Barnes & Noble

Reenvisioning Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad's classic novella about the evils of imperialism, as a story about America's involvement in Vietnam, Francis Ford Coppola created a work of art as powerful and haunting as the original. Military agent Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is assigned the task of "terminating" the leadership of Kurtz (Marlon Brando), a renegade American colonel who has gone insane and disappeared into the Cambodian jungle. As Willard travels by boat through Vietnam in search of the mysterious Kurtz, the panorama of the Vietnam War, in all its horror and absurdity, unfolds. The acting is uniformly remarkable, with a memorable turn by Robert Duvall as the half-mad Colonel Kilgore, who "loves the smell of napalm in the morning," and a great debut by 14-year-old Laurence Fishburne as a young soldier. Vittorio Storaro's brilliant camera work and an inspired use of the Doors' ominous anthem, "The End," capture the druggy, nightmarish atmosphere of the "psychedelic war"; the film won two Oscars, for cinematography and sound. Coppola spent five harrowing years bringing this masterpiece to the screen (see the documentary on its making, Hearts of Darkness), and it was worth it. Mythical, impressionistic, and horrifying, Apocalypse Now is a stunning achievement that ranks as the best of the many movies made about the Vietnam conflict. Kryssa Schemmerling

All Movie Guide

One of a cluster of late-1970s films about the Vietnam War, Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now adapts the Joseph Conrad novella Heart of Darkness to depict the war as a descent into primal madness. Capt. Willard (Martin Sheen), already on the edge, is assigned to find and deal with AWOL Col. Kurtz (Marlon Brando), rumored to have set himself up in the Cambodian jungle as a local, lethal godhead. Along the way Willard encounters napalm and Wagner fan Col. Kilgore (Robert Duvall), draftees who prefer to surf and do drugs, a USO Playboy Bunny show turned into a riot by the raucous soldiers, and a jumpy photographer (Dennis Hopper) telling wild, reverent tales about Kurtz. By the time Willard sees the heads mounted on stakes near Kurtz's compound, he knows Kurtz has gone over the deep end, but it is uncertain whether Willard himself now agrees with Kurtz's insane dictum to "Drop the Bomb. Exterminate them all." Coppola himself was not certain either, and he tried several different endings between the film's early rough-cut screenings for the press, the Palme d'Or-winning "work-in-progress" shown at Cannes, and the final 35 mm U.S. release (also the ending on the video cassette). The chaotic production also experienced shut-downs when a typhoon destroyed the set and star Sheen suffered a heart attack; the budget ballooned and Coppola covered the overages himself. These production headaches, which Coppola characterized as being like the Vietnam War itself, have been superbly captured in the documentary, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse. Despite the studio's fears and mixed reviews of the film's ending, Apocalypse Now became a substantial hit and was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor for Duvall's psychotic Kilgore, and Best Screenplay. It won Oscars for sound and for Vittorio Storaro's cinematography. This hallucinatory, Wagnerian project has produced admirers and detractors of equal ardor; it resembles no other film ever made, and its nightmarish aura and polarized reception aptly reflect the tensions and confusions of the Vietnam era. Lucia Bozzola

Product Details

• UPC: 097360230642
• Source: PARAMOUNT
• Region Code: 1
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby Digital Surround, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
• Language: English, Français
• Subtitles: English
• Time: 2:33:00

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