Fish's Favorite Classic Movies: APOCALYPSE NOW (1979)

by Alan Fishman

Won Two Academy Awards: Best Cinematography and Best Sound. Nominated for best art, set direction, best director, best editing, best picture, best supporting actor and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. (Story was inspired by Joseph Conrad's 1902 novella Heart of Darkness)

Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, is perhaps the greatest Vietnam War movie ever made. In explosion after explosion, it penetrates the screwed up nature of the Vietnam War. The film is warped, insane, disturbing and grim as it defines a war where all sense of reality has disappeared. It is like a Twilight Zone episode. While Saving Private Ryan shows us the bloody effects of war, this movie demonstrates the severe mental effects of war.

From the opening minutes we are launched into a world of chaos and rage, punctuated by The Doors haunting song, "The End." Out of yellow smoke, fire and explosions we start to see the upside down head of Captain Benjamin Willard. (Played by Martin Sheen) Then, the thunderous sound of a helicopter synchronized with a fan. (The sound of the choppers was created on a synthesizer.) Willard gets up and says, "Saigon, shit I'm still only in Saigon." He goes on to explain how he has been waiting for a mission, and "each time I looked around, the walls moved in a little tighter." As "The End" climaxes into its "fuck yeah" lyrics, Willard in the nude starts drinking, dancing and soon breaks a mirror with his bare fist. (This scene may have been ad-libbed; allegedly Sheen was in a real drunken stupor while filming)

Shortly, two men enter the room and explain Willard's mission to him. He has to find and murder a once respected American Colonel named Kurtz. Kurtz is a man with countless medals who killed four Vietnamese leaders. He has supposedly lost all sense of his American roots and is now some sort of god or leader to a native tribe in Cambodia. Willard narrates, "I wanted a mission for my sins and they gave me one...It was a real choice mission and when it was over, I never wanted another... I took the mission, what the hell else was I gonna do?"

Within minutes we are transported to a small boat commanded by Willard and his crew of young soldiers, as they slowly glide down the river to find and kill the American Colonel. What's bizarre is that the crew has not been informed about the details of the mission. And Willard is baffled about why in the midst of war in which so many die every day, he has been assigned to assassinate a man for committing murder. After looking at Kurtz's impressive resume, Willard says, "I couldn't believe they wanted this man dead."

The movie follows the crew along its trail to Cambodia. One after another we see various depictions of the war, all dismal and gruesome. There is no moment in the film that does not have this depressing, baffling aura about it. At one point Willard asks who is in charge and a man answers, "Ain't you?" The movie continues to build to its climatic end, involving the mysterious Colonel Kurtz. We do not meet Kurtz until Willard meets him almost two hours into the film.

Originally cast for Harvey Keitel, Martin Sheen (now the President on "The West Wing") stars as Captain Willard. He is our narrator and friend whom we follow on this journey. Robert Duvall (The Godfather I, II) was nominated for an Oscar as Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore, an appropriately named man who is also obsessed with making an entrance and surfing. Fredric Forrest was the best actor in the movie as a chef from New Orleans. The cast also includes prolific actors such as Laurence Fishburne, Harrison Ford (whose character is named Lucas) and Dennis Hopper as a hippie-like drugged out American cameraman. Rounding out the cast is another Godfather member, Marlon Brando. Brando is intense, powerful and chilling as Colonel Kurtz. At one point Brando threatened to quit and Coppola thought of getting Al Pacino, Robert Redford or Jack Nicholson for the role. I cannot see another actor portraying Kurtz better than Brando did.

The film has a psychedelic swirl about it. From yellows, reds, blues to purples we are always spinning in colors. Coppola, (Director of The Godfather Trilogy who threatened suicide several times while filming this film) also adds to the intensity of the film with the constant appearance of smoke. Whether from explosions, fires, cigarettes or at one point "purple haze" we see smoke and all its glory fluttering around the movie like a toxic gas. Its presence alone is enough to sweep you into the war. The smoke changes color constantly and always lurks in the midst. Fire is also used continuously. Numerous bursts of flames are seen and sometimes an entire mise-en-scene is all fire. At other times a totally black screen flicks on and off. Coppola masterly paints picture after picture with his color schemes and shadows. The end sequence with Colonel Kurtz is visually unnerving.

The soundtrack of the movie evokes passion in the characters. Besides "The End," there is a delightful scene with The Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction." "Susie Q" (popularized by Creedence Clearwater Revival, but sung by Flash Cadillac in the film) is played during a girlie show. One of the most unsettling scenes is when the "The Ride of the Valkyries" from Die Walkure by German composer Richard Wagner is played. I have to believe there is a parallel here to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust since Wagner's music was the Nazi's theme music. Carmine Coppola (Director's father) wrote the original score.

The title alone suggests that there is an end to something. While Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) gave us a horrifying, concrete end to the effects of war, this movie does not directly penetrate its meaning. The film leaves you with a philosophical question, "what exactly was the apocalypse referring to?" Is it the end of reality, morality, sanity and judgment in the world? Does it suggest the end of a man who was once on top of the world? Does it suggest something greater on a more universal scale? There is quite possibly no distinct answer.

Filmed in the beautiful Philippines, Apocalypse Now is a twisted, bitter, messed up movie examining another truth about war. It's two and a half-hours that will "burn" inside you forever.