Night divides the day

Rating: 9/10 (24 November 2001)

Anyone who sees "The Making of Apocalypse Now" will be struck by the difficulties Francis Ford Coppola faced. Rough environment, actors getting heart attacks, a typhoon destroying the sets, the Philippine army going back to fight the rebels (it was supplying the helicopters for the film, being made in the Philippines). On and on. It took forever. I think that it is safe to say that many people involved in making this flick had a tougher time than, say, Tippi Hedren in making "The Birds."
But it was worth it.
The Vietnam War came about within a confluence of elements in the key decade of the 60s. The U.S. was not just the strongest military power, but the richest country, and with an ever-growing entertainment industry. Intellectual currents, lifestyle currents, openness of spirit. Peace and love, yes, but also the arts, communications and mass media, broadening horizons. What movies should be about, how they should be made. Vietnam contributed to the currents and the legacy of the 60s, but many things would have happened on their own. In any event, The Vietnam War made us question the morality of itself specifically, and war in general, and whether wars are worth fighting.
Bear in mind something else. Many war movies had been just straightforward, but there were antiwar ones too. "All Quiet on the Western Front" and "Paths of Glory" stood as classic. As to Vietnam, John Wayne did "The Green Berets," but Oliver Stone comes along later with "Platoon," a basic antiwar flick. But there was another thing Vietnam contributed in the eye of all the confluences. That was reductio ad absurdum, a platform for war movies to my knowledge not used much up to that time.
In my college political science class, U.S. Foreign Policy After 1945, the standard northeastern liberal critique, the principal textbook had a chapter on Vietnam called "The Apotheosis of Containment." The supreme example, deification, glorification. Just to contain communism, in a country like Vietnam, the U.S. did all this? We spent all that, we dropped all those bombs, we killed and maimed all those people, ruined the land. And remember, as to our own casualties, there were many other than killed and missing, and the number of killed and died would have been substantially higher if not for modern and technological advances saving people, at least 10,000. In other words, even if you go back only to the time of WWII, for sake of comparison, assume many more U.S. deaths in Vietnam, all conditions being equal.
The Vietnam War was a self-satire. Bloated and ridiculous. All in the jungle, in the middle of nowhere. In the Heart of Darkness. General Westmoreland asked for 200,000 more troops to follow up the U.S. victory after the Tet offensive, which he characterized as a last-gasp, "Battle of the Bulge" effort by the North. Some other things have come along, such as General Custer being reduced to a racist megalomaniac caricature in "Little Big Man" (released during Vietnam). But Vietnam provides a particular opportunity. For example, Stanley Kubrick moves from "Paths of Glory" to take advantage of this in "Full Metal Jacket." "Platoon" contains some elements of satire. There are others
Francis Ford Coppola has his "Apocalypse Now," as Joseph Conrad had his "Heart of Darkness." Coppola takes off with a plot involving, well, madness. But before Colonel Kurtz (Marlin Brando), we have such characters as Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall), who is obsessed with surfing, in Vietnam. A blond cowboy, with hat and dark glasses. Are we in the wrong setting? Coppola seems to think so as the helicopters rise, "The Ride of the Valkyries" plays. Casual napalm comments. Actually, approval.

Martin Sheen plays Captain Willard, assigned to liquidate U.S. operative Kurtz, who is going off the deep end with his private army of locals. Willard and crew journey down a river, passing endless jungle, to Cambodia, where Kurtz is located. It is well known that The Doors' "The End" is used later, but "End of the Night" might also have been used for Willard's river journey. Except the midnight does not turn out to be bright. Actually, it is here that the question is, "Driver where're you taking us"? We are returning to the more primitive, primordial. Vietnamese in a Sampan are mowed down, save one young girl, except she too is slaughtered when, as is only later realized, she reaches for a puppy. One of the crew may be killed by a Viet Cong bullet, but a native spear gets the other. Upon arrival at Kurtz's camp, there are Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine. Natives meet them in boats, bodies are hanging in trees, and heads are lying around. Bodies confused, memories misused. Dennis Hopper, by profession a photojournalist, is a jester in Kurtz's court. Strange Days.
Kurtz is indeed "lost in a Roman wilderness of pain, and all the children are insane, waiting for the summer rain." The blue bus calls. The Doors could, alternatively to "The End," have come in with the cathartic climax to "When the Music's Over": "Save us, Jesus, save us..." Kurtz is the personification of the overall character of the movie, and the war.

"Apocalypse Now" has atmosphere, and how. Dark, depressing, there is violence, and also drugs. The viewer is engulfed in the negative aura, but this is mixed with surreal elements and very creative cinematography. Not just the Heart of Darkness, but the Art of Darkness.
Great job by Coppola. A masterpiece.