There are times where films have a magical ability to transcend mainstream attention, be culturally significant, and artistically superlative. Apocalypse Now is one of those films. Although I read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness a year after I had seen Apocalypse Now, in high school, the book only made the parallels more distinct and profound (I also wrote a pretty damn good essay comparing the two, to boot!). Apocalypse Now is an excellent adaptation that makes only minor changes from the narrative, and the main themes expressed in 19th century Belgian-colonized Congo translate beautifully to American-occupied Vietnam. It has taken awhile to grow on me, but I consider Apocalypse Now, one of my all-time favorite films.
Additionally, I had a rare opportunity to repurchase Apocalypse Now on Blu-ray, because Best Buy was having it on sale for 60% off, and I also had been itching to watch the film in glorious high-definition. I was happy to find that I not only got a plethora of new extras, but also, director Francis Ford Coppola's recut, extended version Apocalypse Now Redux. Redux adds 30 additional minutes of footage to the film, and boasts a terrific digital remastering that has been applied across both cuts. If you have access to a Blu-ray player in your home, I highly encourage you to watch or buy Apocalypse Now on this medium. The remastering job is fantastic, and is a quintessential example of how Blu-ray can make a film look and sound "like-it-was-shot-yesterday". If you need further information, check out this comparison site that I found.
Set in the early days of American involvement in the Vietnam War, during the 1960s, Captain Willard, intoxicated by the horrors of war is put on a special assignment: to "terminate, with extreme prejudice" the enigmatic Colonel Kurtz. Kurtz apparently went AWOL and the US Army gets wind that he was comitting crimes against humanity, somewhere in the Cambodian jungles. Along the way, Willard and his crew make several stops at army checkpoints, witnessing the effects of the war upon people and combatants. Paranoia and fear also set in, but none of this compares to what Willard and his crew find in Kurtz's compound...
As a film Apocalypse Now is an amazing achievement: Plagued by a troublesome shoot for three years (the shooting was documented by director Coppola's wife in an excellent film Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, which I still need to check out), the film went on to win Best Picture at the Cannes Film Festival, according to various sources, and garnered 8 Academy Award nominations (losing Best Picture to the excellent, but incomparable Kramer vs. Kramer). Since I've discussed what I enjoy about the film's story at length, I'll discuss the style, which is incredible. Although the film is two-and-a-half hours long (and three for Redux), the editing and action have a great way of keeping your attention. The opening features a deep, electronically-processed bellowing of helecopter blades as they pass by the screen and drop napalm atop a jungle to the tune of The Doors's "The End". The film's atmosphere is rather grim and violent, but there's some light touches of humor here-and-there, and even from a USO show in one scene! Things really get scary once the crew reaches the Kurtz Compound; the score thumps monophonically and ominously like heartbeat as the crew approach the "heart" of the jungle, while being stared upon by Kurtz's white-paint-clad followers. The scenes that follow rival any horror film I've seen in recent years, and will ultimately leave you feeling drained and unnerved by the brilliance that has occured.
So how does Redux also compare? Well, despite being made with good intentions, I'm with the group that prefers the original cut. I have a love-hate-relationship with Redux, because the new scenes are very well-made, and expand some more upon the themes, but they are somewhat disruptive to the pace. Some of the scenes in question involve the crew stopping off at an encampment, where some Playboy bunnies from the USO tour happen to be. As they're having their "fun", their "innocence" is shattered when one of the troops carelessly knocks over a coffin containing a body; reminding them all of what war does to people. The other scene involves the crew stopping off at a French plantation, where the motives of colonization are raised and how the French expatriates perceive the war from their end. Willard smokes some opium with one of the women, and then they have sex. The next morning, it's back to hunting Kurtz. Again, while it's tricky for me, because the scenes complement the spirit of the film, wonderfully (especially the French woman Willard meets as the "white sepulchre", from the book). The film can really do without them, and as a whole, they feel out of place.
Whatever version you may be watching, Apocalypse Now is a masterpiece, and a work of art. The only thing that comes even reminiscently close to it, in my mind, and in recent years, is last year's Best Picture Academy Award-winner The Hurt Locker. With the idea that "war-is-hell", "war-is-a-drug", and that both films deal with a recent war at the time of their release, it shows how universal the themes of war remain in our consciousness and transcend eras. While they are both very different films, on the level of character study, I was surprised to have noticed these similarities. And yes, both left me feeling equally shaken about the horrors of war. But Apocalypse Now is a classic, and an epic. It will only become more appreciated and discussed as time goes by, and as a triumph in all aspects of cinema.
Apocalypse Now - 10/10
Apocalypse Now Redux - 8/10
Peace,
- Jon
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