Apocalypse Now (1979)

The film earned director Francis Ford Coppola great kudos. He was hailed as the creator of the greatest war (or antiwar) film ever made, yet subsequent viewings show considerable flaws and wide gaps in the story line that are merely filled in with Marlon Brando's incomprehensibility. Synopsis Heart of darkness A captain high on war and suffering from battle fatigue, Willard (Martin Sheen), is ordered to take a four-man crew up the Mekong River into Cambodia where he is to exterminate a berserk American colonel, Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who has set up a ruthless dictatorship. As the gunboat proceeds upriver, Captain Willard and his men come under fire, which jangles the nerves of the executioner and haunts him with memories of previous battles. They stop at an American helicopter base where Captain Willard accompanies a wacko colonel Lt. Col. Kilgore (Robert Duvall) who "loves the smell of napalm in the morning," on a raid against a Vietcong stronghold. The helicopters fly in blaring Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" and then proceed to bomb and strafe everyone in sight. The gunboat continues upriver to a USO site where thousands of GIs are near frantic at the sight of Playboy Playmates on-stage; several soldiers become so aroused that they rush the stage and the girls must be taken away.

Captain Willard resumes his journey under attack from the shore; some crew members are killed, but he finally reaches Colonel Kurtz's island stronghold. Kurtz Signs of his dictatorship among the Montagnard tribesmen are everywhere—severed heads of dissenters impaled on poles, corpses hanging from trees. Captain Willard is greeted by American stragglers, fanatical followers of Colonel Kurtz, notably a neurotic photographer (Hopper). The executioner is granted an audience with Colonel Kurtz, who resides in the damp darkness of a cave meditating on life and death and tells Captain Willard that "moral terror" is necessary for the preservation of civilization. Despite his inner admiration for Colonel Kurtz (it is never made clear why diehard soldier Captain Willard should feel this way), Captain Willard carries out the execution and escapes with another soldier, Lance (Sam Bottoms), as the natives close in on the retreating gunboat.

Afflicted with indecision, huge costs, expensive technology, haphazard progress, foul weather—the creation itself of Apocalypse Now can almost be interpreted as an appropriately ironic metaphor for America's involvement in Vietnam. The movie originally was a financial disaster, grossing little more than $5 million above budget. The director began with a $12 million budget that surpassed $31 million before the 238-day shooting schedule ended, his costs so excessive that he had to sink his own money into the production. Coppola was expansive and almost as self-indulgent in this production as was his temperamental star, Brando. The film was also held up as Sheen recovered from a heart attack. Message muddled Coppola did produce an awesome film depicting the ultrainsanity of the Vietnam War. Everything here is perverted, from the commanding officers to the sleazy entertainment given American soldiers: instead of Bob Hope and wisecracks, there are talentless floozies; instead of resolute and somber militarists, there are schizophrenic and paranoid madmen.

The photography and production values are faultless as Coppola reproduced the flavor of the Vietnam-Cambodian jungle—its suffocating foliage and lurking dangers—in the Philippines. But the slim story is slowed down by introspective passages, particularly the incohate monologues mumbled by Brando that echo chillingly in his cave (reportedly inspired by Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness). One never clearly understands the lunatic's point of view—which might be the point, yet such obfuscating tirades could have been encapsulated for the sake of the viewer suffering through selfishly produced surrealistic scenes. Here again was a message no one understood but accepted in the name of muddled art. The juxtaposition of Coppola's swift and paralyzing action and the leaden weight of Brando's rambling do not justify the fizzling finale. We are given the tremendous build-up of Technicolor battle only to be offered an end in the shadows of a cave with a madman whose philosophy and rhetoric are about as interesting as those of a drugged-out guru contemplating his navel at the top of Big Sur. The point, of course, is that war is pointless and horrible and inhuman, and in those regards Apocalypse Now succeeds with devastating accuracy. Yet it lacks anything really human—love, humor (outside the display of madness), reason, understanding, and people to whom the normal viewer can relate.

Cast:

Marlon Brando, Col. Kurtz

Robert Duvall, Lt. Col. Kilgore

Martin Sheen, Captain Willard

Frederic Forrest, Chef

Albert Hall, Chief

Sam Bottoms, Lance

Laurence Fishburne, Clean

Dennis Hopper, Photojournalist

G.D. Spradlin, General

Harrison Ford, Colonel

Scott Glenn, Civilian

Bill Graham, Agent

Production Credits:

Producer, Francis Ford Coppola

Director, Francis Ford Coppola

Screenwriters, Michael Herr, John Milius, and Francis Ford Coppola

Editor, Richard Marks

Cinematographer, Vittorio Storaro

Composers, Carmine Coppola and Francis Ford Coppola