Title: Apocalypse Now (1979)
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Cast: Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper
Have I Seen It Before?: Here’s the weird thing, especially when you consider the name of my company. I think I’ve seen it before. I recently procured a deluxe blu-ray of the film that includes the original theatrical cut from 1979, the Redux version released in 2001, and Hearts of Darkness (which, if I’m being honest, is the real reason I bought the set again). The opening minutes of Redux felt like it was significantly different from the film I remember. But, as I restarted the film with the theatrical cut, it’s largely unchanged so far as the first few minutes are concerned.
I’m honestly not sure what the hell I’ve seen.
Did I like it?: Orson Welles tried to make it, and before any sizable portion of the country would be skeptical about war to make it work. George Lucas was all set to make it, before he ended up becoming an action figure salesman. Only Coppola got it done, and given his output afterwards, it probably broke him far more than we could see at the time.
I’d go into the staggering scope of the film, but that may be a topic more at home in my eventual review for Hearts of Darkness. However, I will note that in the early scenes of the film—before it really has said much about war and the madness therein—where helicopters bob and weave off the coastline is staggering. They don’t—won’t, really—make movies like that anymore. Now such terrible things will look only slightly more realistic than Mario jumping for coins.
And they are terrible things. I can’t think of another war movie that not only makes the view feel what I can only imagine is the violence of war, but the deep, unrelenting insanity of the effort as well. It’s also deeply unsettling to see Martin Sheen this upset about anything, but then again I would feel that way about any of the cast of The West Wing.