Apocalypse Now (1979)
Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall; d. Francis Ford Coppola; A

The tranquil image of tropical trees lined up on the shore is cut into by rising smoke and helicopters flying, in slow motion, close to the screen; The Doors' "The End" begins to play, the song creeping up from the speakers like the smoke creeping up from the sides of the screen, accompanied by the tweaked sounds of helecopter propellers. Suddenly, the forest burst into flames as the camerea pans to the right, as a full-fledged attack on the forest from helecopters and whatnot announces itself abruptly. The face of Captian Willard (Martin Sheen) is juxtaposed on the screen, as the camera continues to pan to show the jungle that is war. Explosions and helecopters fill the screen, then a panning shot of Willard's room, until finally settling on the clear image of an overhead fan, the noise it makes a faint reminicent of a helecopter propeller. Willard appears on screen again, as he gets up from his bed and looks out the window to see that he's still in Saigon. Willard begins his narration of the film by admitting his restlessness. Willard is desperate for a mission, a mission to send him back into "the jungle," and miracously, or at least to him, the army gives him one. He is sent on an unclassified mission to go to Cambodia to seek Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando, who worked with Coppola on another film that if you don't know the title to you've been living under a rock). According to the Army officials, Kurtz has gone completely off the deep end, and has stepped over his authority by becoming a merciless killer. For being an insane murderer, Kurtz has to be killed, and Willard is the hit man. Willard is sent to his destination by Navy "plastic patrol" boat, accompanied by four men: A man nicknamed "Chef" (Frederic Forrest, previously in The Conversation), famous Californian surfer Lance Johnson (Sam Bottoms), Clean (a 14-year-old Laurence "Larry" Fishburn), and Cheif Phillips (Albert Hall). Of the entire crew, only Willard knows where they are headed, up the Nung River and into "the asshole of the world." The crew encounters many interesting, and horrific, events in their journey up the river, including a comic episode with a war-hungry man named Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore (Robert Duvall, also in the aforementioned Conversation and "nameless" film; also keep on the look out for a TV documentary director advising that Willard not look at the camera, he might look familiar), a botched USO performance by Playboy bunnies, and a surrealistic entrance into Cambodia.

If there is anyone out there who are just like me, opposed to war and not too enthused with war films, I beg of you not to turn your backs on Apocalypse Now. It took me forever to watch this film. I refused to watch it when it came on AMC frequently a few months earlier, and of course it never crossed my mind to rent it. I only rented it on a whim after watching a documentary (if you want to call it that) on war films on AMC (I have to admit, I was kind of ashamed that the only film I had seen in that documentary was The Deer Hunter). Of course I had heard the film was good, so I did not pick up the film thinking that it would be bad. I just didn't know how good it would be! Apocalypse Now is one of the movies that embodies everything the movie going experience is when taken to its fullest extent. The film takes advantage of the audio, visual, and dramatic side of the cinema, giving the viewer the ultamate cinema experience. The highlight of this film is, with out a doubt in my mind, the Oscar-winning cinematography by Vittorio Storaro (who also appeared in the film during one of its cinematography highlights as a TV cameraman). The brilliant meshing of realistic and surrealistic images, pared up with a great score by Carmine Coppola (who did the extra music for The Godfather Part II, for which he won an Oscar, and the entire score for The Godfather Part III) and Francis Ford Coppola (!) and musical selections from The Doors and Richard Wagner ("The Ride of the Valkyries"), as well as the excellent Oscar-winning sound (among those who did the sound was Walter Murch, nominated for an Oscar for The Conversation), was the perfect way to visualize the story of a maddening voyage to find a mad man. The best examples of this perfect paring of visuals and sound (and music) would be the opening sequence, the brilliant usage of "The Ride of the Valkyries" during one of the vividly shot and edited battle sequences, the brightly lit Playboy bunny USO scene, and the ending (which again uses "The End").

Likewise the dramatic elements are just as great. The script, based on Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness, is superbly written with great dialouge and narriation. There isn't a flaw in the film, nor is there a bad performances. The best performances come from Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Marlon Brando, Albert Hall, and Frederic Forrest, the absolute best coming from Sheen, who successfuly carries the film. He plays his character with a keen observant eye, dry wit, and distant confusion. Willard is a man who has no true feelings, he has no true life outside of war and murder. Duvall is great as the comic Kilgore, whose character is a humorous parelell to the supposedly insane Kurtz. Kilgore's name says it all; he launches insane attacks against seemingly innocent Vietnamiese villiage while blasting classical music from his helecopter, and then of all things, wants to surf in the middle of an air raid. Brando does a great job as Kurtz with as little screen time as he has. When faced with Kurtz the audience is asked to make up their own minds about him - as Willard did. Is he really insane or has the army unfairly judged and accused him? Was his insanity his own doing or the war's doing? The supporting cast and characters are also very strong, you start to feel for every single one of the characters, no matter how long or how short they are in the film. Coppola's direction is again excellent, but it is disenheartening to hear that Apocalypse Now was the last of his important movies. Having seen only two post-Apocalypse films, The Godfather Part III and Jack, I can somewhat get an understanding of why people say that. Films like Apocalypse Now, The Conversation, and The Godfather Part II show a master director at work, someone who had imagination and the skill to pull off that imagination. Maybe the awful conditions shooting this film as well as the craftsmanship that went into this fillm must have sucked the energy out of him. For whatever reason, if Apocalypse Now is his last important film, it certianly is a great way to end off such a short list.

I don't think I could reccomend this film enough. It's a brilliant film, the best war film that I have seen as of yet. And for Pete's sake see it on widescreen DVD!

© Frances R. 2001