Nine Things about the Movie Apocalypse Now Redux
1. I saw “Apocaypse Now” for the first time when I was in college. And I didn’t totally get it.
I understood it intelletually, but I didn’t totally get it.
2.It was made in 1979. But in 2001, director Francis Ford Coppola did a complete re-edit of the film, and he added in almost an hour of footage that was cut from the original version.
Now I get it.
3. If the saying is true that “war is hell”,then this is the tourist route. It’s a gonzo, trippy, epic Vietnam war masterpiece. I don’t even know how this movie got made.
4. It’s about an ex-soldier named Benjamin Willard, that obviously suffers from PTSD. He talks about his disastrous attempt to regain his old life, only to return to Vietnam to hunt down a renegade colonel named Walter Kurtz, and kill him.
5. Most of the movie chronicles Willard’s experiences before he even finds Kurtz.
6. The picture of Vietnam that is shown to us is of a morally desolate landscape where no-one is usually in charge. If someone is in charge, they are insane.
7. Vietnam is a place where sex is negotiated for gasoline, soldiers take acid to make their tour more enjoyable, and special forces soldiers become gods.
8. The cast of the movie contains many actors who were famous at the time, and some that would become famous later - like Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Harrison Ford, Robert Duvall, Lawrence Fishburne, and Dennis Hopper.
9. Vietnam was a unique chapter in American history. “Apocalypse Now Redux” is a unique, depressing, insane chapter in American cinema. Love it or hate it, you won’t forget it.
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