting film, not because it is supposedly an anti-war film, but because it is surreal and shows an interesting journey into madness.

Martin Sheen gives us an insight into his character here and we see the senselessness of the whole situation and how easy it is to lose yourself in certain situations.

We follow his journey and the various events that befall him and a small group of soldiers in a patrol boat traveling deep into the jungle. On their way, really bizarre things happen.

Along the way, we also see Robert Duvall in the role of a completely insane officer, whose episodic role has a profound impact on the film.

The film should essentially be anti-war, but it didn't strike me as such, but simply as a film about the fate of various people who found themselves in unusual situations.

Their whole mission doesn't really make sense, and in the end they accomplished nothing, but that's the point. Everything was really in vain.

The direction is excellent, the music is perfectly integrated into the film and matches the tone of the film.

For me, this is a film about the loss of reason and the journey to madness. If civilization completely collapses, and somewhere it has already collapsed a long time ago, this is roughly what we can expect, madness and insanity.

I watched three versions of the film and I liked the Redux version the best.

An interesting and brutal journey into madness and darkness.

Francis Ford Coppola, once the most praised and powerful director in Hollywood, entered the Southeast Asian jungle to make a movie. Armed with Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", a small army of technicians, and a 15 million dollar budget, he emerged ten months later with thousands of hours of footage, two nearly dead actors and a nervous breakdown.

The cause of all this personal trauma was "Apocalypse Now", a film in which Martin Sheen is sent up a river and into the jungles of Vietnam to find Colonel Walter Kurtz (Marlon Brando), a Special Forces officer who has gone insane.

Conrad's message was that savagery and apathy can wipe out the fragile gains of civilization within a single generation. A thin line stands between civilization and total collapse. Inject a little bit of barbarism, a little bit of chaos, and everything falls apart. Coppola's film tries to build on this, and states that America's inability to relinquish the trappings of civilization (ie- to get out of the boat), ensured its defeat. We lost because we weren't, as a nation, prepared to commit genocide. We committed horrors, but we weren't prepared to go all the way.

The biggest problem with "Apocalypse Now" is that it was written by John Milius, the pro-war, gun toting ultra conservative whom the Coen Brother's based their character Walter Sobchak (from "The Big Lebowski") on. At the end of Milius' script, Kurtz and Willard team up to fight America. They represent the warrior savage, free from hypocrisy but lost in the darkness.

Coppola, of course, found Milius' script largely silly. He removed Milius' violent ending and went in search of something more powerful. For some grand statement on war and human nature. But he found none. How could he? You can't paddle down a straight line for 10 months and then suddenly expect to reach a new destination.

Throughout the film, "Apocalypse Now" tells us one thing, but shows us something else. The Colonel Kilgores of the picture actually fight the war, whilst the powerful warrior God, Col Kurtz, does little beside chopping the limbs off natives or hiding in the shadows. Milius' script saw Kurtz as the hero. A wise and seasoned rebel warrior who sticks his fingers up to the hypocritical veneer of civilization, but Coppola seems unwilling to go down that route.

Coppola's "redux" cut of the film, though badly paced, is more interesting. It adds a French plantation scene which attempts to contrast the French period of colonial rule with America's war in Vietnam. The problem with this is that US involvement in Vietnam and the Colonial mindset of nineteenth century Europe, as seen in "Heart of Darkness", are completely different. American policy wasn't inspired by colonial aims but by ideological ones. The American experience in Vietnam was the opposite of Conrad's colonial experience. No wonder Coppola couldn't find a suitable ending. There isn't one.

Late in the film, Kurtz accuses his country of hypocrisy. They are unwilling to fully embrace the darkness. If he were given a small army of savages, he says, then the war would be over tomorrow. The implication is that the Vietnamese were nothing more than barbaric savages who should be dealt with, not civility, but primal brutality.

Worse yet, Coppola's "war" is one of gorgeous cinematography and exciting spectacle. When a Vietnamese village is raided, it feels more like the Death Star trench run than a savage massacre. Killgore himself is a figure of fun rather than the monster he should be. Milius' script painted a much darker character (hence kill and gore).

Still, "Apocalypse Now" may contain no truths about Vietnam or war in general, but it is a film absolutely dripping with passion. Like "Aguirre, the Wrath of God", "Apocalypse Now" is very much a Werner Herzog film. Herzog was a mad artist who wanted to lift a boat over a mountain. Why lift the boat over the mountain? No reason. He simply wanted to do it in the name of art!

Same thing with Coppola. He wanted to do "somthing" great. He went into the jungle, went insane and came out with a couple thousand hours of mad footage. What is the merit of this footage? The merit is in surviving the journey. In making it down the river and back out again.

And so what we have is a film about its creators. A film about the madness of the white man. The madness of the director. The madness of the crew. Ironically, the film's madness is all a result of indulgence. The indulgence of a staggering budget, studio leeway, accessible drugs, limitless resources and a giant ego. It's the shallowest kind of insanity. The insanity of unlimited power and a lack of boundaries.

8/10 - "Apocalypse Now" ultimately amounts to nothing more than a series of memorable set-pieces. These set pieces don't enrich one another or gel in any way. It's an incomplete film, and even Coppola admits that he didn't quite know what he was doing or tying to say. The film goes up the river but doesn't know why.

Far more interesting is "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse", a documentary shot in tandem with the film. As a study in ego-maniacal madness it's far more powerful than Coppola's film. Narrated by Coppola's wife, it's also very intimate and perceptive. It's also interesting to see how much Coppola relied on Brando's improvisational skills, hoping desperately that the great actor would whip up some kind of climax out of thin air. Brando, of course, was just in it for the huge pay cheque.

Though a failure, this film is worth multiple viewings.

My favourite movie of all time. This was a flawed piece of work by Coppola and seeing the documentary 'Heart of Darkness' made it even more compelling. Coppola at this point was king of Hollywood after making 'the Godfather' and 'GodfatherII' and had developed the ego necessary to even dare try to make a movie like 'Apocalypse Now'. Through sheer arrogance he went to the Phillipines with a partial script and thought he would know what he would do when he got there. Just as Captain Willard thought he would know what to do once he got to Col. Kurtz's compound. And just like Willard, he DIDN'T know what he was going to do once he got there. This is such a masterpiece of American cinema, beautifully photographed and the river is such a perfect metaphor and backdrop for the story. What I like most about 'Apocalypse Now' is that it offers no answers or conclusions. Consequently, because of this open-endedness, it infuriates some viewers who like their movies to be much more obvious.

This movie defies categorization. Some call it a war movie which it isn't at all, really it is more of a personal study of man. The best pic about Vietnam is 'Platoon' in my opinion and if a viewer is seeking a retelling of the Vietnam War go there first for answers.

Coppola should be commended for his take on the bureaucracy of war which he conveys quite effectively with the meeting with Gen.Corman and Lucas (Harrison Ford) and the Playmate review. The sheer audacity of Kilgore makes him an unforgettable character and the dawn attack will always be a Hollywood classic.

It is an almost psychedelic cruise to a very surreal ending which makes it a movie not accessible to everyone. Very challenging to watch but rewarding as well. I could offer my explanations on each scene but that would be totally pointless. This movie is intended for interpretation and contemplation as opposed to immediate gratification.

A little footnote, definitely if your a first-time viewer of Apocalypse Now, watch the original version first, the 'Redux' version is, I think, more intended for the hardcore fan and is more of a curiosity than a 'new and improved' version of the movie

So just how insane is 'Apocalypse Now'? Well, let's say that it is the kind of film that makes you want to bang your head against the wall. The beginning has no credits or titles; nothing. The whole film seems like it's taking place on a different world, and as the story moves on, sanity itself is shed. There was a French plantation scene that got cut out, and an alternate ending that would have had a massive battle scene outside Kurtz's compound.

'Apocalypse Now' is not a realistic film in the sense that the presentation of the Vietnam War is far from correct: helicopters going in BEFORE the napalm strikes, a USO show in the jungle at night, and the final bridge all lit-up like a Christmas tree. (for more realistic 'Nam War movies, try 'The Deer Hunter' or 'Platoon')

But what 'Apocalypse Now' lacks in historical accuracy, it makes up in artistic and dramatic scripting. Some of the best photography and lighting ever can be found here.

The film also raises some severe philosophical issues, and gives us entirely new ones. When the movie begins, the war is raging around us. It is chaotic and nerve-racking, yet still rational. When we finally get to Kurtz's base, the action has died down, but rational thinking has long since been vanquished to the point of total lunacy. This shows us the truth about men of war in times of war and peace. The voyage down the river has a sense of time travel (a sense that would have been much more apparent had the French Plantation scene remained.) And when you get to the end, keep in mind the old phrase: The King is dead... Long live the king.

Is Kurtz insane? Or are we not yet ready to understand him? These questions and more are up to you as 'Apocalypse Now has no easy answers.