Here are my thoughts

Rating: 10/10 (5 August 2017)

After a long journey in pursuing this film, I finally got my hands on Frances Ford Coppola's epic war movie Apocalypse Now (1979). With two accidental purchases of the Redux, version, my anticipation for the original feature was high and hoped my efforts have been worth it. So this is my review/analysis (some slight SPOILERS) During the orange heat of the Vietnam War in 69, isolated Captain Benjamin Willard (Martin Sheen) is tasked with a classified mission of seeking out and terminating Colonel Walter E Kurtz: (Marlon Brando) a officer who has gone insane and become a demi-god among his own native followers in Cambodia leading his own war attacks against the Vietnamese and US. As Willard pursues the fragmented dictator, him and his unit explore the dark depths of the war.
From Robert Duvall's famous battle line of "I love the smell of Napalm in the morning" to Brando's harrowing whispers of the "the horror, the horror" Apocalypse Now takes a revolutionary journey of war, morality and truth, such a transition is a rare expedition for cinema. Arguably one of the deepest, heaviest films to be made to date, Coppla's work in my eyes is a poetic tale of Vietnam War or war in general. To be perfectly honest, the films wade on me too much for me to even conjure an opinion yet.
To someone with no idea of the context of the film, the title 'Apocalypse Now' probably suggests a post apocalyptic setting, but it is more complicated than that. Now titles are very important to me, and I can't help but partly try to consider what the title means while watching the film, until its explained itself. So I'll admit throughout the 2hr and 33mins duration that 15% of mind was trying to work it out while the remaining 75% was fully focused. And what typically ends is being one of those titles with multiple interpretations or implications based on what you have witnessed on screen. The gratifying majority opinion agrees that the title's significance represents the weight of horror and terror in the Vietnam war There's one line that implies soldiers forget their home lives and there is only the war. Coppola shades the majority of the film in a ghastly brown orange colour pallet, mimicking the sandy environment but possibly the horrific atmosphere of a post apocalyptic world. So the title should probably make perfect sense, if I was in Nam at that time, I'd probably think its the apocalypse too.
What we find the character of Willard enter is a revolutionary experience of the war, which gets him early closer to Kurtz. Willard is fascinated by the mad Colonel story and continues to read his file throughout his mission. Each part of the war they encounter along the way only builds up intrigue and gradual understanding for Kurtz so called insanity. Coppola slowly constructs great tension and anticipation as we get tot know the character of Kurtz through his file, and await the confrontation. Brando's voice only springs sinister. What we discover is a damaged soldier tired of the killing but still welcoming it as it all he has. There's no doubt about it that Brando is creepy as a ghost, and sees the only truth in the world is continuous destruction demonstrating his sight of the real apocalypse that we live in.
One masterful aspect that Coppola constructs in Apocalypse Now, is its magnificent cinematic presence. Brought to live sensationally by Vittorio Storaro's cinematography amazingly capturing the extreme, and at times documentary character to the Vietnam War. Featuring one of the most fierce battle scene when the choppers arrive and begin shooting down below with the sound of Ride of the Valkyries (one of the most influential moments in film history).
Coppola's 1979 work earns the name as a work of genius and master art, one of the most 'mad' and heavy pieces of cinema standing against the weight and horror of the Vietnam War, and war itself. I would agree this was an important point in cinema history to be witnessed by all.