Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American psychological epic war film produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The screenplay, written by Coppola and John Milius, with narration by Michael Herr, is loosely inspired by the 1899 novella Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, with the setting changed from late 19th-century Congo to the Vietnam War. The film follows a river journey from South Vietnam into Cambodia undertaken by Captain Willard, who is on a secret mission to assassinate Colonel Kurtz, a renegade Special Forces officer who is accused of murder and presumed insane. The ensemble cast also features Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest, Albert Hall, Sam Bottoms, Laurence Fishburne, Dennis Hopper, and Harrison Ford.
Milius became interested in adapting Heart of Darkness for a Vietnam War setting in the late 1960s, and initially began developing the film with Coppola as producer and George Lucas as director. After Lucas became unavailable, Coppola took over directorial control, and was influenced by Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God in his approach to the material. Initially set to be a five-month shoot in the Philippines starting in March 1976, a series of problems lengthened it to over a year. These problems included expensive sets being destroyed by severe weather, Brando showing up on set overweight and completely unprepared, and Sheen having a breakdown and suffering a near-fatal heart attack on location. After photography was finally finished in May 1977, the release was postponed several times while Coppola edited over a million feet of film. Many of these difficulties are chronicled in the documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse.
Apocalypse Now was honored with the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered unfinished. When it was finally released on August 15, 1979, by United Artists, it performed well at the box office, grossing $80 million in the United States and Canada and $150 million worldwide. Initial reviews were polarized; while Vittorio Storaro's cinematography was widely acclaimed, several critics found Coppola's handling of the story's major themes anticlimactic and intellectually disappointing. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor ; it went on to win Best Cinematography and Best Sound.
Apocalypse Now has been assessed as Coppola's magnum opus and retrospectively considered one of the greatest films ever made. In 2000, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the U.S. Library of Congress as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".
Coppola later released Apocalypse Now Redux, an extended re-edit of the film that contains multiple new scenes, in 2001. Another re-edit, Apocalypse Now Final Cut, was released in 2019 and is Coppola's preferred version of the film.
Plot
In 1969, during the Vietnam War, jaded MACV-SOG operative Captain Benjamin L. Willard is summoned to I Field Force headquarters in Nha Trang. The officers there tell him that U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel Walter E. Kurtz is waging a brutal war against NVA, Viet Cong, and Khmer Rouge forces without permission from his commanders. Kurtz is based at a remote jungle outpost in eastern Cambodia, where he commands American, Montagnard, and local Khmer militia troops who worship him. Willard is ordered to "terminate command... with extreme prejudice." He joins a U.S. Navy river patrol boat commanded by the Chief Petty Officer Phillips, with crewmen Lance Johnson, "Chef" Hicks, and "Mr. Clean" Miller to quietly navigate up the Nùng River to Kurtz's outpost.Before reaching the coastal mouth of the Nùng, they rendezvous with the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment, a helicopter-borne air assault unit of the 1st Cavalry Division commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, to coordinate safe entry into the river. Kilgore hasn't been briefed on Willard's mission but becomes more engaged after discovering that Lance, a well-known fellow surfer, is with him. Kilgore agrees to escort the boat through the Nùng's Viet Cong-held coastal mouth and a full-scale air assault is executed on the village with "Ride of the Valkyries" playing on loudspeakers.
Resisting Kilgore’s attempts to convince Lance to surf with him on the newly conquered beach, Willard gathers the sailors to board the PBR and continue their mission. Going ashore to find mangos, Willard and Chef are surprised by a tiger, leading Chef to have a brief mental breakdown. Willard starts seeing cracks form in the crew. Tensions rise when Willard insists on the priority of his mission over the Chief's usual patrol objectives. Willard partially reveals his orders to convince the Chief of the mission's importance.
As Willard studies Kurtz's dossier, he is shocked by Kurtz's mid-career sacrifice by leaving a prestigious Pentagon assignment to join Special Forces, all but destroying his chances for career advancement. At a remote U.S. Army outpost, the boat receives a dispatch bag containing both official and personal mail. Willard learns that another MACV-SOG operative, Special Forces Captain Richard Colby, was sent on an earlier mission identical to Willard's and has since joined Kurtz.
Lance activates a smoke grenade while under the influence of LSD, attracting enemy fire, causing Mr. Clean's death. Further upriver, the Chief is impaled by a spear thrown by Montagnards and attempts to kill Willard with the spear point protruding from his chest, but Willard overpowers him.
Willard reveals his mission to Chef, now commanding the PBR. They arrive at Kurtz's outpost, a Khmer temple teeming with Montagnards and strewn with the remains of victims. Willard, Chef, and Lance are greeted by an American photojournalist, who praises Kurtz's genius. Willard encounters Colby and five other American soldiers among the Montagnards. He sets out with Lance to find Kurtz, leaving Chef with orders to call in an airstrike on the outpost if the two do not return.
In the camp, Willard is bound and brought before Kurtz, then locked in a bamboo cage. One night Kurtz appears and drops Chef's severed head into Willard's lap. Willard is released, and warned not to attempt escape. Kurtz lectures him on his theories of war, praising the ruthlessness of the Viet Cong, and asks Willard to tell his son the truth about his mutiny. As the Montagnards ceremonially kill a water buffalo, Willard assassinates Kurtz with a machete. Kurtz's followers watch Willard depart with Kurtz's writings, and bow down to him. Willard leads Lance back to the PBR, and they depart.
Cast
- Marlon Brando as Colonel Walter Kurtz, a highly decorated United States Army Special Forces officer with the 5th Special Forces Group who goes rogue. He runs his own military unit based in Cambodia and is feared as much by the U.S. military as by the North Vietnamese, Viet Cong and Khmer Rouge.
- Robert Duvall as Lieutenant Colonel William "Bill" Kilgore, commander of 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment and surfing fanatic. His character is a composite of several real-life officers, including Colonels David Hackworth and John Stockton, Lieutenant General Hank "Gunfighter" Emerson, General James F. Hollingsworth and George Patton IV, also a West Point officer whom Robert Duvall knew. Duvall reports that he was upset that a scene where Kilgore saves the life of a Vietnamese baby during the beach assault was cut by Coppola, as he felt that it added to the complexity of his character. The scene is included in the Redux version. Duvall said that he found that the version of the character as originally written was too over-the-top, and asked Coppola for permission to change the character. Duvall also asked people in the military on how to portray the character as a tough unflinching officer.
- Martin Sheen as U.S. Army Captain Benjamin L. Willard, a veteran assassin who is serving his third tour in Vietnam. The soldier who escorts him at the start of the film recites that Willard is from the 505th Battalion, of the elite 173rd Airborne Brigade, assigned to MACV-SOG. The opening scene—which features Willard staggering around his hotel room, culminating in him punching a mirror—was filmed on Sheen's 36th birthday when he was heavily intoxicated. The mirror that he broke was not a prop and caused his hand to bleed profusely, but he insisted on continuing the scene, despite Coppola's concerns. Sheen has said this performance where he writhes and smears himself in blood was spontaneous and was an exorcism of his longstanding alcoholism. Sheen's brother Joe Estevez stood in for Willard in some scenes and performed the character's voiceover narrations while his son Charlie appears in the film as an extra. Both went uncredited.
- Albert Hall as Chief Petty Officer George Phillips. The Chief runs a tight ship and frequently clashes with Willard over authority.
- Frederic Forrest as Engineman 3rd Class Jay "Chef" Hicks, a tightly wound aspiring chef and saucier from New Orleans. His vocational training was interrupted by his draft notice. Now, Hicks is horrified by his new surroundings.
- Sam Bottoms as Gunner's Mate 3rd Class Lance B. Johnson, a former professional surfer from Orange County, California. In the bridge scene, he mentions having taken LSD. As the film progresses, Lance becomes increasingly strung out on drugs. He is completely silent in the last act of the film, entranced by the Montagnard tribe and participating in the sacrifice ritual.
- Laurence Fishburne as Gunner's Mate 3rd Class Tyrone "Mr. Clean" Miller, the cocky 17-year-old South Bronx-born crewmember. Fishburne was only 14 when shooting began in March 1976, as he had lied about his age in order to be cast in the role. The production took so long, he was 18 by the time the film was released in August 1979.
- Dennis Hopper as an American photojournalist, a manic disciple of Kurtz who greets Willard. According to the DVD commentary of Redux, the character is based on Sean Flynn, a famed news correspondent who disappeared in Cambodia in 1970. The character may also have been partially inspired by the British-Australian photojournalist Tim Page.
- G. D. Spradlin as Lieutenant General R. Corman, military intelligence, an authoritarian officer who fears Kurtz and wants him removed. The character is named after filmmaker Roger Corman, who gave Coppola his first directorial work.
- Harrison Ford as Colonel G. Lucas, aide to Corman and an Army intelligence specialist who gives Willard his orders. The character is named for George Lucas, who had directed Ford in American Graffiti and Star Wars, and with whom Coppola had founded American Zoetrope in 1969. Lucas was also intended to direct Apocalypse Now before getting busy making Star Wars.
- Jerry Ziesmer as Jerry Moore, a CIA officer in civilian clothing who sits in on Willard's initial briefing. His only line in the film is "terminate with extreme prejudice." Ziesmer was also the film's assistant director.
- Scott Glenn as Captain Richard M. Colby, previously assigned Willard's current mission before he defected to Kurtz's private army and sent a message to his wife, intercepted by the U.S. Army, telling her that he was never coming back and to sell everything they owned, including their children.
- James Keane as Kilgore's Gunner, a man ready to battle to the tune of Ride of the Valkyries.
- Kerry Rossall as Mike from San Diego, a soldier who surfs against incoming attacks.
- Cynthia Wood as Playboy Playmate of the Year, Colleen Camp and Linda Beatty as Playmates of the Month. Wood was the 1974 Playmate of the Year, and Beatty was the August 1976 Playmate of the Month.
- Bill Graham as Agent, the announcer in charge of the Playmates' show.
- R. Lee Ermey as a helicopter pilot. Ermey was himself a former USMC drill instructor and Vietnam War veteran, and later achieved fame for his role as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in the 1987 film Full Metal Jacket.
- Tom Mason as Supply Sergeant
- Jack Thibeau as Soldier in Trench