Apocalypse Now (1979)

Genre

Drama | War

Director

Francis Ford Coppola

Country

United States

Cast

Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest, Albert Hall, Sam Bottoms, Laurence Fishburne, Dennis Hopper, G.D. Spradlin, Jerry Ziesmer, Harrison Ford, Scott Glenn, Bill Graham, Cynthia Wood, Linda Carpenter, Colleen Camp, R. Lee Ermey, Francis Ford Coppola, Charlie Sheen

Plot

During the Vietnam war, U.S. Army Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is sent by Colonel Lucas (Harrison Ford) and Lt. General Corman (G.D. Spradlin) to carry out a dangerous mission that, officially, 'does not exist - nor will it ever exist': he has to kill the renegade and presumed insane U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando).

Opinion

Apocalypse Now, besides being a film about the Vietnam war, is a film about Vietnam itself. Francis Ford Coppola's film is complex, ambitious and philosophical, and reaches the human psyche. 

Marlon Brando's Colonel Kurtz is a man who has reached his breaking point, and has retired in the jungle to live like a demigod, venerated by thousands of indigenous.

The closing scene of the ritual slaughter of a sacrificial bull is the most powerful of symbols.

Martin Sheen is outstanding - this is the first time I have seen him -, Robert Duvall, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning!", is great and fun to be watched as Colonel Kilgore, and Marlon Brando does a spectacular job as Kurtz. 

Buy/Rent on Amazon Instant Video: Original Version - Redux Version

Quotes

Colonel Walter E. Kurtz: I've seen horrors... horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that... but you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror... Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies! I remember when I was with Special Forces... seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate some children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went back there, and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms. And I remember... I... I... I cried, I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out; I didn't know what I wanted to do! And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it... I never want to forget. And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought, my God... the genius of that! The genius! The will to do that! Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we, because they could stand that these were not monsters, these were men... trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men, our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment! Because it's judgment that defeats us.

Rating

9.0/10