Well, we have a lot to unpack here. Apocalypse Now is an overall analysis of the
Vietnam war told through the eyes of one shell-shocked soldier who may or may
not be as crazy as the war itself.
Coppola’s vision of the war a harrowing one and in the pantheon of
all-time great war movies.
The main reason I chose this movie is that I am a big fan of
the unreliable narrator story-telling device, and I think we get hints of it
here. It isn’t quite as overt as many
other movies – Big Fish is one of the few that we know throughout the narrator
is unreliable at best, but it is more apparent than another movie we have
watched, Taxi Driver. We hear this story
through Captain Willard’s eyes, and it would be hard to suspect his motivations
and mental stability didn’t influence the overall narrative. Was Kilgore really that brazen? Did Phillips actually try to take Willard
with him to the great beyond? And how
did we know Lance was on acid if he only told Chef and not Willard? That
last question really bothers me, as it’s really the only interaction we see
that does not involve Willard directly.
Lance is the only survivor from the group, so maybe he told Willard
after the fact. (More on Lance, and the
crew in general, later.)
I also chose this movie due to the source material, Heart of
Darkness by Joseph Conrad. There are
some very overt references to Heart of Darkness in Apocalypse Now, specifically
the name Kurtz for the “villain” of the story.
Heart of Darkness is, in essence, a condemnation of 19th
century imperialism in Africa. The story
has been modernized in a couple instances to draw a parallel between
imperialism and the American war machine.
We can agree/disagree on whether or not this is a fair viewpoint of Cold
War era America, but I don’t think that’s the point of this discussion. The main question to be answered here is
whether or not you feel Coppola succeeds in defending this thesis while still
displaying the horror of Vietnam. That’s
asking a lot of any movie, and I don’t feel like the imperialism parallel was
quite there. We would have needed more
time with the Vietnamese people beyond the interaction with the boat people and
Kurtz’s natives. I’m not entirely sure
Coppola even meant to attempt an imperialism parallel and just chose to use the
source material as a convenient plot to wrap around his image of the war.
Heart of Darkness is a novella clocking in at a mere 72
pages. Therefore, there’s only so much
plot you could derive from there. So,
Coppola had to fill quite a few gaps. I
don’t know if I would classify Apocalypse Now as either plot-driven or a
character piece. It seems to live
somewhere between these two worlds. We
do have an overarching story for sure, but it really feels like we’re watching
a character piece, and the character in question is the Vietnam “conflict”
itself. Throughout the course of the
movie, we get an abbreviated timeline of the war and a better understanding of
the attitude toward it as it progressed.
We have the initial landfall, where Willard and company are told to
“ignore the cameras.” CAMERAS! This wasn’t a war, it was a TV event! We get some pretty amazing shots during this
early section as well, including a nice long shot of everything which is
occurring in this initial battle. Then
we move to the raid on the village, which brings in the full-on view of the
American arrogance in war. This, by the
way, was well-earned in the eyes of the leadership. We were less than a generation removed from crushing
the Nazis and Hirohito. Kilgore has no
taste for subtlety – cue the Valkyries!
What seems like a crushing defeat turns out to be a deep wound that
bends but does not break the Viet Cong in the village, as we then see the
tenacity of the enemy in full force.
Kilgore claims it safe enough to surf (again, who knows if this is true
or Willard’s embellishment) despite the battle raging on. So that’s what Vietnam was early on. A war we thought we would come in, crush our
outgunned foes, and spend a nice little vacation in the jungle.
The battle at the Du Long Bridge shows a stark contrast to
this picture of the war. This far down
the river, we see nothing but chaos. Build
the bridge, blow it up, build it again, blow it up again, wash, rinse,
repeat. Willard asks a couple soldiers
who is in charge, and they think he is.
They have no idea who is in charge and why they are fighting. They received some order, likely lost their
commander at some point, and were now just fighting some stalemate until they
were killed or told they could finally go home.
The Du Long Bridge is the quagmire Vietnam had become. It was a war that could not be won. Willard returning to the boat to declare
“there’s no one in charge here” says all we need to know.
Meanwhile, the river itself becomes an allegory for the
timeline of the war itself and the psychological effects it has on a man –
specifically Kurtz before and Willard now.
From the self-assured bravado to the Du Long Bridge, we see the slow
descent into madness from an organizational perspective. We go from discussions of surfing, TV
cameras, and small religious ceremonies, to what can best be described as an
utter shitstorm. The midpoint between
these two events is the USO show, where the troops essentially become animals
just at the sight of a few playmates.
The breaking down of the barb-wired wall is the breaking down of that
mental stability; the desire to return home still. Beyond the USO show, there seems to be no turning
back – only death and madness await.
As Willard progresses beyond the army’s reach, we see the
true horror of the war and the effects of a drawn out conflict. The potential that any passerby could be an
enemy, as this was a war where the foe cared nothing for order or
uniforms. We get the naiveté of those at
home, where Clean’s mother just assumes he’ll be back and already have plans
for “when” he returns. And, we
eventually see what all of this paranoia and hopelessness does to a man, when
we finally get to Kurtz’s lair at the end of the river.
We hear tidbits about
Kurtz throughout the movie. We can see
that this is a man that Willard both respects and fears. Since we’re hearing this story as a
retrospective, we can only guess whether or not these feelings were developed
before or after meeting Kurtz. Kurtz and
his compound are the metaphorical result of the insanity we have witnessed for
the past 105 minutes. Here’s a man who,
in his eyes, is getting results leading to a U.S. victory. However, he is condemned for his actions, and
is driven mad by a war that is equally mad. The final death scene for Kurtz is drawn in
overt parallels with the sacrificial bull, himself the sacrificial bull of a
war gone all wrong. It is really the
only moment of lucidity we see from him, his world ending not in a bang, but in
a whimper.
And, of all people, Lance makes it back. Who would have bet on that with the rest of
the crew involved? Lance is the only one
who truly descends into any sort of madness, and his descent ends up being his
saving grace. It goes to show us that
anyone who survived an ordeal like that had to be forever changed, to a level
almost as unsalvageable as Kurtz. We
don’t know what happens to Lance or Willard after their ordeal is done, but I
can’t imagine it’s anything good. We
know Lance and Willard had some sort of lucid interaction after the ordeal,
given that Lance never tells Willard he dropped acid before the battle of the
Do Long bridge.
Chef exists as a foil of sorts to Lance. Unlike Lance, Chef never truly loses his mind
at any point. During the attack on the
innocent boat, we see Chef as the only one who doesn’t suspect trouble. It makes me wonder if that sense of trust is
what caused him to eventually lose his head.
To survive at the end of the river, you had to embrace the madness, just
like Lance. Chef still held on to some
strand of sanity, and a person like that could not survive in this place.
We end on Kurtz’s final words, “The horror… The
horror.” And that truly is the best way
to describe this war and what everyone involved in this story went
through. There is no good way to
summarize it. Many of the actions taken
by all involved were deplorable. It was
not the bloodiest war in American history – some civil war battles saw more
American casualties then the entire 14 years we were in Vietnam – but the
overall damage to the American psyche, the end of our feeling of invincibility,
and the distrust in authority that resulted is still apparent today, and it is
no surprise that this war has been one of the most analyzed events through the
medium of film we have ever had.
That being said, Apocalypse Now would be the defining
analysis of the Vietnam War we had if a little film called Platoon didn’t
exist. Other movies have tackled certain
subjects of the war, like Full Metal Jacket, The Deer Hunter or Hamburger Hill,
but Platoon and Apocalypse Now feel like the two that really tackled the war
itself more than any other movie. Now, I
feel like choosing between the two is a classic “Beatles/Rolling Stones”
argument. Both are amazing (to most),
and there’s no reason you cannot like both.
I still feel the need to compare them though. I felt like Platoon was the better movie, in
that it had a stronger narrative.
Platoon had a real plot; Apocalypse Now wrapped a plot around several
smaller events that spoke to the war as a whole. (It’s been a while since I watched Platoon,
so I could be way off on this. I did
want to watch Platoon again before writing this, but it isn’t available to
stream for free anywhere.) Truth be
told, there are a couple scenes you can remove from Apocalypse Now and preserve
the message – it may lose a little impact, but you could do it. We didn’t need the USO scene for
example. We probably could have told the
entire story without Clean and/or Chief Phillips. However, the movie would have been less
without them.
I’ve already worn out my welcome, so I’ll quickly hit the
technical stuff that I have a feeling most of you will hit. Coppola was at the top of his game
directing. Some awesome shots,
especially considering this was made 35 years ago. Also, it had to be a pain in the ass doing
those Brando scenes with a body double.
We got a lot of good performances, especially from Robert Duvall, Dennis
Hopper, and the aforementioned Marlon Brando.
Martin Sheen was fine but a tad dry.
I later read that was by design, him serving as an observer of sorts, so
I won’t deduct points for his performance.
(Side note 1: I’ve heard the documentary based on the
filming of this movie, Hearts of Darkness, is also amazing. We may need to pick that one sometime
soon. Truth be told, we could do an
entire round of just Vietnam movies and watch nothing but great stuff.)
(Side Note 2: Besides this movie, a video game I mentioned
in Side Pieces called Spec Ops: The Line also bases several of its themes on
Heart of Darkness. I would actually
argue the storyline of Spec Ops is much darker and more sinister then Apocalypse
Now – I would love to “assign” you all that game, but I know we don’t have a
lot of gamers in the group, so I’ll leave it at that.)
+ Hits many of the major points of the Vietnam War
+ Well-done analysis of Vietnam
+ Enjoyed the story-telling devices
- Maybe a few extemporaneous scenes… How is there a 45 min
longer version?!
Grade: A
