Apocalypse Now
They want him dead because he shows them who they are.
Apocalypse Now is the movie that exists in two states; they don’t make them like this anymore and even if they did, they don’t LET you make them like this anymore. Francis Ford Coppola’s war epic shatters the American mythos of war, which I’m sure was very surreal considering this film debuted a mere 4 years after the war was considered formally over. This commentary on the American war machine was only possible in a pre-9/11 America.
This movie is long, full of massive shots, pregnant pauses, beautiful cinematography and the largest scale action scenes I’ve ever seen. Marlon Brando is obviously a magnet the likes of which have yet to really be matched in the years after his retirement, but the casting of Martin Sheen is one of the best casting decisions I’ve ever seen. He really masterfully conveys the broken stallion of the American soldier, forcibly brought to a pointless conflict on the other side of the world as a boy and returning there as someone who can’t exist anywhere else. This isn’t an uncommon story here.
What follows is one of the most masterful political commentaries of the 20th century. I’ve seen this before, back when I was taking a film class in college in 2018. Back then I don’t really think I understood the significance of what a movie like this was really saying. This isn’t just a movie that says “oh Vietnam war bad”, it’s a piece of art dedicated to exploring why the Vietnam war was a horrific decision for everyone that wasn’t sitting in the AC back in military command and how they are simply unwilling to acknowledge the horror of what they perpetrate onto the world. They don’t like being reminded of that fact, and have to destroy anything that acts as a mirror to their soul, or I suppose in this circumstance the lack thereof.
I found rewatching this to be a very poignant exercise considering in early May of 2024, we are seeing a repeat of the anti-Vietnam war protests in the form of pro-Palestinian and anti-genocide protests which are being met which the same animosity as those kids were in their day. In truth, existing online at this moment in time is enough to make you feel like you’re going crazy. Choosing the pro-Palestinian side is the objectively morally correct side, but it seems like establishment voices have convinced everyone else that genocide is okay and in some cases needed. Why can’t we get a movie like this today? Because the post-9/11 propaganda machine doesn’t allow for movies directly criticizing the nation that suffered the tragedy of “”“the worst terror attack in the western world”””. The era of art attempting to keep us self aware is over because we can’t bear to see what we are anymore. We couldn’t take it, even if we were allowed to see stuff like this anymore.