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| An all-time great in poster art; this evocative, dark work full of depth and atmosphere by Bob Peak and Tom Jung for Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now |
Vietnam War-traumatized US Captain Willard receives a new mission: Sail up a Vietnamese river into Cambodia during the flaming grandeur of the Vietnam War and terminate an insane, rogue US colonel by the name of Kurtz. With "extreme prejudice."
An adaptation of Joseph Conrad's (Victory (1915)) classic masterpiece novella, Heart of Darkness (1899) written by John Millius (Red Dawn (1984)), Michael Herr (Full Metal Jacket (1987)) writing narration and Michigander master filmmaker and in this case co-writer/producer/director/co-composer Francis Ford Coppola (Tonight for Sure (1962)) changed a lot of Conrad's dark story to fit it into their current Vietnam perspective, (it originally takes place on a river in the Congo.) This is a review of the 2001-released 49-minute extended Redux-version of Apocalypse Now.
From being a story more exclusively about the darkness in the human soul, it grows in their hands into a horrifying Vietnam-tale, and a forecast of the apocalypse of the entire American system, its way of thought, or of the war effort in Vietnam at the very least, depending on the interpreter. A moral and human apocalypse of endless proportions.
Most of all, though, it still concerns itself with the savage, the uncontrollable, and the evil; the indefinable and incurable darkness in man.
Right from the first shot of helicopters rising in a cloud of napalm to the doomed sounds of The Doors' The End, the movie spellbinds its viewer in visual and sheer scope-of-production awe, fascination, and transformative despair.
Martin Sheen (The 3 Wise Men (2003, voice)) and Marlon Brando (The Formula (1980)) are majestic, and we have the sense all through the film that we so deserve this apocalypse that we are witnessing the journey towards.
The incredible near 300 day-shooting of the film in the civil war-plagued Philippines at the time with Sheen suffering a heart attack, choppers loaned directly from war there, Brando's troubling obesity, mumbling and refusal to prepare, tropical, disastrous storms, deaths, near-insanity and everything in between are portrayed by Coppola's wife Eleanor Coppola (Paris Can Wait (2016)), in her Heart of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991), a great and very recommendable documentary on extreme filmmaking.
Apocalypse Now may be the best war movie ever made, and it is arguably one of the greatest 10 or 20 films of all time. An incredible achievement and experience that is never forgotten.
Related posts:
Francis Ford Coppola: Twixt (2011) - Coppola's dreamlike Gothic is a late-night gem
Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) - Coppola goes for the jugular with unsubtle, overlong adaptation
Top 10: The best adaptations reviewed by Film Excess to date
Dementia 13/The Haunted and the Hunted (1963) - Coppola's gothic AIP castle horror
Watch a teaser for the film here
Budget: 31.5 mil. $
Box office: 150 mil. $ + 12.5 mil. $ (Redux)
= Big hit (returned 5.15 times the cost)
[Apocalypse Now premiered 19 May (Cannes Film Festival, France, in competition) and runs 153 minutes/202 minutes (Redux version). Coppola paid Milius 15k $ to write the screenplay, which he finished a first draft for in '69. He eventually reportedly wrote10 drafts, more than 1,000 pages. George Lucas was engaged to direct for a period, and had in mind a low-budget approach, but was overtaken by work on Star Wars. Instead Coppola himself took the helm with a budget of 12-14 mil. $. He personally dined with the dictator of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos to arrange the use of his country's military in the long Philippine shoot. Several stars turned down offers to play Willard due to the long jungle shoot. Brando was contracted for 1 months shooting for outrageous 3.5 mil. $. Harvey Keitel started out playing Willard, but Coppola was unhappy with him and replaced him with Sheen. Shooting took place in the Philippines and in California from March 1976 - May 1977. The budget ballooned during the enormously long production, which suffered countless problems. Editing took 2 years. The film won the Palm d'Or in Cannes together with Volker Schlöndorff's The Tin Drum. It was nominated for 8 Oscars, winning for Best Cinematogrpahy (Vittorio Storaro (Caravaggio (2007, TV movie))) and Best Sound, losing Best Supporting Actor (Duvall) to Melvyn Douglas in Being There, Art/Set Decoration to All That Jazz, Director to Robert Benton for Kramer vs. Kramer, Editing to All That Jazz, Picture and Adapted Screenplay to Kramer vs. Kramer. It won 3/4 Golden Globe nominations, 2/9 BAFTA noms, a César award nomination, won a David di Donatello award, a Grammy nomination, a National Board of Review award and other honors. It grossed 78 mil. $ domestically (52 % of the total gross). Roger Ebert has called it the finest war film ever made and given it a 4/4 star review, equal to its rating here. It was nominated for The 2001 Redux release added 12.5 mil. $ to the total gross. It currently sits at #49 on IMDb's user-generated Top 250, between The Prestige (2006) and Memento (2000). Coppola returned with One from the Heart (1981). Sheen returned in Blind Ambition (1979, miniseries) and theatrically in Eagle's Wing (1979), Duvall in The Great Santini (1979), and Brando in The Formula (1980). Apocalypse Now is certified fresh at 93 % with a 7.8/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
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