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Apocalypse NowApocalypse Now is a film by Francis Ford Coppola, inspired by Joseph Conrad's classic novella Heart of Darkness. Set in the Vietnam War, a taciturn American soldier is sent to "terminate with extreme prejudice" a rogue Green Beret colonel. The narrative of his journey and its culmination is studded with events which, while bizarre, partake of real Vietnam stories. The soldier's journey becomes increasingly nonlinear and hallucinatory. Coppola's agenda clearly includes larger themes of life and war. The film features performances by Martin Sheen as Captain Benjamin L. Willard (Marlow in Conrad's novel), Marlon Brando as Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, Dennis Hopper as a fast talking hallucinogenic photojournalist and Robert Duvall in an Oscar-nominated turn as the borderline-psychotic Lt. Colonel Kilgore. Several other actors who were (or later became) prominent stars had minor or supporting roles in the movie including Harrison Ford, R. Lee Ermey and Laurence Fishburne (who, only seventeen years old during filming, was credited as 'Larry Fishburne') . Background Filmed in the Philippines, the film went far over budget and schedule: a typhoon destroyed many of the sets, the Philippine Army helicopters used for shooting were constantly called back by Ferdinand Marcos to be used in actual combat, the lead role was recast (Martin Sheen replaced Harvey Keitel after shooting had begun), Sheen then had a near-fatal heart attack, Brando was intractable and out of shape, and Coppola himself was mentally fragile. After the first edit, the film was six hours long and had to be severely edited; the original released version was just over two and a half hours long. (Coppola re-released the film in 2001 under the title Apocalypse Now Redux, restoring footage and sequences and lifting the running time to 200 minutes.) For background information on the film, see Eleanor Coppola's documentary, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, released in 1991. Synopsis U.S. Special Forces Captain Benjamin L. Willard is stationed in Saigon; a seasoned veteran, he is deeply troubled and apparently no longer fit for civilian life. A group of intelligence officers approach him with a special mission up-river into a remote Cambodian jungle to find Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, a member of the Green Berets. They state that Kurtz, who was once considered a model officer and future general, has apparently gone insane and is commanding a legion of his own troops. Willard is asked to undertake a mission to find Kurtz and dispose of him 'with extreme prejudice'. Willard studies the intelligence files once on the river and learns that Kurtz, isolated in his compound and in a strange mental state, has assumed the role of a warlord and is being worshipped by the natives. Another officer, sent earlier to kill Kurtz, has apparently become one of his lieutenants. Willard begins his trip up the Nung on a PBR ("patrol boat, rigid"), with an eclectic crew composed of Chief Phillips, a black Navy boat commander; GM3 Lance B. Johnson, a tanned all-American surfer; GM3 Tyrone, AKA "Clean" a black teen; and the Engineman, Jay "Chef" Hicks. The PBR arrives at a LZ where Willard and the crew meet up with Colonel Bill Kilgore, the merciless commander of the AirCav in the region. Kilgore, a keen surfer, befriends Johnson and announces that up-river there is a beach with perfect surf. The problem is, his troops say, it's "Charlie's point". Dismissing these gripes, Kilgore orders his men to saddle up in the morning so that the AirCav can take the beach. Riding high above the coast in a fleet of Hueys, Kilgore launches an attack on the beach. The scene, famous for its use of Richard Wagner's epic "Ride of the Valkyries", ends with the soldiers surfing the barely claimed beach amidst skirmishes with infantry and VC. The lighting and mood change as the boat navigates upstream and Willard's silent obsession with Kurtz deepens. Episodes on the journey include a run-in with a tiger, an impromptu inspection of a Vietnamese boat that leads to accidental slaughter, a surreal stop at the last American outpost in Vietnam, and the deaths of both "Clean" and Chief Phillips. Once arrived at Kurtz's palatial compound, Willard leaves Chef behind with orders to attack the village if he does not return. At this point, the narrative becomes increasingly nonlinear and abstract and the pace excruciatingly slow. While little is made explicit, we come to believe that Willard and Kurtz come to understand each other, that Kurtz wishes to die at Willard's hands, and that Willard, having subsequently granted Kurtz his wish, is offered the chance to succeed him in his warlord-demigod role. Alternate Endings Coppola denied having any actual alternative endings. In the DVD commentary, he states that they simply had a massive amount of footage to edit with and thus had some choices to make. They did consider using the explosion footage made during their destruction of the Kurtz compound, but he later decided that implying that the air strike had been called in was contrary to his wish to offer some slight hope that we could overcome the horrors of war. However, there are multiple slightly varying versions of the ending credits. The book and the movie Although inspired by Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness the film deviates from it extensively. Time and location are changed: from the Congo Free State (colony of King Leopold II of Belgium) at the end of the 19th century to Vietnam at the time of the Vietnam war. Subsequently Willard (Marlow, in the book) and Kurtz are not commercial agents seeking for fortune but soldiers of the American Army. Captain Willard is not sent to bring Kurtz back, as in Heart of Darkness, where he dies of natural death, but to kill him. In spite of this, Coppola has maintained many episodes (the attack on the boat, for example) have respected the spirit of the novel and in particular its critique of the concept of civilization and progress. The fact that European colonization is substituted with American interventionism doesn't change the universal message of the book. http://www.cyberpat.com/essays/coppola.html Awards Apocalypse Now won the 1979 Palme d'Or (Golden Palm, the highest prize) at the Cannes Film Festival. It is the only film to have won this prize before the film was actually completed. It also won two Academy Awards in 1979: Other nominations were: In 2000 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. Cast External links
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