Apocalypse Now

Apocalypse Now (also known as Apocalypse Now and Apocalypse Now in some parts of Latin America) is a 1979 American war epic film directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola. The script is based on Heart of Darkness (Heart of Darkness), a short novel by Joseph Conrad set in Africa at the end of the 19th century, although moving the action to the Vietnam War. She was also influenced by the Werner Herzog film Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (1972).

The plot takes place in 1969, in the midst of the Vietnam War, where Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, of the United States Army Special Forces, has gone mad and now commands his own troops of mountaineers, within the neutral Cambodia, like a god. Colonel Lucas and General Corman, growing concerned about Kurtz's surveillance operations, assign MACV-SOG Captain Benjamin L. Willard to "put an end" to Kurtz's command "with extreme prejudice" (assassinate him).

The film won two Oscars, for Best Cinematography and Best Sound, and garnered six nominations, for Best Director, Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Robert Duvall), Best Adapted Screenplay, best artistic direction and best editing. It was also awarded the Palme d'Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival.

To this day Apocalypse Now is widely recognized as a masterpiece of 20th century cinematography, receiving extensive scrutiny for its cinematic value and the subtext and themes it addresses, such as its conception of the madness of war and the horror of human barbarism and moral degradation. It is considered by many to be the greatest war film of all time and one of the greatest and best films ever made.

In 2000, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

In 2001, Coppola presented, also at the Cannes Film Festival, a new cut of the film, extended to three and a half hours, under the name Apocalypse Now Redux.

Plot

The story begins in Saigon, South Vietnam, in late 1969. US Army Captain and special operations veteran Benjamin L. Willard (Martin Sheen) returned to Saigon on another tour of he fights during the Vietnam War, casually admitting that he cannot rejoin society in the United States and that his marriage has broken down. He drinks a lot, chain smokes and hallucinates alone, in his room. He gets very angry and hurt when he breaks a big mirror.

One day, two military police officers arrive at Williard's apartment in Saigon and, after cleaning it up, escort him to an officers' trailer where military intelligence officers Lt. Gen. R. Corman (G. D. Spradlin) and Col. Lucas (Harrison Ford) approach him with a top secret. mission to follow the Nung River into remote jungle, find former rogue Green Beret Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando), and "terminate command of him with extreme prejudice." Kurtz has apparently gone mad and now commands his own Montagnard troops inside neutral Cambodia. They play a recording of Kurtz's voice, captured by army intelligence, where Kurtz rambles on about the destruction of war and a snail crawling on a razor's edge.

Willard is airlifted to Cam Ram Bay and joins a Marine PBR commanded by "Chief" Phillips (Albert Hall) and crew members Lance (Sam Bottoms), "Chef" (Frederic Forrest) and "Mr. Clean" (Laurence Fishburne). Williard narrates that the crew are mostly young soldiers; Clean is only 17 years old and is from the South Bronx, Lance is a famous surfer from California and Chef is a chef from New Orleans. The Chief is an experienced sailor who mentions that he had previously taken another special ops soldier into the jungles of Vietnam on a similar mission and heard that the man committed suicide. As they travel along the coast to the mouth of the Nung River, Willard's voiceover reveals that hearing Kurtz's voice triggered a fascination with Kurtz himself.

They meet reckless Lt. Col. William "Bill" Kilgore (Robert Duvall), commander of an attack helicopter squadron, the infamous 1st 9th Air Cav (Cavalry), who initially taunts them.. Kilgore befriends Lance, both of whom are keen surfers, and agrees to escort them through the Viet Cong-filled coastal Nung River mouth due to the surf conditions there.

The next morning, Kilgore launches a brutal helicopter assault on the Viet Cong village amid air and napalm attacks on the locals and Ride of the Valkyries blaring from the helicopter's speakers, the beach is taken over and Kilgore orders others to sail into the midst of enemy artillery. fire. As Kilgore wistfully reminisces about an earlier attack, Willard assembles his men in the PBR, airlifted in by helicopter, and begins the journey upriver.

During the long journey that takes up most of the story, Willard takes a closer look at Kurtz's file and discovers that he was a model officer and a possible future general. In 1964, after returning from a tour of duty in South Vietnam, the 38-year-old Kurtz avoided promotion, applying several times for airborne training and submitting a report to his superiors on the war that was deemed classified. In another voice-over narration by Williard, Kurtz returned to South Vietnam in 1966 as a member of the Special Forces for another combat tour, in which his fighting methods won victories against the enemy, the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese. but they also generated criticism from his superior. officers In the late summer of 1968, Kurtz's combat patrols suffered frequent ambushes that ended in November 1968 after Kurtz ordered his men to summarily execute four high-ranking South Vietnamese intelligence officers he suspected of being Viet Cong double agents. Despite the fact that the four executed Vietnamese were revealed to be double agents, the US military charged Kurtz with murder for taking matters into his own hands instead of going through the proper channels, resulting in Kurtz and their Special Forces/South Vietnamese army will flee to Cambodia.

One night, Willard accompanies Chef into the jungle to pick mangoes when they come across a tiger. But they both make it back to the boat safely and continue on. Williard sees the encounter with the tiger and Chef's near-hysterical panic as a stark reminder of the never-leave-ship rule.

An afternoon or two later, the team visits a USO show at a supply depot with Playboy Playmates, which goes awry when the military tries to raid the Playmates and R&R ends quickly.

Some time later, the crew inspects a civilian sampan for weapons, but Mr. Clean panics and opens fire, prompting Lance to open fire on the innocent Vietnamese family as well. Amid the ship's supplies, Chef finds a puppy. Lance harshly takes it from Chef and keeps it as a pet. When Chef finds a young woman alive, Willard coldly shoots her to prevent any further delay to Chef's mission. Tension arises between Chief and Willard from this point on, as Willard believes that he is in command of the PBR, while Chief prioritizes other targets over Willard's secret mission.

Another night later, the crew arrives in the chaos of the Do Lung Bridge under attack. Willard learns from a messenger that the missing commanding officer, Captain Colby (Scott Glenn), was sent on a previous mission to kill Kurtz. Willard also sees the losing side of the war: burned and drugged soldiers fighting a losing battle to keep the bridge open. As the PBR crew leaves, the bridge is once again destroyed by enemy shells.

Lance and Chef are continually under the influence of drugs. Lance, in particular, smears his face with camouflage paint and becomes withdrawn. The next day, an unseen enemy in the trees fires on the boat, killing Mr. Clean and making the Chief even more hostile towards Willard.

A day or two later, the PBR is ambushed again, this time by Montagnard warriors as they cross the border into Cambodia. They return fire despite Willard's objections that the arrows shot at them are not lethal. The boss is speared and attempts to kill Willard by attempting to pull him to the point of the spear before dying.

Willard then tells the two surviving crew members, Chef and Lance, about the mission and they reluctantly agree to continue upriver, where they find the banks littered with mutilated bodies. Arriving at Kurtz's outpost at last, Willard takes Lance with him to the village, leaving Chef behind with orders to call in an airstrike on the village if they don't return.

At the camp, the soldiers are greeted by an American freelance photographer (Dennis Hopper), who maniacally praises Kurtz's genius. As they move forward, Willard and Lance see corpses and severed heads strewn around the temple that serves as Kurtz's dwelling, and encounter Colby, who appears catatonic. Willard is bound and brought before Kurtz in the dark temple, where Kurtz taunts him as an "errand boy." Meanwhile, Chef prepares to call in the airstrike, but is kidnapped. Later imprisoned, Willard screams helplessly as Kurtz drops Chef's severed head into his lap.

After some time, Willard is released and given the freedom of the compound. In another monologue sequence, the grim Kurtz lectures him on his theories of war, humanity, and civilization while praising the Viet Cong's ruthlessness and dedication: Kurtz had reached his breaking point some years earlier when he led a mission to vaccinate children. from a small polio town. Shortly after completing that mission, one of the villagers called Kurtz's unit and discovered that the Viet Cong had come and cut off the arm of each child who had been injected with the vaccine. Kurtz morbidly admires the Viet Cong's vicious dedication and willingness to thwart his unit's efforts to help the villagers. Kurtz believed that if he had a large legion of men who would go to such lengths, he could end the war. Near the end of their time together, Kurtz talks about his child and asks Willard to tell him all about him in case he dies.

That night, while the villagers are ceremonially slaughtering a water buffalo, Willard walks into Kurtz's chamber while Kurtz is making a tape and attacks him with a machete. Mortally wounded on the ground, Kurtz whispers his last words: "The horror... the horror..." Before die. Willard discovers a substantial typescript of Kurtz's writings (scrawled with "Drop the bomb, exterminate them all!") and takes it with him before leaving. Willard descends the stairs to Kurtz's chamber and drops Kurtz's gun. The villagers do the same, allowing Willard to take the nearly catatonic Lance by the hand and lead him to the boat. The two head downriver in the PBR to find help and safety while the Army tries to communicate with them on shortwave radio. Willard turns off the radio. As Willard steers the boat into the night jungle darkness and pouring rain, Kurtz's last words "the horror... the horror..." resonate in his mind.

Cast

Shooting

The filming of this film in the Philippines was fraught with complications. In fact, when Coppola presented it at the Cannes Film Festival he commented: "This is not a film about the Vietnam War, this is Vietnam." The difficulties that Coppola went through to find a protagonist exceed those of any known film: from Al Pacino, Robert Redford, through Steve McQueen and Jack Nicholson, all refused to participate in such insane filming; in the end they had to settle for the then unknown Martin Sheen. Originally for the role of Captain Willard, Harvey Keitel had been hired, who filmed some scenes, but was fired by Coppola, since he considered that Keitel was not up to the role, after which Coppola hired Sheen, contributing all this to the delay and the delay in filming, which would last about two years.

It is told as an anecdote that Martin Sheen himself nearly died of a heart attack during the filming of it, as well as the fact that some of the images of helicopters bombing with napalm were actually of the helicopters loaned by the Philippine Army for filming, who had to quickly return to bomb guerilla positions. During Martin Sheen's convalescence due to his heart attack, he was replaced by his brother Joe, due to his great physical resemblance. However, his substitution was reserved for dark scenes, in which the character appears from behind or in general shots. Then, when Martin joined the set again, the close-ups were shot. In the documentary Heart of Darkness it is told how Martin had to take a bus to the production offices to be taken to the hospital due to chest pains. At the hospital a Filipino priest gave him last rites.

The documentary, filmed by Eleanor, Coppola's wife, also tells of drug use by the team. Sam Bottoms admits that he used marijuana and speed due to the long night hours the actors were subjected to.

The napalm bombing scene that opens the film, with The Doors' "The End" playing in the background, was shot with footage from an auxiliary camera that had been discarded. Francis retrieved it from the trash can in the cutting room. He noticed that photographic material by chance. In the next scene, in which Martin Sheen introduces his character, the actor was really drunk and when he hit the mirror the cut was real. The blood that stains his face and sheets is hers, from the cut on his thumb.

When Marlon Brando arrived on set, he demanded that he did not want Dennis Hopper on set, so the scene where Brando throws fruit at Hopper was filmed on two separate days. On the first day Brando was recorded throwing the fruit and telling Hopper to shut up and on the second day they explained to Hopper what had happened the day before and for him to pretend to be thrown fruit at him. Among other problems that arose with the hiring of Brando was the salary that he demanded (three million dollars for three weeks) and the refusal to give Coppola more time to finish the end of the film. Brando spent most of the time discussing and eventually improvising each scene. Even before he even got to the Philippines, he threatened Coppola that not only was he not giving him the extra time for the finale, but he was getting out of the movie itself (apparently he didn't like the idea of traveling to the Philippines). The director had already paid him half of the salary in advance (1.5 million).

Alternate ending

At the time the film was made there were a lot of rumors about Apocalypse Now. Coppola noted that the ending had been hastily written. In this ending, Willard and Kurtz join forces and repel a complicated air raid; in any case, Coppola never fully liked it, preferring an ending that was hopeful.

When Coppola thought about the ending of the film, he had two options. One consisted of Willard leading Lance by the hand through everyone in Kurtz's base, dropping their weapons and ending with images of Willard in a boat, superimposed on the face of the stone idol and fading to black. The other option would show an airstrike and the base spectacularly blown to pieces, leaving everyone on the base dead.

The film's original 70mm presentation ends with Willard's boat, stone statue, and a fade-out to black with no credits. Not showing the credits then became a problem and Coppola decided to show the credits overlaying shots of Kurtz's base exploding (apparently there are 16mm analogue versions for hire in the hands of some collectors); however, when Coppola learned that the audience had interpreted it as an air raid ordered by Willard, he cut out the 35mm film and ran the credits black. In the DVD commentary for the film, Coppola explained that the footage of the explosions was not made as part of the story; they were made as something completely separate from the film. They were added to the credits because he had recorded the demolition process of the Philippine set, required by the Philippine government, images that were filmed with multiple cameras with different films and lenses to capture the explosions at different speeds.

The origin of these misinterpretations are the versions of the end credits. Some TV versions kept the final explosions, while others did not.

The 70mm versions end with a fade to black, with no credits, except for the message saying "Copyright 1979 Omni Zoetrope" right at the end. This gives rise to Coppola's original intention that the tour film can be a game itself. The credits were printed on a program and distributed before the screening in some theaters (during the screening of Apocalypse Now Redux this process was also repeated in several theaters).

The first DVD version was made like the 70mm version, meaning without the opening and ending credits, but they were on the DVD separately. The credits of Apocalypse Now Redux were different: they were shown on a black background, but with a different musical setting by the Rhythm Devils.

Apocalypse Now Redux and Apocalypse Now: Final Cut

At the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, Francis Ford Coppola presented a new cut of the film, titled Apocalypse Now Redux, which included 49 minutes of deleted scenes from the original 1979 version.

In 2020, with the reopening of theaters after the complex situation derived from the COVID-19 pandemic, a new cut of the film was released, with an intermediate duration between the original version of 1979 and the Redux version of 2001. This new version, titled Apocalypse Now: Final Cut, was made by Francis Ford Coppola for the 40th anniversary of the original release and may be the most definitive version, though perhaps not the last cut.

Awards and nominations

Oscar

Golden Globe Awards

BAFTA Awards

Cannes International Film Festival