through Andy johnson. Posted Thu 04 Nov 2021 04:38 PM, last updated: 04/11/21
What mask to wear today? The heroes wear masks. Demons wear masks. Everyone wears masks. Remember, you need it to get into the nearest supply store or place of worship.
Madness comes in many forms. Nothing more powerful or terrifying than the horrific realities of war. Apocalypse Now explores the effects of mania and how witnessing to horrific acts can irrevocably change a person’s nature.
We follow Captain Willard, played with subtle aplomb by Charlie Sheen. On a top secret mission to assassinate Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), a renegade Army Special Forces officer accused of murder, presumed insane and beyond salvation.
“Let the bodies pile up!” It is not beyond imagination that an Army captain could be sent to target a renegade Boris.
“Go up the river, ride the canal, pass the Conservative donor sponsored private Playbunny show in the HS2 jungle and at some very expensive home decor stores… to end Johnson’s command with extreme prejudice.”
The opening sequence is a visually stunning cinematic piece. We see Willard’s face upside down, transposed against a backdrop of flames, helicopters, and carnage as he struggles to cope with a mental breakdown.
Apocalypse Now is a masterpiece in character studies. Coppola presents one fantastic personification of existential struggle after another. With river travel becoming the connecting link.
One character almost steals the show. Robert Duvall as Lieutenant-Colonel Bill Kilgore. With an air of invincibility, oblivious to the exploding bombs, he stands upright as the rest of his platoon curl up in the face of enemy fire. He lives to ride the waves of war.
“If I say this beach is safe for surfing Captain, it is safe for surfing!” The moment Kilgore rips his shirt off to reveal just an orange bib, ready to ride the waves amid the Napalm bombs, will stay with you long after the movie ends.
Her appearance is both attractive and repulsive. Watch Kilgore be left without his surfboard spades every time.
I never wanted the film’s narrative to stand out and follow a different character so closely.
A scene where Kilgore saves a Vietnamese baby has been cut, much to Duvall’s astonishment. Who talks about it painfully in interviews because he felt it showed a softer, more human side to the maniac colonel.
There are a lot of famous faces in this movie. If this is your first time watching, you can have fun asking them to spot a young Lawrence Fishburne, grappling with the harsh realities around him, long before the idea of taking a red pill.
When Dennis Hopper appears as a stumbled photographer, capturing the atrocity at Hell’s Gates, with breezy optimism, it’s a welcome whiff of comedic relief.
Behind the scenes, Hopper took great pleasure in liquidating Marlon Brando. So much so that The Easy Rider star had to be banned from the set before Brando appeared.
The trip along the river inflated a huge expectation for Col Kurtz. Brando absorbs it and pours it on Willard, his surviving teammates, and the audience.
Shine from the shadows. Just a pair of sullen eyes and a ghostly face. He was waiting for us. Read poetry aloud and reveal how insane the study of the Vietcong War drove him.
There is a flicker of tenderness, when Kurtz asks Willard where he is from and recounts a day he spent cruising the Ohio River: “where heaven fell to Earth in the form of gardenias”.
If Willard hadn’t been born in Toledo, he might not have been spared Kurtz’s wrath. It is the human condition laid bare. The need to connect and the desire to reflect what we see in others. The recognition of the same madness in Willard is what keeps him alive.
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