Apocalypse Now Redux

[Mofo Rising]

Anybody go and see this? What did you think?

I was glad to just go and see Apocalypse Now in the theatres. Having watched it on the small screen for many years (most of those pan and scanned), seeing it blown up larger than life was a revelation. Anybody who tells you there's no difference between the theater and your living room is full of shit.

Besides that, I must say that I prefer the original cut. The extra scenes were interesting, but for the most part I don't think they added much to the movie.

The French plantation scene in particular was a big problem for me. First off, it seemed to jar the narrative. It may have been my expectation to get to the Kurtz compound, but I don't think the movie needed an extended rest stop before the major climax. Also, I have no ear for French accents and no real knowledge of the politics of the time, so most of the dinner conversation went right over my head. I will say that the payoff for the scene was fantastic, with boat going between the two faces of the monument.

I did like the extended helicopter attack, as well as the extra Brando scene. Also, gratuitous nudity is always a plus in my book, but, by it's nature, never necessary.

At any rate, when I do decide to review Apocalypse Now, the original cut is the one I'll reach for.

Anybody have any thoughts?

[Derleth]

Apocalypse Now and Apocalypse Now Redux (and don't you just hate it when those talking heads pronounce the 'x'?) are two different versions of the same essential plot. You can compare them all day, but you must appreciate that fact. Now, for some opinionating!

AN is less disturbing, for one thing, not only because it shows less, but because it doesn't bring up quite as many apsects to the plot. The plantation scene is an example of that. Here you have the French, relics of a bygone age, fossils from Vietnam's colonial history, desperately holding ground against ... what? The Vietnamese? They've lost that war. Communism? They know that war is a lost cause as well. No, they're holding the line against the future, and acting as Cassandras for the Americans. Their desperation should be our lesson: Get out, turn back, there cannot be victory down this path! But in the movie, as in the war, the American pushes on, blindly following orders to his doom.

The next scene I want to bring up is the added Playboy scene. It is NOT just t-&-a. It is a rather biting commentary on just how depraved the people have become, and how far they have traveled from sanity. For example, after the model knocks over the barrel containing the body, the only thing she cries about is how people have always made her do things she didn't want to do in her modeling carreer. The soldier is completely unaffected, both by her and the body. Add to that the Louisianan's fetish for one bunny to the extent he makes another one wear the wig so she looks like her and you get a disturbing tableau which to me was about as erotic as a morgue.

Then you have the bridge. The psychadelic nightmare of a military bungle. The bridge is meant, I think, to symbolize the war at that point: A group of soldiers without commanders, insanely following meaningless commands so a distant government can save face. The 'shooting at nothing' scene is particularly telling: How can you fight an enemy that can fade into any city, any village, any jungle? The paranoid soldier, blindly firing at phantoms of his imagination, represents a paranoid US Armed Forces, desperately trying to kill fleas with a .45 Magnum (or trying to kill VC with napalm and high-altitude bombing raids).

The extra Kurtz scene was good. Kurtz, throwing all of those magazines promising a quick end to the war at Capt. Willard, is a particularly effective scene and a good example of how the US government slowly sold the US people on the stupidest war of the century. Kurtz lived through that lie for years, giving up everything, his career, his family, his friends, everything, to pursue a place in the special forces (Green Barets or the Airborne, I think, but I could be wrong) to serve his country. Remember, he authored a paper on how we could win the war by helping the people. The government and the VC both proved him wrong (the 'diamond bullet right between the eyes' quote), the government by fighting the war as a complete mess, the VC by chopping off all of the arms his men had innoculated.

And now we get to the essential point of the story, as I see it. Kurtz saw the VC as the perfect soldiers. Moral, disciplined, intelligent, but completely without remorse when it comes to war. His goal was to fight the war his way, with his kind of soldiers. But what kind of human can shut off his remorse as he cuts an arm off a six-year-old? When you can do that, you are no longer human. You are Homo sapiens sapiens, the most dangerous animal on Earth. 'Apocalypse Now' was his motto, a threat of what a war his way could accomplish. His final line, 'The horror, the horror ... ,' was the last gasp of the human in Kurtz seeing what the inhuman in all of us could do. Kurtz was not evil, any more than the tiger that tried to eat the saucier was evil. Kurtz was a representation of the amoral, Nature Unbound, and the horror of life without moral cosequense.

AN and ANR are two of the few films that can affect me emotionally and intellectually at the same time. I love both, and I think either can stand alone.

[Why A Duck]

The way I remember Copolla talking about the movie, Willard's trip up the river was supposed to represent a trip back through Vietnam's history. Starting off with the present war environment, moving back to the days when Vietnam was a French concern (the plantation), and finally back to the days when it was more "primitive" (Kurtz' compound).

[incitatus]

Originally posted by Derleth
(and don't you just hate it when those talking heads pronounce the 'x'?)

Yeah, those bastards. Uh... how exactly do you pronounce "redux"? I've been saying "ree-ducks" all this time.

[Why A Duck]

Ummm....That's actually the preferred way. Check out the Merriam-Webster site and type in redux. You can then have them pronounce it for you and it comes out ree-ducks.

Of course, there's the French way which is more like ree-do.

[Derleth]

Originally posted by pcubed
The way I remember Copolla talking about the movie, Willard's trip up the river was supposed to represent a trip back through Vietnam's history. Starting off with the present war environment, moving back to the days when Vietnam was a French concern (the plantation), and finally back to the days when it was more "primitive" (Kurtz' compound).

Well, that's another interpretation, but the author's word (or director's word, for that matter) is not the final say when it comes to interpreting an artistic work.

Originally posted by pcubed
Of course, there's the French way which is more like ree-do.

Which is how I pronounce it, you American pigdogs! I fart in your general direction! Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!

[Mofo Rising]

Originally posted by Derleth
Apocalypse Now and Apocalypse Now Redux (and don't you just hate it when those talking heads pronounce the 'x'?) are two different versions of the same essential plot. You can compare them all day, but you must appreciate that fact. Now, for some opinionating!

Yeah, I read something with Coppola saying something much to the same effect. I don't really buy it. Do the extra scenes in Star Wars and Greedo shooting first make it a different movie, or even a different "version"? I don't see it, but I'm willing to concede that other people do.

I have a quick question however. Does the tiger scene appear in the first movie? I'm having an argument with a friend. He says it does, because he remembers seeing it before. I pretty sure that it doesn't.