Apocalypse Now

Horrorphile

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Apocalypse Now

October 21st 2010 01:29

“I turned to the wilderness … And for a moment it seemed to me as if I was buried in a vast grave full of unspeakable secrets. I felt an intolerable weight oppressing my breast, the smell of the damp earth, the unseen presence of victorious corruption, the darkness of an impenetrable night.” --- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

There are very few nightmare movies as visually, viscerally and psychologically affecting, as profoundly immediate, despite their historical settings, as Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979). There has been so much said and done, so much dirty, bloodied water under the war-torn bridge of this extraordinary production, that any humble review in the wake of its questionable destruction, its primal majesty, its philosophical musings is purely grist to the mill. But a few more words scattered to the critical winds won’t hurt. This is a movie that has remained in my heart of dark delights ever since I first saw it cropped on a dodgy rented VHS with its original end credits rolling over a montage of the Kurtz compound being destroyed by what appeared to be an air-strike. It is one of my three favourite movies of all time; it is a war movie to be experienced like a bad acid trip infused with dangerous awe and nightmarish wonder.

Martin Sheen as Willard

“Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission, and for my sins, they gave me one. Brought it up to me like room service. It was a real choice mission, and when it was over, I never wanted another.” --- Captain Willard

Marlon Brando as Kurtz

It is 1969. Captain Willard (Martin Sheen in a career performance), a Vietnam veteran on the edge, well-seasoned, overcooked, but craving, is plucked from his squalid hotel room in Saigon and given an important intelligence briefing lead by Colonels Corman (G.D. Spradlin) and Lucas (Harrison Ford): “To proceed up the Nung River in a Navy patrol boat. Pick up Colonel Kurtz's path at Nu Mung Ba, follow it and learn what you can along the way. When you find the Colonel, infiltrate his team by whatever means available and terminate the Colonel's command … Terminate with extreme prejudice.”

Albert Hall as Phillips

On board the PBR (patrol boat, riverine) is his “streetgang”; Navy Chief Phillips (Albert Hall), Californian surfer Lance (Sam Bottoms), Bronx boy “Clean” (Laurence Fishburne, just 14 years old when filming started), and New Orleans machinist “Chef” (Frederic Forrest). Willard notes they’re “mostly kids; rock and rollers with one foot in their grave.” After a bizarre excursion accompanying Lt-Colonel Kilgore (a terrifyingly impressive Robert Duvall) and his air cavalry on a Ride of the Valkyries - “Someday this war's gonna end ...” – Willard and his crew begin in earnest their deadly mission up the Nung River into the heart of darkness …

Sam Bottoms as Lance

“I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream; that's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor ... and surviving.” --- Colonel Kurtz

Laurence Fishburne as Clean

Apocalypse Now is less a conventional narrative arc, and more a series of incidents, happenings, monologues, and set-pieces building toward a final metaphorical denouement. It is war as allegory, movie as experience, nightmare as expressionist deliverance. Primarily inspired by Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, a perilous journey into a quagmire of humanity, and based on an original screenplay by John Milius titled The Psychedelic Soldier, director Coppola steered his own narrative and laid on the audio-visual schematics with a spade and shovel. Michael Herr was brought in to conjure Willard’s excellent narration. Coppola's intention was to create a spectacular adventure rich in themes and philosophic inquiry into the mythology of war. The end result is a strange and demanding experience ahead of its time, distinctly of its time, and wholly unforgettable.

Frederic Forrest as Chef

Apocalypse Now was one of the last masterpieces of arguably the greatest decade in the history of film. Shooting began in 1976 and lasted sixteen months. Over 200 hours of film ended up in the can. It took another two years to edit the movie (critics blasted the movie Apocalypse When?). The stories that floated from the production have become the stuff of legend, many of which are recounted in the brilliant and essential documentary, Hearts of Darkness : A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (1991), made by Coppola’s wife Eleanor (who courageously documented the entire production on a 16mm camera), such as Harvey Keitel being fired after two weeks of playing Willard, and Martin Sheen having a heart attack, but Coppola insisting the show must go on!

Kilgore (Robert Duvall) assures his men that Charlie don't surf

Coppola had an incredible crew working for him, chiefly cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (probably the greatest DOP working at the time), production designer Dean Tavoularis, and editor Walter Murch, who also acted – very importantly - as sound designer. It was Murch who also supervised the exceptional Redux extended director’s cut which was released in 2001. The main additions of which are an extension of the Playboy bunnies performance sequence (and later their amorous encounters with Willard’s crew in the aftermath of a typhoon), a lengthy French plantation sequence where Willard and crew are wined and dined by a group of colonialists, led by Hubert (Christian Marquand), who expound America’s military blunders and the history of Indochina over Bordeaux and opium, and Willard indulging in a little amorous interlude of his own with the mademoiselle of the estate, Roxanne (Aurore Clément).

Playboy Playmate of the Year Cindy Wood entertains the troops

Carmine Coppola’s amazing score (co-composed with Francis), which utilises the Moog synthesizer to stunning effect (duplicating helicopter blades, and creating a palpable sense of menace and exhilaration) is a key character of the movie, as is the use of The Doors’ apocalyptic The End during the ritualistic, and climatic, killing sequence at movie’s end. A real caribou was slaughtered (as part of native custom) and the effect is truly disturbing.

Willard dines with Roxanne (Aurore Clement) and her French patriots in the Redux plantation sequence

“I tried to break the spell - the heavy, mute spell of the wilderness - that seemed to draw [Kurtz] to its pitiless breast by the awakening of forgotten and brutal instincts, by the memory of gratified and monstrous passions. This alone, I was convinced, had driven him out to the edge of the forest, to the bush, towards the gleam of fires, the throb of drums, the drone of weird incantations; this alone had beguiled his unlawful soul beyond the bounds of permitted aspirations.” --- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Dennis Hopper plays the crazy photojournalist

In the rare-as-hens-teeth workprint (which only exists in bootleg form, and clocks in at nearly five hours) there are several notable sequences that were never included in either the original version or the Redux version. The whole movie was set to songs by The Doors, and the entire ten minutes of The End is used over the movie’s stunning opening montage sequence which features a Vietnamese prostitute sharing Willard’s bed, then abandoning him to slide into a pitiful haze. Numerous other scenes are longer or have alternate takes, most importantly, the role of Colby (Scott Glenn), the soldier sent in before Willard, who has gone bamboo. He is instrumental in Willard completing his mission, yet inexplicably Coppola decided to leave out a pivotal scene where Colby shoots dead the photojournalist, is then mortally stabbed by Willard, but encourages the Captain to kill Kurtz.

The Du Long bridge in the asshole of the world

The dawn strike on “Charlie” goes on for nearly half an hour and features a musically evocative “ballet” of the choppers as they fly toward their destination. Another earlier workprint scene has Willard, in his narrow “tiger cage” being carried down to an area in the compound where Kurtz’s native followers, including Colby and Lance (who has completely lost the plot), dance and taunt Willard, and sacrifice a squealing wild pig. The workprint’s assassination sequence – set to the full length of The Doors’ When the Music is Over - is a very expressionist take, with much ritualistic chanting and dancing that culminates with Willard plunging a spear through a guard and a baby whom the guard has held up in front of him as defence! Willard then enters Kurtz’s sleeping quarters to deliver the final machete blow.

Willard meets Colby (Scott Glenn), shell of his former self

“In a war there are many moments for compassion and tender action. There are many moments for ruthless action - what is often called ruthless - what may in many circumstances be only clarity, seeing clearly what there is to be done and doing it, directly, quickly, awake, looking at it.” --- Captain Willard quoting Col. Kurtz

Willard approaches his moment of truth

Special mention must go to Dennis Hopper who plays the photojournalist - “The man is clear in his mind, but his soul is mad”- with deranged glee, and whom was struggling in his own dark wilderness, and deeply grateful to Coppola for offering him the work. And last, but not least, Marlon Brando, who plays Kurtz, and who turned up on set with the utmost arrogance, having not read the script, nor Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (which Coppola had instructed), 40kg overweight, and threatened to quit (and keep his $1m advance). However, his presence in the movie, although often in shadow, can not be undermined by his impudence. Brando provides Apocalypse Now with a true sense of bombastic megalomania.

Animal and man slaughtered as one

“The horror! The horror!” --- Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, as uttered by Colonel Kurtz

This fear of Gods

Apocalypse Now, both in its original version and as the Redux, is a masterwork of cinema. I appreciate the five hour workprint too for being an unbridled mural of sensuous insanity, despite its rhythmic limitations and dodgy bootleg quality. This is a portrait of war as the Devil’s work; a seductive nightmare.

This is the second in my three-movie series “Combat Shock”.

Here’s the original trailer:

Here’s the Redux trailer:

And here is the mesmerising original end credit sequence:

Polish movie poster

"If you kill for pleasure, you're a sadist
If you kill for money, you're a mercenary
If you kill for both, you're a ranger."

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

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Comments

8 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by David O'Connell

October 21st 2010 06:28

20/20 Filmsight
Screen Fanatic

Awesome stuff again Bryn, tackling these heavyweight classics is a bit intimidating but you've done this justice as well. There's an aura about Brando when he finally appears that's just pure cinema magic - the kind of thing only somebody of his standing could have generated.
Storaro's work is just stunning too. I certainly prefer it to The Deer Hunter by a fair bit, but have just never found the time to watch the Redux.
That Polish poster is a beauty alright!

Comment by Bryn

October 21st 2010 07:18

Horrorphile

Cheers David, this one's been a long time coming. Have you seen Hearts of Darkness? The last of this series leaves American soil and tackles WWII ... can you guess?

Comment by Anonymous

October 21st 2010 19:13

I thought you reviewed horror? You suck.

Comment by Matt Shea

October 21st 2010 22:43

Haha - yeah Bryn, you suck!

Seriously though, I'm not sure if there has ever been a better literary adaptation (even if it's not a straight adaptation) - this captures Conrad's book so well.

Like Dave, I've never found time for the Redux - and was put off by a couple of people rubbishing it - but have to check it out soonish.

So many images with this, but that one of Sheen coming up out of the water has to be my favourite - that gave me nightmares when I was a kid.

Where did you see the work print BTW?

Comment by ShaunK

October 21st 2010 23:05

Screen Adventure

Matt, you gotta stop being put off by word of mouth

there'll always be someone out there rubbishing something.

The Redux is fabulous. These images remind me of how iconic this film is even though I havn't seen it in many years.

Fantastic work Bryn

Comment by Bryn

October 22nd 2010 02:22

Horrorphile

Anon ... Any intelligent movie buff will tell you this movie smacks of horror ... and beside, if you read my claim below my site banner you'll see that I include movies not considered horror movies by conventional category ... so go suck on yourself!

Comment by Bryn

October 22nd 2010 02:26

Horrorphile

Matt, yes, Willard rising out of the steamy water is a great image, not sure why I didn't include it, I think cos I opted for the face half in shadow shot instead ... You have to watch the Redux!!! Rubbish??! They don't know what they're saying!

Cheers Shaun!!! Pulling out the big guns!