DARKNESS MADE VISIBLE.

Rating: 10/10 (30 January 2019)

My Rating : 10/10 ♠ MASTERPIECE ♠
Coppola's megalomania, Brando's behaviour, Sheen's heart attack - all of the behind the scenes stuff, 'add' rather than distract to the overall viewing experience of 'Apocalypse Now'.
Terrifying, brutal, experimental and an effective expressionistic War film masterpiece. A stunning piece of art and a filmmaker's apocalypse getting it made.
Coppola kept shooting and shooting and shooting, accumulating miles and miles of exposed footage without knowing precisely what story he wanted to tell or how he wanted to end it. Back in the bad old days Coppola claims in press notes for the new and improved Apocalypse Now Redux - 'We were terrified that the film was too long, too strange and didn't resolve itself in a kind of classical big battle at the end... 22 years ago I was under more pressure to make this into what was then considered a 'normal' war film. Now I have the opportunity to widen the focus.'
Coppola was required by the Philippine government to destroy the Kurtz compound after he was finished shooting. He photographed it being blown up and decided to use this footage over his closing 35 MM credits. The destruction of the compound was later confused as an alternative ending to the film.
It is well-known by now that the making of Apocalypse Now was fraught with trauma. Sheen had a heart attack, the Philippine locations were politically and meteorologically unstable and Coppola was reportedly in a paranoid coke frenzy to name a few. Somehow it only makes the grandiosity of the end result all the more impressive.
George Lucas was originally set to direct Apocalypse Now based on a screenplay by John Milius. Lucas's initial plan was to shoot the movie as a faux-documentary on location in South Vietnam while the war was still in progress. Coppola who was to be the executive producer tried to get the film made as part of a production deal with Warner Bros. but the deal fell through and Coppola went on to direct The Godfather (1972). By the time both men had enough clout to get the film made, Saigon had fallen and Lucas was making Star Wars (1977). Milius had no interest in directing the film and Lucas gave Coppola his blessing to direct the film himself.
Originally scheduled to be shot over six weeks, the filming ended up taking 16 months. The cow slaughter in the climactic scene is real. According to the editor Walter Murch, it took nearly 2 years to edit the movie with an average of less than one cut per day.
Apocalypse Now can be either seen as a stunning work of cinema - or a mixed bag of raw excess and ambition.
HATCHED IN AGONY AND REDEEMED BY RECKLESS SHARDS OF CINEMATIC BRILLIANCE.