Apocalypse Now (1979)

     To some extent Apocalypse Now (1979) weirdly belongs in the same category of films as Gone With the Wind (1939). Both are titans of cinema; undertakings as successful as they are grand, and incredibly difficult for me to watch. I was dreading rewatching Apocalypse Now as soon as I finished my first viewing. I guessed a rewatch would be inevitable. After all I didn’t really feel like I truly “got it”. In truth I still don’t think I do, but now more than ever I’m pretty sure I don’t really want to.

    Before I really dig in there’s some housekeeping that needs to be done. There are four primary versions of Apocalypse Now floating around out there: The workprint/assembly cut, the theatrical cut, Redux, and the final cut. I have only seen, and probably will only see, the theatrical cut (the one without a credits sequence for those who care). I will never know or care if the workprint, Redux or final cut are better or worse. I know that they are longer and that’s enough to know that they are not for me. Experiencing two and a half hours of Hell is enough for me, and watching the three hour final cut or the three and a quarter hour Redux version sounds like a needlessly cruel form of self harm let alone the five and a half hour workprint. That is the thought I couldn’t get out of my head while rewatching Apocalypse Now: “this is some kinda weird cinephile version of self harm.”

    I want to make plain what I’m not saying. I am not saying Apocalypse Now is a bad move, or an unwatchable movie, or something dangerous that only people with serious problems can get something out of. It is, without hyperbole, a damn near perfect film. The technical proficiency is obvious and arresting. This is no surprise given its pedigree including the talents of Francis Ford Coppola, and John Milius. The film has some of the most gorgeously lit, composed, and sequenced images; with editing that is stylish yet still invisible; music that is haunting and alien; and a chaotic structure that pulls you along whether it’s a journey you want to take or not. This is not a journey I want to take. I tried not to get pulled down that path this time. I was deliberately going out of my way to distance myself from the film emotionally. I had snacks, I was taking notes, I tried to intellectualize and rationalize the film’s decisions. I tried to pick apart how it juxtaposed contemporary (for the time) American popculture with the horrific, and incompatible atmosphere of the Vietnam War; perhaps even showing how they are not so incompatible at all but rather intimate parts of the broader idea of “America”. I didn’t get very far. I lasted about an hour and 15 minutes, an impressive halfway through the movie, before I was traveling down that same damned river as Willard; inevitably sucked to that final confrontation with “The Heart of Darkness”.

 

    That is the core of what Apocalypse Now achieves. It’s not a story of a character weathering the horrors and contradictions of the Vietnam War to confront and kill an insane AWOL Colonel. In fact it’s not very good at telling that story. It’s slow, disjointed, and dreamlike. Important plot details are delivered in a jumbled lethargic narration that seems so trivial when placed against the struggles of the journey. Apocalypse Now is an experience. I don’t mean that in the way that it is often used by critics, as a fancy way of saying spectacle. I mean it is, in and of itself, a mechanism to simulate, for the audience, a state of mind and the emotions that come with it. There is an underlying sense of surreality to much of the film. Colonel Kilgore (a name surreal in and of itself) orders an attack on a village so he and his soldiers can go surfing being just one example. It extends beyond the events of the film into it’s editing. Scenes don’t flow like a river of cause and effect with invisible cuts, but rather drift in and out and through each other with slow crossfades and narration. The score doesn’t allow you melodies or themes to cling to but rather drones and flows in ambient synths. Apocalypse Now is a dream… or rather a nightmare, full of despair and horror, and it is difficult to wake up from.

 

    It’s all fundamentally compelling; so perfectly put together that you lose your self and your awareness and drift along with the movie as it overwhelms your experience. What its showing you is “The Heart of Darkness” or as Colonel Kurtz calls it “the horror”. That is the greatest trick the film pulls. It’s not enough that it makes you experience it’s surreal oneiric atmosphere, but compels you to stay with it. That is what places you in the same experiential space as Willard and Kurtz. Once they were there: in that place, with those people, doing those things. They no longer had a choice they had to go all the way. The film recreates an inexorable tide that pushes you to experience it’s ultimate conclusion “the horror”. I can’t simply explain what “the horror” is just as it’s pointless to simply explain the explicit events of Apocalypse Now. It is a feeling that permeates the whole of the movie and is present in the underlying fabric of the human experience. Perhaps you have encountered it sometime in the last 12 months of the Hell we find ourselves in, but perhaps not. I’m lucky; I’ve only experienced it within the context of this film and maybe a few others like it. That’s why I think re-watching this film constitutes something akin to self-harm for me. By re-experiencing that “Heart of Darkness” I am causing myself deep pain, and I once again dread the possibility of another viewing.

 

    

If you’ve made it to the end of this semi-coherent appreciation(?) of Apocalypse Now I am both overwhelmingly thankful and impressed. This was not an easy piece to revisit in the viewing or in the writing. Ending the year on a downer might not be the most auspicious way of seeing off 2020 but then again maybe the emotional catharsis of confronting “the horror” will make room for a much more positive decade. I can only hope. I love you all and here’s to a much better New Year!