This past week I've been taking a class called Deconstructing Cinema. It isn't your average class as you are required, yes required to watch two films per day. After watching these movies we contribute to discussion boards about the film and write five papers over the course of two weeks. Sounds fun, doesn't it? Well it is. However, that does not mean it was all fun and games. The professor chose movies that are not exactly the easiest to watch, getting us out of our usual Hollywood mix up.
The class has been broken up into a few different sections: Introduction/Behind the Scenes, Experimental/Foreign, God in Cinema, Classics and Coen. Some films included in the class are: Romeo+Juliet (with commentary), Brazil (plus Battle for Brazil), Ink, Traffic, Crash, The Seventh Seal, The Nines and Apocalypse Now.
After watching Apocalypse Now, I was moved by the themes and visuals. The film itself is incredible, but the story behind the film is truly a piece of inspiration. If you have never heard of either Apocalypse Now or the behind the scenes making of film Hearts of Darkness perhaps you should turn back now, find both and spend the time watching them. It's an important piece of cinema for a number of reasons. Last week I watched the movie for the first time, below is my analysis.
Francis Ford Coppola directed this film, which he would claim is not a movie about Vietnam, but it is Vietnam. Coppola and his film cast and crew were in the jungles of Asia for 238 days, on the door step of actual military strikes and the true dangers of the jungles. Fighting to keep the cast, crew and his film alive, Coppola forced himself to the brink to create this piece of important cinema. It has been said that making a film is like going to war. There is no truer example of this statement than this movie.
Apocalypse Now is an epic war film set in 1970 during the Vietnam war loosely based on the 1902 novella “Hearts of Darkness.” Captain Willard is played by Martin Sheen, a glazed over Special Forces officer given a classified mission into Cambodia to seek out a crazed rogue Colonel Kurtz and bring him to swift justice. Willard is the hero of the film; he reluctantly accepts the mission and embarks on a journey of self reckoning and spiritual awareness. His motivation to stop Kurtz is, at first, simply an objective to be completed. His motivation to finish the mission stems from his natural obedience as a soldier.
Willard begins his fateful mission by joining a Navy Patrol Boat, Riverine named “Erebus,” Greek for deep darkness or shadow. The crew from the boat serves as an example of innocence and naivety as shown by the water skiing at the mouth of the river. This crew encounters and rendezvous with the 9th Air Calvary, commanded by Lieutenant Kilgore during a strike against the VC. Here we meet a prime example of a weathered, American war machine. Kilgore is a soldier. Walking through combat mortars and bullets whizz by his head; Kilgore stands completely unaffected, it is clear this is not his first rodeo. Despite his experience as a soldier Kilgore grasps onto a tradition that in essence describes the war in Vietnam perfectly. Kilgore is a surfer and he will stop at nothing to find a suitable place to do so in the heat of the war. When Captain Willard and his boat crew come across Kilgore, Kilgore is hesitant to help the captain along his journey, but when surfing becomes a possible outcome he is completely willing to jump in a fleet of helicopters and fight for his one once of pleasure. Insanity.
After passing through this stage, Willard and the boat crew continue down the river toward their objective. The road becomes more perilous as we continue on the Erebus toward the looming end of the river. At one point the soldiers stop the boat at dusk and Willard and one of the crew, Chef, trek into the jungle. The darkness shrouds the men as they find themselves not alone in the heat. The men encounter a tiger, which frightens Chef and sends him screaming back to the boat. Willard then tells the crew to never leave the boat, which ironically is part of the doom of all the men who stay on board.
After several more encounters that pulsate with less than sane thematic we find our crew becoming less and less comfortable with themselves, the environment and especially Willard. Eventually the men all succumb to “Lord of the Flies” type fates as they find themselves on a journey not unlike Willard’s. Throughout the movie, Willard is encountering signs of Kurtz and the ominous doom ahead, yet we are taken on the ride with Willard and find him questioning the war, himself and Kurtz actions; is he wrong? The native people see Kurtz as a sort of god, and as our heroes journey closer to this deity it is clear he is one of primal, deceptive and dark natures.
When Willard finally reaches Kurtz in the heart of the wild jungle two of the crew have perished and the remaining members are lost in the insanity of the experiences they have had on the journey. Kurtz is surrounded by an entourage of natives revering his very presence, dead bodies of both American and VC soldiers, a tripped out American photographer and, perhaps worst of all, an assassin who came before Willard on the exact same mission. The omens of success are non-existent as we see the insanity of the war piling high on Willard’s conscience. Kurtz brilliance as a tactician is over shadowed by the fact that he seems immortal and omniscient, unable to be stopped by anything but an all out bomb strike, a looming “apocalypse” of its own.
When Willard is in his darkest place, the audience is lead to believe he is unable to complete his objective, or perhaps he has completely abandoned it in pursuit of following Kurtz into madness. However, Kurtz, the omniscient force of evil sees the true nature of Willard and releases him to carry out his will. Kurtz and Willard are both descending characters. Kurtz has reached the final tiers of darkness and madness while Willard is on the edge of his own stability and even loses himself temporarily in the madness that permeates from Kurtz. However, Willard finally sees the depth of Kurtz evil and recognizes that he himself could become Kurtz. Willard does complete his mission, but immediately afterward we see the potential for Willard to take the place of Kurtz, Willard could become the new face of evil. Willard steps away from this tantalizing prospect as he has seen the debilitating effects of such a fate.
The film works as an allegory, using the themes of morality, good and evil and insanity to showcase the horrible events of the Vietnam War. It depicts some of the most graphic scenes in film history and wages its own war on the purposes behind the actual conflict. The film itself chooses to defend the notion of sanity and morality through diving head first, ten feet down into the questionable events of the war. Coppola himself experiences the actual events of the conflict through creating this film with the odds stacked against him and ends up questioning his own sanity as the process seems doomed from day one.
Coincidentally, Apocalypse Now is the 13th film Coppola directed. Apocalypse Now was the film Coppola felt compelled to make, but was unable to do so through studios because of its touchy subject matter. Coppola used his own money to finance the movie. After becoming a critical success with the Godfather films, Coppola embarked on creating Apocalypse Now. The film is considered one of the most important in cinema history: “’Apocalypse Now’ is more clearly than ever one of the key films of the century.” (Ebert, 1999).
The process of making this film has been documented in the film “Hearts of Darkness,” and is critiqued, discussed and written about by film scholars and students today. The documentary reveals George Lucas, a friend of Coppola, telling his friend: “if you go over there as a big Hollywood production they’re going to kill you. The longer you stay the more in danger you are in of being sucked into the swamp.” (Hearts of Darkness). It is clear the creation of this film and the film itself belong among the top cinematic events from the repercussion, reception and critical response of the masses.
The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won for Best Cinematography and Best Sound. The awards were well deserved as the photographic beauty of the film is unquestionable. Shot selections, camera angles and movements were chosen so masterfully as an audience member it felt as if I was experiencing the events Willard and company went through. Specifically, there is a shot that was a threshold, a gate to the world of Kurtz and that shot was of the crashed plane in the river; when the boat traveled underneath the tail of the airplane into the deepest ravines of Kurtz jungle. The lighting created a semi-surreal environment, especially when the sun was rising or diving below the trees. The visual theme of darkness was perfectly executed throughout the movie. The wild night was captured so well it encompassed me as an audience member and gave me the actual feeling of dark, unending, evil insanity.
The sound captured a resonating explosion of film greatness with the napalm infused jungles. When Kilgore and his cavalry descended on the nearly helpless village by the sea, Wagner’s “Rise of the Valkyries” boomed through the speakers on ever helicopter. This beautifully poetic, poignant scene envelops what a perfectly mixed scene should be. The music blared, possibly too loud or overloaded for some, but encompassed the actual events being displayed with artful expertise.
As a Christian, watching a film we often are expected to censor or completely avoid films with high violence. However, we need to consider the implications of the film, the meaning behind the images on screen and what they mean to our world at large. Apocalypse Now is an important piece of our American culture. I believe it shows a piece of history that was difficult to grasp and understand for people prior to watching the film. As a Christian we need to stay culturally relevant in the aspect of wars and hot political topics. I understand this film can be misinterpreted, just like anything else, including the war itself, certain obligations rise when we watch such a film. We should view such a film with a watchful eye and heart, attempting to see why the film. Often times it is difficult to say a movie is good or bad when it is about such a touchy subject, yet we take a stance on one side or another. However, I don’t think we have the right to judge some films in terms of “good” or “bad.” The film was an honorable piece of culture and is a great component of cinema for all Christians and non-Christians alike.
Sources
Hearst of Darkness. Perf. Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper, and Eleanor Coppola. 1991. Paramount. DVD
Ebert, Roger. "Apocalypse Now." rogerebert.com. Ed. Roger Ebert. Chicago Sun-Times, 28 Nov. 1999. Web. 15 Jan. 2011.
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