Apocalypse Now
#2
Posted 23 May 2004 - 12:43 AM
#4
Posted 23 May 2004 - 04:51 AM
"just return the surfboard"
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#6
Posted 09 June 2004 - 04:36 AM
Why do I think Coppola botched APOCALYPSE NOW? Well, I guess because I read HEART OF DARKNESS, Conrad's take on colonial overbearance in Africa, and if screenwriter John Milius's goal was to take that novel and translate it to Vietnam, then good idea. Where he failed was in actually coming anywhere near the statement he wanted to make about the blind messenger and the fallacy of the White Man's Burden. Instead Milius, obsessed with guns and more in awe of protofascist agression than he was a critic of it (see CONAN THE BARBARIAN for his culmination), made a politically-muddled epic in praise of the great power of American savagery.
In HEART OF DARKNESS, Marlowe goes off in search of Kurtz because he is curious about the great white trader's awesome reputaton, and he finds Kurtz tortured and morally spent. Kurtz's last words, "The Horror! The Horror!" we are told is a summation, a judgement of Western Civilization's arrogant destruction of a noble people it couldn't be bothered to get to know. Here is a guy who has "gone native" in the sense of turning against his former ideals. Ok; so far so good. But APOCALYPSE NOW'S Kurtz is a puppet-show shadow of the literary Kurtz; in fact, he is Kurtz twice removed, sitting about reading "The Wasteland," TS Eliot's poetic summary of Conrad's work. That Marlowe goes in to murder him, rather than to learn from him, makes this film about as clever as a "Your Brain on Drugs" commercial: 1) we are told Kutz is a rogue without having to decide that for ourselves; 2) We are asked to contemplate that the US Army actually delivered orders like this, rather than even pretending to visit the genuine horrors of warfare; and 3)when Kurtz turns out to be articulate and sensitive to all the death and inconvenience he has caused, it isn't a summary or a judgement of anything. He is killed, so all is well. We get to see this murder occur as part of a music video that involves the ritual slaughter of a carabao and Martin Sheen coming out of a pool of slime to kill Kurtz, after which the noble savages bow to him and drop their weapons. It is a sequence so obvious and cornball that surely it must have elicited laughter even when it was first released in the midst of the post-war guilt that sponsored it.
The greatest sequence in the film , the only one that raises any question at all about American involvement in Vietnam, is of course the entire Colonel Kilgore assault on a quiet little Vietnamese village. Blaring Wagner, long associated with Adolph Hitler, and praising the smell of the napalm that we saw dropped on a quiet jungle (in gorgeous slow-motion, to a Doors tune, no less) at the opening of the film, he is the summary of American aggression that ought to have been Kurtz. Of course, the question raised is what is it about Kurtz that makes the military deem him crazy and not Kilgore, is an important one, and much could be done with it had it ever been answered. Instead Kurtz is a recluse, reading The Golden Bough and The Bible, quoting TS Eliot and waxing poetic about invented atrocities that have nothing to do with the actual response of the Vietnamese to the US occupation of the south.
This film is frequently cited as the be-all and end-all of American films about Vietnam, and maybe it is. Maybe the American response has always been to wallow in pseudo-liberal guilt while never considering the voice of even one single Vietnamese citizen. Maybe Coppola got that bang-on, and for that he may be proud. I know a lot of people believe this, but I ain't buying it. I think APOCALYPSE NOW is more praise of brutality than it is critique, and for all its liberal posturing its most memorable line, the one about the napalm, was neither delivered nor received with the irony intended. If Coppola set out to make the definitive comment about the Vietnam experience, then those words, "The horror! The horror!" have to come across as a summary, a judgement, if not of something in particular, then at least of the war in general. Pop-culture Kurtz is so random in his statements and his comments and his quotes, that for all we know he is simply experiencing an acid flashback.
This post has been edited by civilian_number_two: 09 June 2004 - 10:58 PM
#7
Posted 10 June 2004 - 01:49 PM
But even if it does give a different message, which I'm not so sure it does, as I thought it was pretty much condemning our activities there, then so what? Film is different from literature, and this is the way the screenwriter and director wished to take the story. OK, you're disappointed because you read the book and it's not what you thought it would be because of that, but this is a fabulous movie. I, Robot is coming out this summer, and it looks like The Terminator. I'm a huge fan of Asimov's work, and am pissed right now because it looks like it'll just be a generic action movie against all of Asimov's ideals. I'm reserving judgement, but I've decided that even if it is that, I will enjoy it as an action movie, and if it actually does stay true, then all the better. That way, if it is a great action movie, I'll enjoy it as that. You should try not to expect the same thing from books adapted into movies, it almost never is.
So, if you had never read Heart of Darkness, would you have loved this movie? You have to ask yourself that. This is just a captivating movie. As I've said, every single shot of this movie is beautiful. Every single shot.
#8
Posted 11 June 2004 - 04:00 AM
That's where it is "botched." It neither summed up nor judged anything, but still carried the pretence that it might. It's just a load of beautiful photography and this invented atrocity about severed arms.
Ok movie. Weak film.
#9
Posted 29 April 2006 - 01:11 AM
Malkovich and Brando both give these soft spoken speeches. I don't understand a word they say. What the hell are they saying?
Is the point of the film, as civ pointed out, about white men acting savage in the 'savage' lands OR is it about how all men, when given the proper conditions, can become brutal butchers.
All the characters, save Marlowe, in both films are very strange. It seems like every one is on drugs or are slightly affected by the enviroment.
Both movies are about finding an instane turncoat whose hurting an operation, deep within a jungle filled with primative life, who follow some stupid insane white guy.
I really liked both films but find them a bit confusing.
This post has been edited by Jordan: 29 April 2006 - 01:13 AM
#11
Posted 05 May 2006 - 01:41 AM
Apocalypse now is a just a cool film, and a pretty damn good story...
it may not be carry the agenda it intended but it certainly takes you on a trip.
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#14
Posted 10 May 2006 - 12:57 AM