Apocalypse Now ««««
R, 147m. 1979
Cast & Credits: Marlon Brando (Colonel Walter E. Kurtz), Martin Sheen (Captain Benjamin L. Willard), Robert Duvall (Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore), Frederic Forrest (Jay ‘Chef’ Hicks), Sam Bottoms (Lance B. Johnson), Laurence Fishburne (Tyrone ‘Clean’ Miller), Albert Hall (Chief Phillips), Harrison Ford (Colonel Lucas), Dennis Hopper (Photojournalist), G.D. Spradlin (General Corman). Screenplay by John Milius and Francis Ford Coppola. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
“This is the way the world lives. Not with a bang. Whimper.”
That was what Dennis Hopper’s doped up, hippie photographer thought about life in war torn Cambodia during the Vietnam War while hanging out with a group of natives led by a once highly decorated Green Beret colonel named Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) in "Apocalypse Now."
If you change the first sentence to read, “This is how the film ends,” you’d have my opinion of what I thought of Oscar winning director Francis Ford Coppola’s original 1979 Vietnam war epic after watching it for the first time in its entirety in 1987.
Up until then the most I had seen of "Apocalypse Now" was the first hour on network television back in the early 1980s, though edited for adult content, the movie still came with a parental advisory warning.
As a young kid who was still astounded by visual effects, or “movie magic” as it was called thanks to "Star Wars" (1977) I never felt guilty being awed viewing scenes of death and destruction on the big or small screen. I didn’t care if the film was a science fiction movie taking place “in a galaxy far, far away” or a fabled war epic that uses the Vietnam War as its subject matter. I saw "Apocalypse Now" as escapist entertainment.
Such is the reason why for my sudden interest in the film during that early first hour seeing a young Harrison Ford as Colonel G. Lucas, whose name role was a homage to director George Lucas who gave Ford his start in "American Graffiti" (1973) before becoming a household name as smuggler Han Solo in "Star Wars" (1977).
Ford was in only one scene in "Apocalypse Now" whose character feeds background information to Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) on Kurtz, the green beret Willard is assigned to assassinate for military crimes against American forces. Ford was among the less than a handful of cast members whose screen time was less than fifteen minutes and likely consisting of less than a dozen pages of dialogue. Others in the cast whose appearances and dialogue lasted just as long included Robert Duvall as Col. Kilgore (who received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor) and the hefty Brando who doesn’t show up until the last half hour when Willard meets his prey.
Duvall’s Kilgore is a loud authoritative military leader with a deep interest in surfing (he has his own personal surfboard) who during battle asks a soldier and fellow surfer if he prefers using a light or heavier board when riding the waves.
"Apocalypse Now" featured a number of memorable big-bangs during that first hour like the opening shot of military helicopters flying above the Vietnamese jungles dropping napalm bombs; all of which I saw but didn’t hear. What I heard instead was the haunting lyrics from The Doors’ Jim Morrison singing “The End.”
On those unsettling scenes of impending death and destruction, however, is another shot that caught my eye within that first hour other that got me excited. The clip is an early battle sequence where a group of military helicopters descend on an enemy village taking out the Vietcong with the music of Richard Wagner’s "Ride of the Valkyries" blaring from a chopper’s sound system.
Like I said earlier, seeing military servicemen dying in battle didn’t phase me as when a Vietcong woman drops a hand grenade in a chopper full of American military servicemen as they worked to get their wounded airlifted killing everyone aboard. I was awed by the visual effects.
That was enough for my dad though who watched the film with me and served in the U.S. Air Force in Vietnam from 1968-69 (he came home in 1970) to reprimand me for citing how cool I thought that scene was. No matter how I looked at it, the shot still showed soldiers dying in combat. For anyone like my dad who served in Vietnam (though he never saw combat but was almost injured and could have been killed during an attack on the base he was stationed at), such a disturbing scene could be enough to dredge up unpleasant memories of the real thing for those there who went through such an experience.
I don’t believe dad’s reason for seeing "Apocalypse Now" on the big screen in the late fall of 1979 had anything to do with him serving in Vietnam, however. I think the one and probably only reason for seeing the controversial much talked about war epic is because it starred his favorite actor, Martin Sheen, in the lead role.
R, 147m. 1979
Cast & Credits: Marlon Brando (Colonel Walter E. Kurtz), Martin Sheen (Captain Benjamin L. Willard), Robert Duvall (Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore), Frederic Forrest (Jay ‘Chef’ Hicks), Sam Bottoms (Lance B. Johnson), Laurence Fishburne (Tyrone ‘Clean’ Miller), Albert Hall (Chief Phillips), Harrison Ford (Colonel Lucas), Dennis Hopper (Photojournalist), G.D. Spradlin (General Corman). Screenplay by John Milius and Francis Ford Coppola. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
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| 1980 Academy Award Nominations Best Picture Best Director Francis Ford Coppola Best Supporting Actor Robert Duvall Best Art Direction/Set Decoration Best Cinematography - Winner Best Film Editing Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium Francis Ford Coppola John Milius Best Sound - Winner |
“This is the way the world lives. Not with a bang. Whimper.”
That was what Dennis Hopper’s doped up, hippie photographer thought about life in war torn Cambodia during the Vietnam War while hanging out with a group of natives led by a once highly decorated Green Beret colonel named Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) in "Apocalypse Now."
If you change the first sentence to read, “This is how the film ends,” you’d have my opinion of what I thought of Oscar winning director Francis Ford Coppola’s original 1979 Vietnam war epic after watching it for the first time in its entirety in 1987.
Up until then the most I had seen of "Apocalypse Now" was the first hour on network television back in the early 1980s, though edited for adult content, the movie still came with a parental advisory warning.
As a young kid who was still astounded by visual effects, or “movie magic” as it was called thanks to "Star Wars" (1977) I never felt guilty being awed viewing scenes of death and destruction on the big or small screen. I didn’t care if the film was a science fiction movie taking place “in a galaxy far, far away” or a fabled war epic that uses the Vietnam War as its subject matter. I saw "Apocalypse Now" as escapist entertainment.
Such is the reason why for my sudden interest in the film during that early first hour seeing a young Harrison Ford as Colonel G. Lucas, whose name role was a homage to director George Lucas who gave Ford his start in "American Graffiti" (1973) before becoming a household name as smuggler Han Solo in "Star Wars" (1977).
Ford was in only one scene in "Apocalypse Now" whose character feeds background information to Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) on Kurtz, the green beret Willard is assigned to assassinate for military crimes against American forces. Ford was among the less than a handful of cast members whose screen time was less than fifteen minutes and likely consisting of less than a dozen pages of dialogue. Others in the cast whose appearances and dialogue lasted just as long included Robert Duvall as Col. Kilgore (who received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor) and the hefty Brando who doesn’t show up until the last half hour when Willard meets his prey.
Duvall’s Kilgore is a loud authoritative military leader with a deep interest in surfing (he has his own personal surfboard) who during battle asks a soldier and fellow surfer if he prefers using a light or heavier board when riding the waves.
"Apocalypse Now" featured a number of memorable big-bangs during that first hour like the opening shot of military helicopters flying above the Vietnamese jungles dropping napalm bombs; all of which I saw but didn’t hear. What I heard instead was the haunting lyrics from The Doors’ Jim Morrison singing “The End.”
On those unsettling scenes of impending death and destruction, however, is another shot that caught my eye within that first hour other that got me excited. The clip is an early battle sequence where a group of military helicopters descend on an enemy village taking out the Vietcong with the music of Richard Wagner’s "Ride of the Valkyries" blaring from a chopper’s sound system.
Like I said earlier, seeing military servicemen dying in battle didn’t phase me as when a Vietcong woman drops a hand grenade in a chopper full of American military servicemen as they worked to get their wounded airlifted killing everyone aboard. I was awed by the visual effects.
That was enough for my dad though who watched the film with me and served in the U.S. Air Force in Vietnam from 1968-69 (he came home in 1970) to reprimand me for citing how cool I thought that scene was. No matter how I looked at it, the shot still showed soldiers dying in combat. For anyone like my dad who served in Vietnam (though he never saw combat but was almost injured and could have been killed during an attack on the base he was stationed at), such a disturbing scene could be enough to dredge up unpleasant memories of the real thing for those there who went through such an experience.
Even before I saw the movie on network television I remember watching "Sneak Previews" (1975-1996) where Chicago film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert discussed the film on their show. The pair’s divided opinion was one of the top disagreements the two would have throughout their twenty plus years together. Siskel didn’t like it while Ebert listed the film among the best movies he’d seen that year. The two wouldn’t disagree on another controversial Vietnam war epic until 1987 when Stanley Kubrick’s "Full Metal Jacket" was released.
I wasn’t impressed when I finally saw the film in 1987. Siskel’s dislike of the picture back in 1979 only justified my reasons for not embracing it either as I understood where he was coming from. As the ominous plot of the original 150-minute film progressed (Coppola released two extended three-hour director’s cuts in 2001 and another in 2019) so did the look of the picture, which was almost pitch black.
The climax was so dark that about the only thing visible aside from Brando’s menacingly bald shaved head were the explosions going off throughout his compound. I found watching the picture decades ago to be a long and tedious exercise after that first hour- as long and sometimes uneventful as the Nung River Willard and his boat crew travel to find his prey where the only thing to break up the monotony were the sudden bursts of combat violence.
“Everyone gets what he wants. I wanted a mission. And for my sins they gave me one. Brought it up to me like room service,” says Sheen’s Col. Willard.
There is no doubt Kilgore’s line “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” is likely found in some book listing several memorable quotes from movie’s past. Since my diabetes diagnosis in 2006, I’ve jokingly used that quote on social media when giving myself injections replacing the word “napalm” with “insulin.”
Having watched the ’79 theatrical version again recently I finally got what the film’s message attempted to convey about the Vietnam War which is best summarized early on by a G.D. Spradlin’s General Corman.
“You see, Willard, in this war, things get confused out there. Power, ideals, the old morality, and practical military necessity. But out there with these natives, it must be a temptation to be God. Because there's a conflict in every human heart, between the rational and irrational, between good and evil. And good does not always triumph. Sometimes, the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature.”
"Apocalypse Now" was all about various soldiers’ attempts to stay sane in an insane world. Examples include Sheen’s Captain Willard in his Saigon hotel room drinking heavily smashing a mirror and injuring his hand in the process as he awaits his next assignment. There is Duvall’s Kilgore who turns the ravaged Vietnamese shores into a California surfing beach parties where American servicemen guzzle down beers and eat barbeque around a night campfire following a day of fighting.
"The more they tried to make it just like home, the more they made everybody miss it," Willard says of Kilgore's method to his madness.
The reason behind the soldier's behaviors exhibited by Kilgore and the less than a handful of servicemen who accompany Willard down the Nung Valley was to keep them going off the deep end in a world that had already gone mad; a path Brando’s Kurtz had already taken.
"Apocalypse Now" may be a fabled war movie loosely based on or inspired by Joseph Conrad’s classic novel, "Heart of Darkness." The one thing this picture got right was that most every soldier who lived through, fought, served and died in Vietnam was scared out of their wits. Why else would some of them go to great lengths to keep themselves from getting shot like sitting on their helmets to keep their testicles from getting blown off while exchanging gunfire with the enemy.
Now over forty years after its original release the most hauntingly memorable line that comes to my mind instead of Hopper’s photojournalist are the last words of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz.
“The horror...the horror.”
©5/21/25
"Apocalypse Now" may be a fabled war movie loosely based on or inspired by Joseph Conrad’s classic novel, "Heart of Darkness." The one thing this picture got right was that most every soldier who lived through, fought, served and died in Vietnam was scared out of their wits. Why else would some of them go to great lengths to keep themselves from getting shot like sitting on their helmets to keep their testicles from getting blown off while exchanging gunfire with the enemy.
Now over forty years after its original release the most hauntingly memorable line that comes to my mind instead of Hopper’s photojournalist are the last words of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz.
“The horror...the horror.”
©5/21/25
