Apocalypse Now (1979) Review

“I love the smell of Napalm in the morning”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTjG-Aux_yQ

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

When you see how crazy the world is, you either become part of it or break the cycle.


PLOT


Loosely inspired by Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’, Apocalypse Now takes place in 1969 during the Vietnam war, where Captain Benjamin Willard, a MACV-SOG operative who’s gone completely jaded. He is tasked by the I Field Force pursue a terminate with extreme prejudice a rogue colonel named Walter E Kurtz, whose been waging war against multiple forces without permission and has commanded a militia full of troops that worship him, based at a remote jungle outpost in eastern Cambodia. Willard would take a river patrol boat commanded by Chief Petty Officer George Phillips and includes: Engineman 3rd Class Jay ‘Chief’ Hicks, and both Gunners Mate 3rd Class Lance B Johnson & Tyrone ‘Mr Clean’ Miller. They first pass through the coastal mouth of the Nùng, but get passage with the assist of Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore who leads an airborne assault unit of 1st Cavalry Division. Since he wasn’t briefed in advance of Willard’s mission, he becomes more interested in wanting to surf with Lance once the beach gets conquered, but the captain resists it and gets his team to keep going. As they do so after stealing Kilgore’s surf board, they get startled upon encountering a tiger. Wanting to keep everyone on the same page, Willard partially tells Phillips what he’s tasked to do. When resupplying at a remote US Army outpost where they see touring Playboy playmates, Willard also discovers Kurtz made a mid career sacrifice by leaving a Pentagon assignment to join special forces; He also learns that a fellow MACV-SOG operative has since joined him went since in a mission identical to his. (In the Redux cut: When his team proceeds on a rainy day, they encounter the Playmates stranded on the way back to the States and Willard trades barrels of fuel in exchange for the team to hang out with the girls). After this break does the team keep going. When Lance at one point gets high on LSD and messes with smoke grenades, it attracts enemy fire and causes Clean to be fatally shot. (In the Redux/Final Cut: Following Clean’s burial, Willard and company stop at a French colonial plantation led by its patriarch Gaston de Marais [Frank Villard]. During this breather does the team have lunch Gaston’s family where they listen to their opinions on colonialism in Indochina and the failures at the Battle of Ðiên Biên Phù. Willard even meets a widowed lady named Roxanne Sarrault [Aurore Clèment], who offers him opium before having sex with him). When the team goes further upriver, Phillips gets impaled by a Montagnard spear and Willard finishes him off so that he continue the mission. After this loss does he tell Chef & Lance the truth of his mission in order to fully command the PBR. The remainder of the team finally reaches Kurtz’s outpost which happens to be a Khmer temple. Upon arrival do they meet an American journalist that praises the colonel’s teachings. Willard instructs Chef to call in an air strike if he and Lance do not return in under a day. Willard officially meets Kurtz while bound and then gets locked in a bamboo cage when he explains his intentions. Kurtz would only free him from restraints after giving him Chef’s severed head, revealing that he killed him before an air strike could be called, warning him not to escape. As he stays, Kurtz gives him a lecture on his theories of war and praises the Viet Cong’s ruthlessness, asking him to tell his son at the States the truth of his mutiny. During a ceremonial kill of a water buffalo, Willard completes his mission by hacking at the colonel with a machete. As the Montagnard and militia are in disbelief of losing their leader, the film ends with them watching in silence as Willard takes Kurtz’s writings as he and Lance depart with the PBR.


THOUGHTS

It’s quite the surprise knowing that in any art form, there can be a masterpiece that can be mentally consuming. Francis Ford Coppola had his hands full directing this feature due to risking bankruptcy as a result of shooting with no complete script at first and half the sets being destroyed by a typhoon. This is something that would drive anyone insane and surprisingly, this would be the career savior for him because from start to finish, whichever version you prefer, it’s a bombastic experience of war that no one is prepared for due to how recent the Vietnam War was when first made. In his words, this wasn’t about Vietnam, it was Vietnam and Vittorio Storaro spectacularly captures said experience through his cinematography. With moments like opening it with The Doors’ ‘The End’ playing over an explosion occurring in the jungle and ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ playing over an air assault, you just know you’re not ever gonna forget this picture. I don’t change my mind when I deem a tie with the first two Godfather movies as the best movie of all time, but I consider Apocalypse Now to be my personal favorite of Coppola’s filmography because he and cowriter John Milius successfully shows how there are consequences to madness when morality is lost. In this case, war can be that catalyst to creating inner hollowness. As long as you don’t allow it, then you still have the chance to live the way you want. Through a fantastic ensemble, we get to see two sides of the coin on who’s willing to keep fighting for themselves and whose given up. Martin Sheen is at his best as Willard because with the pressure of replacing Harvey Keitel mid production, he succeeds in being a detached observer who finds himself comfortable in the jungle far more than he was back home. That’s where he differs from everyone because his observance allows him to have a clear conscience clear enough for him to know what he’s doing. At the beginning, he is tasked to kill Kurtz because he was told to but when he actually meets him, it was his opportunity to remain away from the cycle of madness. As much as he preferred going in alone, having a team by his side was beneficial because their youth compared to him reminded him how good life is when in control. Albert Hall was quite interesting as Phillips because he did his best in wanting to be pragmatic and Laurence Fishburne followed that up in making Mr Clean most naive. You definitely would like dislike the latter’s impulsiveness that led to him shooting down a sampan full of unarmed civilians, but when he and the former get killed, you would still feel bad because you still felt they had their own lives ahead of them who want to go home. The same can be said when looking back at Chef Hicks because as Fredric Forrest portrayed him, his fearfulness made him most fragile which was valid since his nickname comes from actually wanting to be a chef before being drafted, thus making it all the more sad he never got to live his dream. Then there’s Lance and as Sam Bottoms portrays him, he was the group’s flower child who is so gentle that he copes with drugs the most and ends up descending into madness after losing all his madness. Staying with Kurtz’s militia would not have been the best decision for him but he considers it no different from the rest of the world after all he’s seen, hence blending in during the climax. Since Willard still took him with him, it’ll be up to him what he’ll want to do with his life once he gets back home. Since you’re traveling through a war zone, you’re bound to encounter some colorful characters along the way. Enter Robert Duvall who owns his given time as Kilgore. The only one to get an Oscar nomination for his performance, he’s larger than life when embodying the arrogance the war has put him through. As Milius once said, he’s much like the cyclops of The Odyssey since he’s and obstacle that must be evaded and it makes much sense since he doesn’t take serious what Willard must do. On the other side of the coin, Marlon Brando is part of embodying madness that makes Kurtz so damn mythical and if you’re creating that kind of presence in your given time, it makes all the right sense Dennis Hopper would be so frantic in devotion as the unnamed photojournalist. Kurtz is deemed insane because he believes his true clarity comes from embracing the unmasked nature of war, ‘The horror’, which were his last words before dying. Those words represented his hopelessness after all he’s seen and really wanted to die at that point, but would never admit it due to whatever pride he had left. With Willard finishing him off, he has the same choice as Lance where it’s up to him in figuring out what he wants to do for the remainder of his life. In conclusion, Apocalypse Now is one of the best movies of all time for being most unfiltered in what war does to everyone involved, earning the Best Picture nomination in the process. You want a movie that’ll leave you in disbelief, see this now.

If you or someone you know is struggling with depression or thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.