Many releases today lack the visual splendor and grandeur of “Apocalypse Now” even though the new DVD release had its wings clipped, it still soars high.
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Francis Ford Coppola´s cinematic interpretation of Joseph Conrad´s book "Heart of Darkness" was an epic undertaking that resulted in one of the most powerful films that delve into the Vietnam Conflict. Brought to the screen just seven years after the conflict ended, "Apocalypse Now" focuses not on the combat of the war, but on the emotional and mental effects caused by the war. The film´s characters convey how twisted one´s mind could become because of the War and the insanity of the Vietnam War. From the opening moments when Martin Sheen´s character Captain Benjamin L. Willard is taking part in a drunken conflict with his own mirror image, "Apocalypse Now" begins to deliver personalities that are atypical of the stereotypical modern warrior. In the film, the person most painted as a homicidal madman is perhaps the sanest personality. Those who embark on a voyage to end his madness are far from the image that would come to mind when you think of a warrior in the United States Military.
Willard is given the task to track down and terminate the command of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando). Kurtz has taken to horrific ways and recruited his own army. He operates outside of the command of the military and with Special Forces training and an impeccable record, Kurtz is a dangerous man and the Army wants his command terminated by bringing and end to his life. Willard is to be taken up the river into Cambodia via a Navy PT Boat. Commanded by the only true soldier of the boat´s crew, Chief Phillips (Albert Hall) tries to keep order and battles Willard for command of his ship. Willard refuses to acknowledge their final destination and the two find themselves often times at odds. A surfer, Lance B. Johnson (Sam Bottoms) is one of the boats sailors. Lance spends more time stoned and sunbathing than he does concentrating on duties befitting of a sailor. Jay Hicks (Frederic Forrest) is known as Chef. His interest is in collecting goods to cook. Again, he is far from being a hardened soldier. A seventeen year old kid, Tyrone "Mr. Clean" Miller (a very young Laurence Fishburne) rounds out the PT Boat´s crew. He loves music, but is far too young to stay cool under the pressures of combat.
Along the way, the PT Boat comes across many insane situations. They are taken upriver by Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore (Robert Duvall), a very brave and war tested commander of an Air Cavalry Division. Kilgore is not swayed in the least when a mortar shell explodes dangerously close to him. He is not wavered when a bullet buzzes his head. He stands tall like a statue and bravely leads his men. Though his bravery and courage is not questionable, his sanity surely is. Much of his motivations for combat targets is based upon the waves of the river. Kilgore sieges territory so that he and his men can surf. As Kilgore says, "Charlie doesn´t surf." Kilgore does not pay much attention to Willard and the orders to deliver him up river, but when he learns that the waves break both ways, Kilgore springs into action. They come across a U.S.O. celebration with Playboy Playmates. The show doesn´t even last one song when horny soldiers storm the stage and cause the lovely ladies to flee. They come across a river bridge where no commanding officer or fuel can be found. They are set on fire by another PT Boat, as either a prank or just bullying. The PT Boat doesn´t come across a single moment of order and sanity. Everything is chaos and disorder, the underlying theme of "Apocalypse Now."
If you summed the entire message provided by this powerful film, it would simply be that "War is a complete chaotic situation where there is no order and the only men that succeeds are the insane ones." This may sound like a mockery of the film, but it is not. I put "Apocalypse Now" on a very high pedestal and consider it the greatest war film every made. But my single statement is the psychological and social message given by the film. The two men that have had great success in the war that are shown in the film are Kilgore and Kurtz. At first impression, Kilgore is a brave and valiant warrior. However, as the extended version shows, his motivations are highly driven by surfing and he spends a lot of effort to regain is stolen surfboard Kurtz has employed the help of natives and his personal army beheads their enemies and are far more vicious than any American soldier would dream of. His methods are more horrific than they are sane, but Kurtz has achieved results that surpass the dreams of American commanders. They have succeeded, but they are a far cry from General Norman Schwarzkopf.
Chaos is another strong theme. Every situation the PT Boat´s crew finds themselves in results in a quick departure or a total loss of command in order. Innocents are slain for a puppy. They trade oil for services that are not exactly listed in any FM training manual. Every outpost them come across has dissolved to a complete state of order where the situation seems almost as dangerous as facing the enemy. Even those that live every day together find it a struggle to co-exist on the PT Boat. There is mistrust, scuffles and arguments. They are a dysfunctional family and if it weren´t for the Chief´s efforts to keep order among his crew, the boat would have quickly fallen prey to itself. The river traveled by the PT Boat is a continuous horror story that has a different fright around every twist of it´s meandering waters.
This look into the mind of the soldier and the manner of insanity and chaos that the Vietnam War is described as being in "Apocalypse Now" gives the film a completely different feel than any other great Vietnam picture. "The Deer Hunter," "Full Metal Jacket," "Hamburger Hill," "We Were Soldiers," "Platoon" and others are all great films. However, they deal with the pain and horrors of conflict or the bravery of the soldiers. None of these films comes close to the grandeur, scale and approach of "Apocalypse Now." The rest of the films I have listed leave you feeling uneasy about the conflict, but they do not leave you questioning what you have just seen as "Apocalypse Now" does. Different viewers can come to different conclusions and beliefs from watching Coppola´s masterpiece. I´ve heard people proclaim it to be an anti-war film. I´ve hard others consider it to be a undecipherable mess. Others, such as myself love the film.
As I´ve said, this is an epic picture and has a scale that far supersedes what other war films do. The production of the film is one of the great Hollywood stories. Sets were destroyed by tropical storms and typhoons. Martin Sheen had a heart attack. Brando´s ego, waistline, unpreparedness and eccentric behavior were causes of stress. Helicopters had to leave scenes to take part in combat operations. What was originally to take only a couple of months to film took nearly two years to complete. A documentary, "Hearts of Darkness" detailed how difficult this film was to bring to life and is entertaining as the film itself. When all filming was completed, Francis Ford Coppola had two hundred hours of film to wade through to compose his final picture. The post-production efforts became as epic as the making of the film. The story behind the story rivals only that of the original "Exorcist" in the horrors and pains that befell the filmmaking. Thankfully, everybody involved carried on and completed what they started, because "Apocalypse Now" is one of the greatest films produced and holds up fine nearly thirty years after production began.
The "Complete Dossier" finds both the original 1979 theatrical release of the film. Running at a hefty 153 minutes, the theatrical release is a relatively long film that at times may confuse its audience or leave many questions unanswered. The original theatrical release was flawed because of omissions made to trim it down to a more theater friendly length. "Apocalypse Now Redux" was released in 2001 and for forty-nine additional minutes. At 202 minutes, the re-release is a monster. However, key scenes were reintroduced and "Apocalypse Now" was allowed to become more than a great film. It was allowed to near perfection. The "Complete Dossier" pairs the original release with the cleaned up and extended cut. For years I loved the original release of the picture, but from the time when I first watched "Apocalypse Now Redux," I now consider the longer cut to be the better version. Aside from one long scene involving a French Plantation, all of the additions were wisely chosen and answers many lingering questions that were a cause of the originals editing. You now know why the surfboard appeared on the PT Boat for a fleeting moment in the original release.
Video:
Note: This review has been corrected after an erroneous aspect ratio comparison between the new "Complete Dossier" version and the original standard definition release due to improper settings on the test DVD player.
I´ll deliver up the bad news right away. Purists are going to want to hold onto their old DVD releases of both "Apocalypse Now" and "Apocalypse Now Redux." This new home video release has a 2:1 transfer that nearly fills a 16x9 television screen. There is information in a technical Frequently Asked Questions section that explains why the film was cropped (or ´butchered´ as some will say) to this narrower aspect ratio. The film´s Director of Photography Vittorio Storaro felt that by keeping the film at the wider 2.35:1 resulted in only half of a standard definition´s television screen to be used and did not fully take advantage of the wide aspect HDTV sets. So Vitto the Butcher got the director´s approval and cropped the picture to eliminate the little black bars that plagues so many people. He did so with Francis Ford Coppola´s blessing.
Fortunately, this is the best that "Apocalypse Now" has ever looked. It really does look spectacular and I admit that I do like seeing a film completely fill up my 16x9 set. The bitrate used on "The Complete Dossier" is higher than what was previously used on both older DVD releases. There are a few passing moments of film grain and the source materials did exhibit a speck of dirt and a scratch or two, but considering the age of the film, the picture quality is superb and very clean. What is really impressive is how well the film holds up so many years after its release. Many releases today lack the visual splendor and grandeur of "Apocalypse Now" even though the new DVD release had its wings clipped, it still soars high.
Audio:
One of my LaserDisc demonstration discs was "Apocalypse Now." I used to love showing off the famous "Flight of the Valkyrie" Air Cavalry assault to everybody. This sequence is about as close as you can come to aural perfection. The scene has everything, a haunting and powerful classical score, deep penetrating bass derived from the blades of the UH-1 Huey beating the air, the metallic clanking of spent fifty caliber bullet cases, the thousand tiny explosions of the bullets, rockets, explosions and other wonderful sounds. Even on DVD, I will sometimes use this scene to show off my sound system. It may not be the best reference material technically speaking, but this scene is just an awesome demonstration moment. I try to turn it up as loud as I can comfortably afford to do and watch just this sequence. Home theater experiences just don´t get much better than this.
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