Commenting on Apocalypse Now Redux, Not the Original

Rating: Null/10 (3 August 2002)

I'm sure a couple of people would probably shoot me for this, but after seeing the 'new' version of Apocalypse Now that screened at Cannes last year, I was really disappointed that Francis Ford Coppola took what was, in my opinion, a perfect masterpiece and added so much more footage to the movie. The thing that was so absolutely chilling and chaotic about the original was all the little spaces left where one understood the insanity and chaos of the war but did not get straight linear explanations for each step of it. To me, not having been around for the war, it gave me (what I felt like to be) a really guttural feeling for just how confusing, violent and generally f*cked up the whole Vietnam experience was. How difficult it was to figure who the bad guys were and who were innocent. It brought up the pivotal question "What is this war really about?" I was truly mesmerized by the film and walked away with alot of compassion for both the men that fought in Vietnam and the innocent locals that got caught in the middle. I also walked away with so many moral, ethical and psychological conflicts as to everything that went down there and found myself wondering how anyone who was involved with this war on either side could possibly come out any other way but scarred.
For me, Coppola diluted his film by redoing it and adding the extra footage. It took away it's strongest point - that of being a film that put you in the experience but made no overt statements about it - thus making the strongest statement possible. What I walked away with after watching the recut is a little too much indicating and less of the chaos that made this film the classic that it is. My advice to Coppola? Don't mess with a good thing. Sometimes things should be left well enough alone.