Apocalypse Now Redux (DVD)

I had a little bit of a Vietnam phase recently - I watched Platoon (which was excellent) then Full Metal Jacket (which I don't think I really understood properly), and I taped this off TV soon after. However, due to one thing and another, there was a long gap between watching those and finally getting round to seeing Apocalypse Now. Fortunately, it was worth the wait. It starts as it means to go on - the opening scene is haunting and brilliant, with the sound of helicopters flying and a montage of a jungle being blown up - all photographed in a dusty yellow light with some music from The Doors to really evoke a sense of the time. We then see Captain ...

t took almost 5 years to complete and in the end looked as though it might have benefitted from a few more months in the cutting room Apocalypse Now remains part brilliant part maddeningly infuriating. The film is in part beautiful to see, yet in part awful to watch. There are brilliant acting performances part obscured by excessively dark direction and areas of acting weakness only saved by the grand sweep of the picture. The film was directed by Francis Ford Coppola who won Oscars for the first 2 Godfather films. The film was an updated version of Joseph Conrads Heart Of Darkness and featured Marlon Brando as a renegade soldier, Colonel Kurtz, who has gone ...

Hollywood was always very critical of American policy in Vietnam. The range of films produced over the twenty years following US withdrawal from the conflict showed the warfare in a cynical light, whether it be the internal corruption of Platoon, or the psychological horrors of the Deer Hunter. What is to be noted, however, is that there is a considerable difference between the films regarding Vietnam of the 80s to those of the 70s. In the earlier decade, a decade where the shame of America's defeat constantly echoed, the films were highly unique and very focused on the psychology of the conflict, rather than the technicalities of the fighting. The Deer Hunter and ...