A beautifully-structured metaphor for America in Viet Nam

Rating: 9/10 (28 September 2005)

I can claim to be one of the first people to see Apocalypse Now - at the Cannes press-show - and it remains one of the most memorable filmic events of my life. The film announces its intention from the very beginning - 'This is the end...', the opening line of 'The End' by The Doors. A film that begins with that kind of irony is going to be some work, and so it is.
Though based on 'Heart of Darkness', I think that the war is so brilliantly embedded in the film that its debt to Conrad is small. In fact, for me, it supersedes Conrad, as his journey is primarily metaphysical. Here we have a metaphysical journey, but one which is totally infused with the greatest of all human 'darknesses' - war.
At the centre of the film is Martin Sheen's magnificent performance as Willard. Nearly everything Sheen has done has been wonderful, but here he is as close to perfect as we can expect from an actor - making sense of even his totally 'fou' opening scene.
Then there is the structure of the characters. The occupants of the boat are basically a cross-section of American society - hailing from the 'four corners' of the country - Chief Phillips comes from the north - Chicago, Chef from the south, Lance isfrom the west coast, and 'Clean' from the east. And Willard, he is from Iowa - in the heart of the continent. Here the film is showing us that the entire nation was involved in the war.
So who do we thank for Apocalypse Now's wonders? My own inclination is to give, perhaps, the lion's share of the credit to John Milius - the allegoric structure of the film is also not far from the methods of 'Big Wednesday'.
Are there problems? Yes. Sometimes it goes over the top - I think the Kilgore surfing scene is made more of than was necessary, the whole war is lunacy without underscoring it quite so firmly. Similarly the Playboy Bunnies sequence is also grotesque. I do not deny that value of humour in such an allegory, but I am a little uneasy about the glib way in which it is introduced.
And the sense of impending doom is magnificently presented, with scenes like the encounter with the tiger resonating with all of the major primal fears of our species. (Does the tiger itself have a symbolic function? It is an interesting speculation.) As the boat approaches Kurtz' camp, the horrors simply expand and deepen. To my mind, Kurtz is being represented as that part of the human psyche that rejects rationality, and that is exactly the psyche that embraces war.
Finally Willard succeeds in his mission, but at what cost...
This is, as I said, some film.
Oh, yes. Marlon Brando plays Colonel Kurtz and gives him a depth and complexity that would have totally escaped lesser actors.