Review: Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" : Why It's Great In Two Very Different Ways.

There is a word I don't use very often to describe a movie : cocky. But I'll use it now because Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now is nothing less than that. In fact, there hasn't been a movie I've come across that deserves to be described in that way.

Coppola illustrated his magnum opus in a brief yet profound manner during the 1979 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme D'Or : 'My film is not about Vietnam, it is Vietnam.'

Now, if you're a film-lover, there's a very thin chance that you might've not heard of Apocalypse Now. And if you haven't, the slime-ball you are, I'll tell you about it. Because not to tell someone about it would be a crime. The nerve, the audacity, that went into making it is something I'd never even heard of. It's something like a nirvana for film-lovers but a haunted house for those with a fetish for an enjoyable movie experience. And Coppola has just put me through one of the most grueling experiences I've had at the movies.

I've always had a certain aversion to big productions with a high visual quotient. My fascination for them has always been zilch, and shall remain so. So, Apocalypse Now was a discovery. It sneaks up on you, like a carnivore waiting to strike, stealths you and finally climaxes with a sequence so unnerving, so horrifying, that it's absolutely maddening. And I mean that as a compliment. It's a crazed fuse of explosive energy, landmark use of visuals and sound and incredible guts. 

But Coppola's road was not an easy one. He once remarked : 'We had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane.' That's true, by the way. The film was notorious for the length of its production. Coppola edited millions and millions of feet of footage. He had also shot footage that was 100 hours long, can you believe that? And from those 100 hours, he just picked out the best 153 minutes. He contemplated suicide once because the film was going out of his hands. Sheen suffered a mild heart attack because it was so exhausting. And don't get me started on what Brando did, or almost did, to it. Brando's arrogance was legendary but it made the movie much more elegiac, you know, in a weird way. 

Martin Sheen was the second choice to play Captain Benjamin L. Willard. Pacino scoffed at the script when Coppola told him about it. So, here was Sheen, half-actor, half-soldier for most of the production, playing Willard, the juiciest role of his fine career, who has been sent to assassinate Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, a decorated army officer but who's a psychotic renegade. Brando, bald and overweight, hadn't even bothered to read the book the film was based on. Coppola's perception of Kurtz was a tall and thin man, but Brando was the opposite. But, hey, a name sells a film, right? Always does, always has. So, Brando was on for just 10 minutes. And he charged a million dollars a week for that small part. Or should I say, for half of his face 'cause that's only what you get to see of him, folks. Only that. And before you judge him, he was known to be a difficult star. So, half a face is a good deal, innit?

And yet, and yet, here was a movie experience beyond your wildest dreams and the smoky realms of your imagination. Here was Coppola, the big, bearded guy who made The Godfather, at his most visionary. Here was a studio willing to go bankrupt in an attempt to show you something different. Here were the characters, the human-beings, stripped bare emotionally, doing things so inhumane. And here was an experience so hellishly exhilarating that you can't get rid of its prodigious impact even a week after you've watched it. 

I'll be honest about this. If, say, Apocalypse Now were to release today, I wouldn't have liked it. Why? Because it'll be just another movie experience, you know. We're living in a techno-driven sphere, and the magical sound of Apocalypse Now would be attainable in our living rooms with just the right use of the right resources by the right people. Apocalypse Now looks chic on film without such hooey blunting its impact.

There's one scene I've got to talk about. The sequence where a water-buffalo is slaughtered is intensely horrifying, more so because it was slaughtered in real. A sacrifice Coppola witnessed with his wife when he was doing research for the movie was something that inspired the idea, but I strongly condemn the inessential sequence.

Apocalypse Now, nearly thirty years after it first released, is one of the nuttiest war films I've seen. But the grit and grime come from a fantastically clairvoyant filmmaker who is undoubtedly one of the most ingenious filmmakers of the past century. And Apocalypse Now cheekily haunts your conscience, a symbol of its triumph.

Haunting. Try it.