"Someday this wars gonna end.." (Apocalypse Now Redux (DVD))

Member Name: markw-d

Product:	Apocalypse Now Redux (DVD)
Date:	05/01/02 (195 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Accurate, Thoughtful, Huge

Disadvantages: None

“Someday this wars gonna end…….”

Some movies are made to entertain, others to inform, and increasingly with films like Titanic and Pearl Harbor, to re-write history and simply make pots of money.

Other films are made as personal crusades on the behalf of the director, and Apocalypse Now was one such film.

Originally released in 1979, only 4 years after the end of the Vietnam war, and based on the novel "Heart of Darkness", this film was John Ford Coppola’s greatest moment, hugest exposure, biggest risk, and defining moment. It was also my favourite film.

I was in New York on business in the aftermath of September the 11th, spending time in a city which was still wondering how to spend its own time. A city reflecting on the first warfare the city had seen since independence from Britain. A city contemplating sending its young men to fight abroad once more.

It was against this backdrop that I walked through Times Square and noticed a cinema showing my favourite film, except that the title had been extended to Apocalypse Now Redux. After calculating that I could grab a late Mexican lunch with a few Tequila cocktails, see a matinee of the film and then still have the evening ahead of me I commenced operations.

It was with the benefit of the best of Mexico that I settled down to watch the film on the big screen for the first time. I still hadn’t questioned the word Redux on the title of the film.

Let me tell you about Apocalypse Now.

I first saw this film back in the late 80's when I was going through my Vietnam phase. I was fascinated by anything from that countries long history, and particularly the wars against the French and then the U.S.

This is the all time defining movie about the U.S involvement in Vietnam. As I said released only 4 years after the real thing ended, it benefited from being a film of its time and also a heap of fres
h memory from people who were there.

The essence of the story is that of a young Special Forces Captain Willard, played by Martin Sheen, who is recruited by the high command and the CIA to perform a deniable mission. The mission is to travel up the Nung river through the Vietnamese bush and into non-combatant Cambodia and assassinate a rogue U.S Colonel.

Even at this early stage the film starts to explore the complex contradictions of the war. Willard is a man tortured by the fact that he is now too strung out for normal civilian family and domestic life, and similarly tortured by the things he sees and has to do in Vietnam. He reflects in voice over that when he is on leave he “wants to be back in the jungle” and when he is in the jungle he wants to be home.

Similarly the case against the rogue Colonel Kurtz (played by Marlon Brando) is based on the contradiction that he was a superb soldier, and winning his bit of the war, but doing it by adopting the same tactics as his enemy, thereby making him unpopular with the U.S high command, as they were now learning the value of the media war. Again as Willard comments “charging a man with murder here is like handing out speeding tickets at the indy 500”. Simplistic, but to feel it and understand it you must see, hear and feel this movie.

The film then takes you on a surreal journey with Willard as he passes through the war in all its facets, both metaphorically and in action sequences. The film cleverly highlights the main enduring images of Vietnam. Helicopter air assaults, B52 strikes, river borne operations, Playboy bunny girl shows in the bush, extreme violence and huge hypocrisy and contradiction at all levels and on all sides.

The action is punctuated by black humour, tragedy, social comment and education, but not in a Hollywood preaching weeping heart on the sleeve “Saving Private Ryan” kind of way. This film messes with your head
because the madness and ordinariness are intertwined and at the same pace and monotone. If Clockwork Orange is your kind of film then you may be disappointed, because the madness here comes from the reality of the screenplay and the characters. The madness comes from the fact that it reflects something which was actually played out for thousands of people.

I’m not going to go into too much of the plot, because you need to feel the ride yourselves when you see it, and I’m certainly not disclosing the end, because this is the most disturbing cinema dialogue, music and imagery I have ever seen, and you should see it too.

Suffice to say however that Willards journey is eventful and has some key milestones.

The Helicopter assault on the Viet Cong village is pure mind screwing madness, which is made even wilder by the fact that the Phillipino Army Helicopter crews were actually leaving the filming of the scene and flying into real combat against rebels, before re-joining the battle scenes. The lone cavalry bugler sounding the charge as the choppers take off into action, and the fact that many of the actors were actually veterans of the conflict add mood.

We will never know if the air cav actually did play the Ride of the Valkiries as they went into battle through massive psyops speakers on the outside of their Huey helicopters. What we do know is that the U.S Air Cavalry do it for real now!

The film was a massive undertaking. Filmed as I mentioned in the Phillipines it seemed destined for disaster. The Phillipino air force and extras actually fighting a war for real during filming, A typhoon which caused massive delays and whole scenes to be cut, Martin Sheen having a heart attack during filming and Marlon Brando being so conscious of his huge bulk that all his scenes had to be shot in shadow.

Added to this poor Dennis Hopper (Easy Rider) was so stoned that he still doesn’t remember making the film
.

For Coppolla however the film was his Nemesis. It ended up so over budget that he had to cut, what he felt to be vital parts of the film, and being released whilst the U.S was still so tender about Vietnam it struggled to be a commercial success. It did however achieve huge critical acclaim and many “artists” would consider it their finest moment, but Coppola never did.

Hence Apocalypse Now Redux……

Let me take you back to that cinema in New York. I sat glued to my seat as my favourite film, which I have seen dozens of times, and even had the entire soundtrack on tape in the car, unfolded on the big screen.

I guess I was a bit excited, the effects of the surround sound and huge screen sucked me in, and the warming effect of the Tequila’s was in the background. The film as always, through its realistic madness takes over.

Therefore the first bit of dialogue which I didn’t recognise, made me think that perhaps I had drifted off, or was hallucinating. After all I hadn’t had much sleep since arriving in New York, and my patent cure for jet lag (ignore it) wasn’t medically proven.

But then whole new scenes arrived in the movie. Not snapshots or cameos, but complete new scenarios and events on Willards journey. I wasn’t ready for them and I wish I had been because I spent the rest of the film looking for new footage, and finding it. This version is nearly 20 minutes longer than the original.

Coppolla had finally decided to go back to the cutting room floor and has re-inserted the scenes which had originally been axed due to budgets. The great thing is that they make absolute sense to the plot and compliment, as they were designed to do, the other main scenes. The have the effect of making a great film a lot more coherent and “joined up”.

There is one scene in particular which was cut in its entirety, and with its entire French cast, wh
ich is where Coppolla always intended to underscore the irony of how the U.S had created and funded the Viet Minh in their colonial war against the French, and how the Viet Minh had become the Viet Cong. Shades of Bin Laden.Only now will those actors recieve any royalties!

The ending is now more complete with some unanswered questions from the original now answered.

Robert Duvall as Killgore, the surfing mad, Air Cav Colonel gets a few more lines and some humour, however his character has the best lines in the film anyway, and a superb delivery.

In one scene he gazes at a hillside which has just been cleared by a napalm attack, and after delivering the “I love the smell of napalm in the morning speech” he reflects, sadly and almost wistfully to Willard “some day this war is going to end”. He neatly captures the fact that whilst every war wrecks millions of lives, every war has a number of Killgores, who are quite simply born to it.

There is no end or structure to this film. Just like the real war, you will be left asking more questions than you had answers, and you will feel uncomfortable.

To summarise:
Ø If you like detail, the detail of this film is absolutely inch perfect, from the spec of the helicopters to the uniforms, code words, weapons, language and scenery.
Ø If you like dramatic performance then you will not see better than Brando’s Colonel Kurtz.
Ø If you like Vietnam films this is the daddy of em all.
Ø If you like the big film extravaganza this has everything.
Ø If you like music, this has the Doors through to Wagner.
Ø If you are a fan of the film, then this will make you happy.
Ø If you have never seen the film then this will make you happy
Ø If you are not a fan of the film then nothing will ever make you happy

Also for people who liked Titanic, you will not like this. Its pretty accurate, it has a plot, there is no contrived love
story and it makes you think.

This always was a cinema great, but with the re-discovered scenes it just got better.

I walked out into the streets of New York, still not sure that I wasn’t dreaming the new scenes up, but I had enjoyed the dream.

Its on now in London. (December 2001 / Jan 2002)

Summary: