Apocalypse Now

The relentlessly corruptive power of militarism, boldly presented in a nightmarish landscape of smoke and murky water, Apocalypse Now’s biggest strength, to me, is in its visuals. Coppola is fascinated by an innately human capacity for destruction, going beyond focusing on militants forced to feed the machine that proliferates a senseless war, instead exploring the transformative effects of the conflict. Less interested in the decay of flesh, but more concerned with the deterioration of morality, Apocalypse Now is also in many ways a road movie, set in the vast rivers of east Asia. Except, these are characters, from their introduction, who find normalcy in bloodshed, deriving energy from the chaos, to different degrees. Every character in a position of authority and influence appears to thrive in the circumstances, in their own way. There is a harrowing inertia propelling our protagonist through the hellscape where humanity goes to die, brought upon by the more contemporary setting that Heart of Darkness has been adapted into. Willard is a broken man who finds purpose in surrendering himself to hostile territory, but is hardly the only one. Their demise is inevitable, survival is suffering, leaving behind ruins where there once was a battlefield, as they abandon their sanity. Ultimately, the only solace is to construct (and implode) the very hills they will die on. There is discussion on the dialogue of Milius, and Herr’s contributions to the narration, as there is with Apocalypse Now’s literary inspiration, however with the number of different cuts of the film, for better and worse, this is almost completely Coppola’s vision, just as Kubrick’s 2001 is his interpretation of Arthur C. Clarke’s Space Odyssey. Perhaps blasphemous to admit, but the pyrotechnics adding to what can only be described as spectacle of excess are easily the most impressive elements of the film. Coppola’s elaborate set-pieces are a much bigger draw than any of the character work here. Even with an excellent script (still surpassed by its literary counterpart) and top-tier performances, it’s difficult to describe the film or the book to be superior because they’re entirely singular and somewhat distinct in their aims. You can’t shake the sense that the French colonialists and the American imperialists have a sociopathic lust for societal destabilisation, beyond any rational political goals (another example why the extended sequences of the Redux release are far more important than they are given credit for, ignoring the less masterful execution of the segments, and the detrimental effect on the pacing). So little has changed in the geopolitical landscapes of today that the film is fundamentally as reflective nearly half a century after its release. Even the inclusion of the mildly grating photo-journalist considers the threat of narrative warfare, the manipulation of perspective, the distortion of truth. Native lives are seen as virtually expendable, the American’s bullets and chemical weaponry allowing them to escape even apex predators. Even still, their actions are futile, their intervention unnecessary and uncalled for. The instances of meaningless brutality solidify these characters as an invasive species, sustaining an unjust conflict through brute force — a force that persists in the hunger of the military-industrial complex of today. What semblance of strategy is left when those that lead have succumbed to madness, or perhaps always have been, mad? There may be victors in war, but only at the cost of no meaningful, outright victory. As visually arresting as a 2-hour+ “war film” can be, though even calling it that feels reductive. —— Viewed The Final Cut (2019) — containing 4K scans of the original negatives, to combine footage from the theatrical release and segments from the Redux (2001) version, unfortunately without the explosive credits footage. Seriously? All that ecological damage only for it to be cut because audiences overestimated the narrative significance of the footage? While other filmmakers are either perfectionists or are just lazy, I’m convinced Coppola has a degree of insecurity and a lack of confidence in his art — until he released Megalopolis of course. While I have no desire to return to the theatrical version anytime soon, I’m definitely considering watching the complete Redux edition containing all of the extra footage that is cut for time.