Conscientious Objector...

Rating: Null/10 (16 August 2001)

So we have reached the point where films have been stripped bare of any redeeming artistic social value.
There never will be again a final cut of a movie. No two moviegoers will be able to discuss a film without one asking the other WHICH VERSION?
Thanks to George Lucas and his Special Edition Star Wars movies... Thanks to Steven Spielberg with his Special edition Close Encounters... Thanks to Ridley Scott's Director's Cut of Bladerunner or others... And now Francis Ford Coppola gives us Apocalypse Now Redux. At least Coppola is frank about needing the money for his aptly titled Megalopolis project. His re-release of ANR is transparent and his sincerity (he is always sincere in what he does) is above reproach. What is more objectionable is George Lucas' craven quest to improve his personal fortune and power. Mixing CGI to traditional fx techniques in the Star Wars movies and re-shooting scenes reduces their historic importance to naught. To add insult to injury, Lucas promised to make the original Star Wars movies available for movie goers forever alongside the new edition prints. Last year he re-released all three films + the Phantom Menace in a special package without aknowledging that these were in fact the bastardized CGI-ed prints.
Here Coppola uses only the materials he had access to in 1978, which is a sort of integrity, I guess.
By putting back most of the Willard voice overs and intros to scenes, REDUX loses the disorienting surrealism of the original version. This version becomes far more the traditional war movie with an obvious narrative structure, recurring characters, etc. We are no longer just dropped into the middle of the crazy jungle. Every major sequence is set up carefully in the expanded dialogue, with character motivations becoming clear. The obscurity of the original set it appart in the cannon of the genre as a weird psychedelic trip through war. It's 2001 counterpart, however, has the virtue of humanizing all of its characters and making the viewer care about the fate of each one. The older Coppola has obviously lost the passion and daring of youth (see his pathetic Dracula if you have any doubts) but has gained a sort of wisdom.