Apocalypse Now

1 9 7 9 (USA)

As the 70s dragged on, this film became known by many titles - Francis's Folly and Apocalypse When? being two of the more cruel nicknames, but in the dying embers of the decade, when Coppola's epic hit the screen in glorious 70mm and surround sound, everyone (even the people who hated it) were knocked for a six.

Expanding Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness and transplanting it from Africa to Vietnam was a bold move, and one that held the existential fears about mankind's savagery up to the cinematic light.

Certainly, the years of waiting, the exploding budget, Martin Sheen's production halting heart attack and the tropical cyclones of the Philippine locations all seemed worth it to the audience who plonked down their money for the ultimate war movie. And as one debated the metaphysics thrown up by a rambling Dennis Hopper and the cold, hard militarism embodied by Martin Sheen's Willard, it was impossible to avoid the power of one actor who spent most of the movie just waiting in the wings.

At the two hour mark, when Brando reached the screen as renegade Green Beret Colonel Kurtz, you could barely see the master actor, but he still showed that although stars (Nicholson, DeNiro and others) were rising all around him, none would surpass his prowess or eclipse his greatness.

Apocalypse Now  is jam-packed with mystical, malarial images, such as the Wagnerian helicopter attack in order to allow Robert Duvall and his troops to go surfing on  a 'Charlie' controlled beach, and his subsequent revelation: "I love the smell of napalm in the morning".

That said, there is very little plot: A cold-blooded Army captain (Martin Sheen) is dispatched to the darkest jungles to terminate the command of a highly decorated, widely respected colonel (Marlon Brando) who has gone mad, set up his own pagan civilization, and started executing Vietnamese on his own, playing God while dreaming of a snail crawling along the edge of a straight razor. Sheen starts on a physical voyage and ends up on a spiritual voyage.

Unfortunately, the whole thing ends up in a psychological mess - albeit an artfully camouflaged mess - and we're left with the tired message that in war, as in life, there are opposing forces-rational and irrational, good and bad, moral and immoral-and sometimes the dark side of the heart triumphs.

The main problem with Apocalypse Now is that it has no apocalypse. Coppola was in over his head and didn't know how to get out, so the movie ends in an incoherent haze of smoke and darkness when it should have ended with fireworks.

TRIVIA NOTES
Harvey Keitel was originally cast as Captain Willard. Two weeks into shooting, Coppola replaced him with Sheen. 

When Coppola approached the Pentagon for US military assistance in the production of Apocalypse Now he received a reply stating "The Army does not lend officers to the CIA to execute or murder other Army officers, and even if we did, we wouldn't help you make a picture about it".