Apocalypse Now
Thirty one years after it finally made its’ anticipated debut at Cannes- where it won the Palm D’Or- Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” is now one of those “official masterpieces” that most people have heard of, even if they haven’t seen it. They know it’s a great film in spite of having never seen it. But why is it great?
Oh there are many a reason, several confirmed by 2001’s release of “Apocalypse Now Redux,” and not necessarily in the way Coppola probably intended when he added 49 minutes to his masterwork. But I’ve watched the original 1979 version for this review, although I will mention what worked in “Redux” and what didn’t.
The sounds are the first thing you notice, and not just the haunting sounds of The Door’s “The End,” but the way sound mixer/editor Walter Murch makes the sound effects, music, and the synthesized score (by Frances and Carmine Coppola) blend into an extraordinary sonic landscape. Music sounds like the propellers of a helicopter in flight. Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” blares over the loudspeakers of an early-morning helicopter raid run by Col. Kilgore (Robert DuVall) in a way that music rarely blends into something more in the movies- it feels as much like a commentary on the way America ran the war as much as it is music to score a sequence to. Of course, it’s the greatest sequence in a movie of great sequences, capped off with surfer Kilgore’s iconic monologue about napalm. You know it, but it’s it’s worth repeating the most memorable lines: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning…It smells like, like victory. Someday this world’s gonna end.”
The images are the next thing you notice. The old-school look on the film, shimmering with color and mood in the camerawork of Vittorio Storaro. No film looks so evocative or mesmerizing in its’ use of color than this. And the sights we see. Of course, the helicopter raid. Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) and Chef (Frederic Forrest) in the jungle, looking for mangos, instead finding an unforgiving landscape, and a tiger that pounces on them. Surfer Lance Johnson (Sam Bottoms) doing some waterskiing behind Albert Hall’s Chief’s boat, which is carrying Willard into Cambodia for his mission. The USO show with the Playboy bunnies that goes out of control. And the unforgettable opening, with Willard drunk, drugged out of his mind in a Saigon hotel room, a scene made all the more potent by revelations discovered in the documentary “Hearts of Darkness,” which chronicles the film’s difficult production. And all of these scenes are before the film reaches its’ destination…
…which brings me, at last, to the story. Inspired by the Joseph Conrad novella “Heart of Darkness,” Coppola and John Milius’ screenplay tells the journey of Willard as he’s charged with moving up a river in Vietnam into Cambodia, where a Col. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) has made himself up as a God. Divorced from all rational humanity, and running the war his own way, Kurtz is a threat to the military brass. They have brought Willard in to move up the river, infiltrate Kurtz’s army, and terminate his command. “Terminate the Colonel.” “Terminate…with extreme prejudice.”
Along the way, Willard- whose narration is among the finest in film history in how it enhances the telling of the story- learns about Kurtz and sees first-hand the insanity of war. In the actions and eyes of his shipmates (including a very young Laurence Fishburne as Mr. Clean). In the defense of a bridge at the final American checkpoint on his journey, where the soldiers are without leadership or rational thought. In the sadness of Chief when Clean is killed in a firefight with an unseen jungle adversary. And finally, in the path leading up to Kurtz, which- like the path to El Dorado in Herzog’s “Aguirre”- is filled with death.
The last third of the film is at Kurtz’s compound. It is one of the most striking sights in film history. A pagan sanctuary, with dead bodies all around, followers as far as the eye could see (natives and Americans alike). A temple created for a false God…or was he? When we finally see Kurtz, he sounds rational, even if what he says is anything but. Kurtz hides himself in the shadows (for reasons discussed in “Hearts of Darkness”), and Brando creates an indelible portrayal of a man we even have a hard time wrapping our head around.
One person gets it, though. He’s a photojournalist who has stayed at the compound, and the performance by Dennis Hopper is important to his importance to this part of the film. Clearly stoned out of his mind, but very lucid in his thoughts, he is the opposite of Kurtz. Not in his sanity, but in his approach to Willard. Kurtz chooses to speak; the photographer seems to speak all the time, as if he has no free will left in him.
In the end, free will is among the most important ideas in the film. Kurtz still has his, even if he’s given it over to savagery and the idolatry of himself. It’s almost an insult to call him “insane”- he’s just seen the darkness of his soul, and of the soul of all men. How far we can go in the name of our ideals? Willard, meanwhile, is at the tipping point. He’s being a good soldier by following his orders to go up the river, but the more he reads about Kurtz, and the more he sees of war, the more he finds himself unsure of what he believes anymore. That uncertainty grows deeper when he finds himself in Kurtz’s presence. It’s fitting that Kurtz’s final words are, “The Horror…the Horror.” In his final monologue, we find out Kurtz’s tipping point. That’s when he lost his sense of civilization. We watch the final third of “Apocalypse Now,” and its’ haunting final moments, and hope to never reach that point ourselves.
The 1979 version is a pure masterwork- visionary, hypnotic, and unlike any film ever made in how far it goes in its’ evocation of the madness of war. Coppola’s 2001 “Redux” is no less of a masterpiece, even if it’s more flawed. It adds further footage with Kurtz at the end, as well as a French Plantation scene that’s compelling but stops the action cold. However, there is an unnecessary love scene in the latter, and later scene with the Playboy bunnies that are simply out of sync with the film itself. They were best left on the cutting room floor. Thankfully, Coppola has preserved his original film alongside “Redux,” allowing people to choose for themselves which one they choose to watch. Either way, prepare to be haunted long after by what he has to show you.
For my review of 1991’s “Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse” (available separately on DVD from the film), you can click here.
