During the Vietnam War, Captain Willard of the US Army received an order from the headquarters to find Colonel Coates who had left the US Army. Coates once had a glorious history, but now he has fallen into madness. He established an independent kingdom in Cambodia, pursued a barbaric, bloody, and inhuman cruel rule, and from time to time carried out frantic, almost liar, broadcast propaganda to the U.S. military. Willard’s order was to find Coates and bring him back or kill him. With this order, Willard led a small group of soldiers upstream along the Mekong River, through the jungle to Cambodia. In the process of searching for Colonel Coates, Willard almost traversed the entire Vietnam battlefield. He witnessed scenes of atrocities, horrors, killings and deaths, and was deeply shocked. In the constant killing, Willard almost became crazy.
Finally, Willard and his entourage have finally come to the kingdom of terror in Coates. They fell into the hands of Coates and were severely tortured. But this also allowed Willard to face Coates directly. Coates could have killed Willard, but he did not do so. With the help of Willard's hand, he completed the long-awaited death and was finally free from this crazy world. And Willard also deeply experienced the evil and darkness in human hearts, and the madness caused by evil. The natives knelt before him, and he had actually replaced Coates. Willard, who was sincerely disgusted with all this, picked up his companion and boarded the ship and left. The madness of Coates was stopped, but terror and killing were still going on frantically on the entire Vietnam battlefield.
Behind the scenes:
On the surface, the film talks about the Vietnam War, but of all the famous war films, it may be the one with the highest degree of "sublimation". It can be applied to any war, and even broadly speaking, it shows that any life experience cannot be overstated. Although the film has no lack of positive descriptions of war, its essence is to portray the darkness in human nature. No wonder it is not based on the Vietnam War records, but is adapted from the classic book "The Heart of Darkness" by British novelist Conrad. There are not many shots of this officer played by Marlon Brando, and the lines and processing are very "illusory", as if it were a kind of power, not a certain person. This film is Coppola’s reflection on the alienation of human nature caused by the violence of war. It cleverly blends realist themes and symbolic meanings. It uses a soldier’s journey to find Brando along the river as a clue, and unfolds a kind of almost Absurd "live record". The film has a "big opera" style, exaggerated and gorgeous, with strong expressionism. The bombing scene of playing Wagner's "Valkyrie" theme music on an airplane is a concentrated expression of this style and one of the classic scenes of the film. The film won the Palme d'Or in Cannes. In 2001, Coppola launched a new version of the film, nearly an hour longer than the original version.
Trivia:
George Lucas was initially determined to be the director of "Apocalypse Now", and he got the script from John Milius. Lucas originally planned to make the film into a semi-documentary form, set in southern Vietnam where the war is still in full swing. Francis Ford Coppola was originally the executive producer of the film. He tried to make a production plan business with Warner Bros. After the deal failed, he began to invest in the filming of "The Godfather" (1972). After the fall of Saigon in 1977, Lucas was already busy shooting his "Star Wars", and Milius had no interest in the film, so Lucas gave the coveted power to direct the film to Coppola.
Coppola believes that Marlon Brando must be familiar with Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", and that he is the best candidate for the film, and he is looking forward to the appearance of this legendary actor. When Brando appeared, Coppola was shocked again. He has never read "Heart of Darkness", or even knows its verses. To make matters worse, Brando has become severely fat (Coates is repeatedly described in the novel as a tall, skinny man). After a lot of blows, Coppola decided to shoot Brando in a tall, cruel and savage appearance, and made sure that Brando's bulging generals would not appear in the lens.
In the scene where Willard gets drunk alone in his hotel room, Martin Sean is indeed drunk. Sean's drunken behavior that can be seen in the movie is a true reflection of him. When Sean smashed the mirror, as shown in the movie, he did hurt his hand. Sean, who was so drunk and unconscious, was soaked, and finally wanted to attack director Coppola.
Francis Ford Coppola lost 100 pounds during filming.
Coppola spent nearly three years editing the film for "Apocalypse Now". When it was almost finished, he realized that Martin Sean should add some narrative voiceovers to the film. However, Sean was too busy at the time to spare time to dub. Coppola then called his brother Joe Eastwoods, his voice was almost the same as Sean's, and he could voice the new narrative voice. When Sean suffered a heart attack in 1976, East Woods also acted as a stand-in for Sean. Eastwoods did not leave a name on the credits because of his work.
Coppola shot nearly 200 hours of motion picture film for the film. The original filming plan was six weeks, and the result lasted 16 months. In order to film the typhoon devastating scene, it was delayed for several months.
In May 1979, the film won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, becoming the first unfinished film to win this award. Since the opinions of the Cannes jury could not be unified, they shared the best picture award with Schrondorf's "Tin Drum".
Piercing shots:
Continuity: After Kotz was killed, Willard looked through his manuscript, and the thickness of the paper changed.
Factual error: The maximum weight of a Huey helicopter is 10,500 pounds. For this type of aircraft, it is impossible to pull up a river tanker (PBR), because these ships can weigh between 15,000 and 19,000 pounds.
Continuity: After the awning on the ship was destroyed, it was replaced by some large leaves. The canopy reappeared when they were under the bridge. After a subsequent set of shots, the awning disappeared again and replaced by a large leaf.
An error was discovered: "Clean" wanted to play the tape of the recorded letter sent by his mother, and took out a tape recorder without batteries.
Error found: When Willard was reading some news reports about Kotz, one of the articles was about a dispute between West Germany, Iran and the United States on nuclear energy issues. This has nothing to do with Kotz.
An anachronism: Kotz’s honours are recorded in his personal files. One of them is the flight of the Cobra gunship that planned a celebration event (or military parade) on "August 30, 1965". However, the first prototypes of the Cobra gunship did not start flying until September 7, 1965.
Continuity: After Clean was hit, the blood dripping on the ship's sails sometimes disappeared.
Factual error: Throughout the film, you can often see the Viet Cong use tracer bullets, especially when the PT ship is attacked by enemy fire, it can be seen in red. In fact, the Viet Cong uses green tracking ammunition, while the U.S. Army uses red tracking ammunition.
View more about Apocalypse Now reviews
