Apocalypse Now (1979) by Coppola

[cranefly]

I decided to revisit this, since it's streaming on Netflix.  I had pretty much the same reaction as the first time.  Good but not great.
On both viewings I felt that it paid short thrift to the dangers of war.  A good portion of the movie has the characters slowly boating up a narrow river, where they would be sitting ducks for any Vietcong.  Yes, there are encounters here and there, but very little, and I suspect veterans of that war may feel that the dangers of such an endeavor were not sufficiently realized.

Still, on this viewing I see more clearly that Coppola was focused on the psychoses of war, the crazy ways people cope with the specter of death on a daily basis.  I still think it misses the mark on the whole, though with some very powerful and effective scenes.

Anyway, after considerable thought, I've decided not to suggest this as a candidate for an unsung Xmas movie.

P.S. I forgot that Harrison Ford has a small part in this.  My goodness he was young.

[Drunk Monk]

The making of AN is almost better than the film itself.  The way Coppola goes nuts and the crew is lost in the jungle is such a reflection of what they were trying to say.  They allegedly used real dead bodies in some scenes and the finale cow sacrifice was real, just some native ritual they stumbled across while filming in the jungle.  

Did you see the theatrical version or the later, much longer, director's cut?

[cranefly]

Did you see the theatrical version or the later, much longer, director's cut?

Well, crap.  You'd think I would be aware of Coppola's Redux version.  I think this was the theatrical again.  Thanks for the heads-up.  Now I'll have to watch the Redux version someday.

I don't think my review expressed my high regard for the movie for simply being made.  It's a stunning accomplishment for Coppola.  I had forgotten how many choppers he had in the air for some of those fight sequences.  And there were some long moving shots that required perfect timing of so many elements to show the chaos of battle.  And yes, I did see the documentary on the making of, and you're right, I would hazard to say it surpassed the movie.  So many flavors of madness on the set.  Everyone seemed to be peaking in their fucked-uppedness for this movie.  The horror.  The horror.

[Drunk Monk]

I wasn’t that impressed by the director’s cut actually. If memory serves, there’s an expanded scene where they encounter the women from the USO performance after they crashed in the forest and then exact a toll for their retirement rescue.