The REDUX enigma

Rating: 10/10 (22 September 2006)

The title sums up my amazement at the hatred displayed in the comments I see in here on the 2001 cut.
The fact is:

I totally agree with the majority (I hope) of viewers on the fact that it is without doubt the greatest film on war ever made

I have only seen the REDUX version !...

I won't comment on the movie itself (independantly of the two cuts), on its great aesthetic achievement; on the technical accomplishment of the war scenes; on the depth of the reflection it offers not only on war in general, but also, almost secondarily, and with a ... "crystalline" clarity, on the specific Viet NÃ¢m conflict (which should have come in first, paradoxically...); and on the almost perfect performances of the actors, each one in itself (Robert Duvall alias Col. Kilgore is of course my favorite). I feel that much more than I could write in my whole lifetime has already been so.
I will try to "explain" the mystery that made me a zillionth fan of the movie after watching a version that a lot of the other fans consider a sacrilege insult to the original one. Since I have still not seen this latter, I will use another comment (thank you JohnIL), which by chance happens to list the differences between the two cuts.

the additional footage in Col. Kilgore sequence is not superfluous. Nothing could be excessive in the description of this maniacal, sickly vindicative and epicly insane fan of surf, which also happens to be at the command of a whole airborne division, with its apocalyptic firepower. Concerning the stealing of his board, it is not contrary to the character of Capt. Willard. His almost gloomily taciturn behaviour during the journey up river is of circumstance (his reading of the dossier+the not so happy personal situation which precedes his being sent on the mission).

The sex-for-fuel scene is not the best of the movie of course, but it gives an additional note of craziness to the film; and is not craziness what this is ultimately all about ? Even if it was not worth, I would have added it only for the sake of Lawrence Fishburne last replica, which made me hilarious.

The supply boat scene is in my opinion irreplaceable... I can only say that I was truly amazed to read that it was not in the original cut. Capt. Willard intervention at the end of it is perfectly in context. It is not hurry that explains his act, so much as what he says just afterwards: "Cutting people in half with a machine gun, and then giving them a bandage" borders to cynical hypocrisy.

The French plantation sequence is long. It almost breaks the pace of the movie (probably the primary reason for its suppression from the original cut). But first in the dinner scene, although the performances of the French actors are heterogeneous, there are very good things: the actor playing Hubert Des Marais is truly convincing, and the overall scene illustrates the fact that these people are eventually the only ones who fight for a sane reason among all the protagonists encountered during the voyage upriver. Secondly I love the opium smoking scene. Its delicious sensuality is precisely what could solely justify the excessive length and pace-breaking character of this addition.

*** WHAT FOLLOWS MAY PARTLY BE CONSIDERED AS A SPOILER ***

Finally the Time-magazine sequence is in my opinion magnifying two fundamental aspects of the character of Col. Kurtz: first his total, ferocious and unmitigated detestation for lies, which cover the pages of this newspaper as melted sugar on a love-apple; and secondly the fact that, despite his superhuman strength of character, Col. Kurtz is ill, and slowly dying. Although it is not emphasized in the dialogue nor the direction, Marlon Brando always inspired acting gives here the in a way disappointing vision of a man who was up to now anticipated as a Rambo coupled with a Lincoln. But reality (which is so absent of the rest of the world depicted here) caught with him: his body is eroded by a tropical illness, and his mind is every day more ripped apart by the weight of the contradictions with which "the circumstances of this conflict" are filled.