Apocalypse Now
1 9 7 9
ac·tor/'akt-r/
{Noun} 1. A person whose profession is acting on the stage, in movies, or on television.
2. A person who behaves in a way that is not genuine.
"You have a right to kill me... but you have no right to judge me."
- Brando to his nemesis, Martin Sheen
Apocalypse Now: Video On Demand: Rent or Buy
------------
CREDITS
1979, 153 minutes. Colour, US
- Dir: Francis Coppola
- Prod: Francis Coppola
- Scr: Coppola, John Milius
- Ph: Vittorio Storaro
- Ed: Barry Malkin
- Mus: Carmine Coppola, Francis Coppola
- Art Dir: Stephen Gooson
CAST:
OSCARS:- 1979: Best cinematography; best soundrecording (Walter Murch, Mark Berger,Richard Beggs, Nat Boxer)
OSCAR NOMINATIONS:- 1979: Best film; best director; best screenplay; best supporting actor (Duvall); best art direction/set decoration (Dean Tavouiaris,Angelo Graham, George R. Nelson); bestfilm editing (Richard Marks, Walter Murch,Gerald B. Greenberg, Lis Fruchtman).
(Winner best film 1979: Kramer rs. Kramer)
------------
REVIEW
(Cont.):
What we have here is a great, sprawling, deeply flawed, pretentious, self-indulgent and yet, in the end, magnificent picture. When Francis Coppola showed it as a work in progress at theCannes Film Festival he said it was'more of an experience than a movie'and that just about sums it up.
Ostensibly, of course, it's about theVietnam War, about US Army captain Martin Sheen's progress through thejungle, the skirmishes and the battlefields on a mission to assassinateMarlon Brando's mad and dangerous Colonel Kurtz, a maverick soldier whohad become a kind of demigod. But,starting out as a modern parallel to Joseph Conrad's extraordinary Heart of Darkness,the film proceeds to encompass allmanner of psychology and myth (death and regeneration, for example) tobecome both a nightmare journeythrough the horror and madness ofwar and an examination of the evilrooted in men's souls.
What remains inthe mind is not so much the story - as Coppola has said, that becomes lessimportant as the film goes on - as aseries of astonishing vignettes: Robert Duvall as a crazy, water-skiing commander; helicopter gunships going intoaction to the accompaniment of TheRide of the Valkyries; the huge, grossappearance of Brando, half in light,half in darkness.
By all accounts thefilming (in the Philippines) was a horrendous experience: the budget soared to more than $30 million; Martin Sheen had a massive heartattack; and the picture went so far overschedule that in Hollywood it wasknown as 'Apocalypse Later'.
Somehowone feels that what Coppola set out toshoot was not the film he finally delivered, but no matter. For all its faults Apocalypse Now is still by far the bestof all the Vietnam movies and a riveting condemnation of the appallingdamage war can do to people, psychologically as well as physically.
On a personal note, the film is a visual reminder as to why Brando's screen presence has never been matched and will never be so anytime soon if ever. He's just so watchable - you can't keep your eyes off him when he appears. Maybe Garbo from an earlier era but even she didn't have quite the same magnetism that Brando had.
VIDEO ON DEMAND - RENT OR BUY:
Affiliate/Advertising policy.
Links. Credits | Review | Video On Demand: Rent or Buy | Marlon Brando | Godfather | Search Site | Top of Page
© Lenin Imports E-mail