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Storyline
During the American war in Vietnam, U.S. Army Captain Willard is given a dangerous mission that officially "does not exist, nor will it ever exist". His goal is to locate a mysterious Green Beret Colonel, Walter Kurtz, whose personal army has been conducting missions against the Vietnamese in forbidden Cambodia. Willard's superiors believe Kurtz has gone insane and have tasked him with termination of the Colonel's command, termination with extreme prejudice... |
Backdrops
The Director
 Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola (born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most celebrated and influential film directors. He epitomized the group of filmmakers known as the New Hollywood, which included George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Woody Allen and William Friedkin, who emerged in the early 1970s with unconventional ideas that challenged contemporary filmmaking.
He co-authored the script for Patton, winning the Academy Award in 1970. His directorial fame escalated with the release of The Godfather in 1972. The film revolutionized movie-making in the gangster genre, garnering universal laurels from critics and public alike. It went on to win three Academy Awards, including his second, which he won for Best Adapted Screenplay, and it was instrumental in cementing his position as one of the prominent Am erican film directors.
Coppola followed it with an equally successful sequel The Godfather Part II, which became the first ever sequel to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. The film received yet higher praises than its predecessor, and gave him three Academy Awards—for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture. In the same year was released The Conversation, which he directed, produced and wrote. The film went on to win the Palme d'Or at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival. His next directorial venture was Apocalypse Now in 1979, and it was as notorious for its lengthy and troubled production as it was critically acclaimed for its vivid and stark depiction of the Vietnam War. It won his second Palme d'Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival.
Although some of Coppola's ventures in the 1980s and early 1990s were critically lauded, Coppola's later work has not met the same level of critical and commercial success as his '70s films.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Francis Ford Coppola, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
User Reviews
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Revisiting Apocalypse Now for the AFI Project
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From October 4, 2008:
What's the AFI Project, you ask? For more information, or if you just enjoy my bemused ramblings, read here: http://www.spout.com/blogs/pippin06/archive/2008/3/1/25756.aspx
Apocalypse Now is on the following AFI lists:
The Original Top 100 (#28)
100 Movie Quotes (#12 - Colonel Kilgore: "I love the smell of napalm in the morning.")
The Revised Top 100 (#30)
I borrowed this film again from my parents; I think they live in the 70s sometimes. This is the second time I watched Apocalypse Now. The first time, I fell asleep. The second time, I almost fell asleep - in a different spot - but still, the eyes were droopy. I'm not sure why that is. The second time, I definitely enjoyed the film much more. Like Citizen Kane, it seems to get better with age and multiple viewings, though that's a bit problematic to me when you're watching films that are supposed to be the greatest of all American movies...
I digress - and recognize my own biases in that statement. Apocalypse Now is based on Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness, which I read before watching the film, several years ago. I really enjoyed the book. I found it to be a compelling depiction and study of the human psyche in extreme situations. Francis Ford Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay and directed this film adaptation, simply takes key plot points from the story and the larger themes, applies them to the Vietnam War, and, through a legendary all-star cast, runs with them a few miles, creating an intense, distrurbing, and well-constructed film that actually deserves very much to be on these greatest lists (and, perhaps, a few others on which it wasn't included).
C...
View full review
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reviewed by Pippin2010 (Filmaster.com) on the 22nd of February 2010
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Redux is a ponderous affair sprinkled with liberal dashes of genius. The literal descent into madness is a wonderful metaphor for the Vietnam war, and some of the surreal experiences that Coppola creates are enthralling, but the characters make one too many stops on their way up river. Some very interesting scenes are buried in scores of moderately good ones, and the sheer length of the film deflates the conclusion. The message is stunning, but it doesn't come through clearly enough.