Apocalypse Now – 1979

Director
Francis Ford Coppola
Writers
Joseph Conrad – novel Heart of Darkness
John Milius
Francis Ford Coppola
Michael Herr
Producer
John Ashley
Kim Aubry
Francis Ford Coppola
Gray Frederickson
Shannon Lail
Eddie Romero
Fred Roos
Mona Skager
Tom Sternberg
Cast
Marlon Brando – Colonel Walter E. Kurtz
Martin Sheen – Captain Benjamin L. Willard
Robert Duvall – Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore
Frederic Forrest – Jay ‘Chef’ Hicks
Sam Bottoms – Lance B. Johnson
Albert Hall – Chief Phillips
Laurence Fishburne – Tyrone ‘Clean’ Miller
Dennis Hopper – Photojournalist
Harrison Ford – Colonel Lucas
G.D. Spradlin – General Corman

Review by Theo Robertson

Apocalypse Now (1979)
My All Time Favourite Movie,

I first saw APOCALYPSE NOW in 1985 when it was broadcast on British television for the first time . I was shell shocked after seeing this masterpiece and despite some close competition from the likes of FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING this movie still remains my all time favourite nearly 20 years after I first saw it.
This leads to the problem of how I can even begin to comment on this seventies film . I could praise the technical aspects especially the sound , editing and cinematography but everyone else seems to have praised ( Rightly too ) these achievements to high heaven while the performances in general and Robert Duvall in particular have also been noted , and everyone else has mentioned the stark imagery of the Dou Long bridge and the montage of the boat traveling upriver after passing through the border

How about the script ? Francis Ford Coppola is best known as a director but he’s everyway a genius as a screenwriter as he was as a director , I said ” was ” in the past tense because making this movie seems to have burned out every creative brain cell in his head , but his sacrifice was worth it . In John Milius original solo draft we have a script that’s just as insane and disturbing as the one on screen , but Coppola’s involvement in the screenplay has injected a narrative that exactly mirrors that of war . Check how the screenplay starts off all jingoistic and macho with a star turn by Bill Kilgore who wouldn’t have looked out of place in THE GREEN BERETS but the more the story progresses the more shocking and insane everything becomes , so much so that by the time reaches Kurtz outpost the audience are watching another film in much the same way as the characters have sailed into another dimension . When Coppola states ” This movie isn’t about Vietnam – It is Vietnam ” he’s right . What started off as a patriotic war to defeat communist aggression in the mid 1960s had by the film’s setting ( The Manson trial suggests it’s 1970 ) had changed America’s view of both the world and itself and of the world’s view of America

It’s the insane beauty of APOCALYPSE NOW that makes it a masterwork of cinema and says more in its running time about the brutality of conflict and the hypocrisy of politicians ( What did you do in the Vietnam Mr President ? ) than Michael Moore could hope to say in a lifetime . I’ve not seen the REDUX version but watching the original print I didn’t feel there was anything missing from the story which like all truly great films is very basic . In fact the premise can lend itself to many other genres like a western where an army officer has to track down and kill a renegade colonel who’s leading an injun war party , or a sci-fi movie where a UN assassin is to eliminate a fellow UN soldier who’s leading a resistance movement on Mars , though this is probably down to Joseph Conrad’s original source novel

Review by Jack Gatanella
Apocalypse Now (1979)
The Best War Film Ever Made!,

Apocalypse Now is not only the best Francis Ford Coppolla film ever made, it is also the best war film ever made (not to mention in my top ten favorite films ever made). It is a testament to the horror of the Vietnam war and it is very well made. Only Francis Ford Coppolla could make something as intelligent and entertaining as this.

The acting is also top notch (despite Marlon Brando getting top billing in a comparatively small role) with Brando as the crazy, yet straight minded colonel, Robert Duvall as the crazed Lieutenant, Martin Sheen as the center character on the mission to find Kurtz, and Dennis Hopper as the photographer-man. And that is not mentioning the great lines, violence and action, and intense (Oscar winning) photography.

The seventies film is great all around, with a spooky sound track, and setting that was pretty close to Vietnam. For any movie buff, movie watcher, or anyone who wants to see a great masterpiece of art work.