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Apocalypse Now |
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The current version of this article or section is written in an informal style and with a personally invested tone. It reads more like a story than an encyclopedia entry. To meet Wikipedia's quality standards and conform with our NPOV policy, this article or section may require cleanup. Please see specific examples noted on the talk page. Editing help is available. (November 2008) |
| Apocalypse Now | |
|---|---|
 theatrical release poster by Bob Peak |
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| Directed by | Francis Ford Coppola |
| Produced by | Francis Ford Coppola |
| Written by | Novel: Joseph Conrad Screenplay: John Milius Francis Ford Coppola |
| Narrated by | Martin Sheen |
| Starring | Marlon Brando Martin Sheen Robert Duvall Frederic Forrest Sam Bottoms Laurence Fishburne Albert Hall Harrison Ford |
| Music by | Carmine Coppola Francis Ford Coppola |
| Cinematography | Vittorio Storaro |
| Editing by | Gerald B. Greenberg Walter Murch |
| Distributed by | Miramax Films (1979) Paramount Pictures (current) |
| Release date(s) | 15 August 1979 28 August 1987 (re-release) 3 August 2001 (redux) |
| Running time | Theatrical cut: 153 minutes Redux: 202 minutes Original cut: 289 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $31.5 million |
| Gross revenue | $78,784,010 (1979) $83,471,511 (2002) |
Apocalypse Now is a 1979 epic war film set during the Vietnam War. It tells the tale of Army Captain Benjamin L. Willard who is sent into the jungle to assassinate United States Army Special Forces Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, who has gone AWOL and is believed to be insane.
The film was produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola from a script by Coppola, John Milius and Michael Herr, based on Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness (1899), as well as drawing elements from Herr's "Dispatches" (1977), the film version of Conrad's Lord Jim (which shares the same character of Marlow with Heart of Darkness), and from Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972).1
The film stars Martin Sheen as Captain Willard (based on Charles Marlow in Conrad's novella), Marlon Brando as Col. Kurtz, Dennis Hopper as a photojournalist, and Robert Duvall as Lt. Colonel Bill Kilgore. The movie became notorious in the entertainment press due to its lengthy and troubled production as documented in Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse. In the end, Coppola had to finance the film with his own money. The film won the Cannes Palme d'Or and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture — Drama.
The movie poster art for Apocalypse Now is by Bob Peak, who was considered an influential artist of movie posters.
Contents |
It is 1969 and the war is at its height. Captain Benjamin L. Willard (Martin Sheen) has returned to Saigon; a seasoned veteran, he is deeply troubled and apparently no longer fit for civilian life. A group of intelligence officers (G. D. Spradlin, Harrison Ford, and Jerry Ziesmer) approach him with a special mission: journey up the fictional Nung River into the remote Cambodian jungle to find Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando), a former member of the United States Army Special Forces.
They state that Kurtz, once considered a model officer and future general, has allegedly gone insane and is commanding a legion of his own Montagnard troops deep inside the forest in neutral Cambodia. Their claims are supported by very disturbing radio broadcasts and/or recordings made by Kurtz himself. Willard is ordered to undertake a mission to find Kurtz and terminate the Colonel's command "with extreme prejudice."
Willard studies the intelligence files during the boat ride to the river entrance and learns that Kurtz, isolated in his compound, has assumed the role of a warlord and is worshipped by the natives and his own loyal men. Willard learns much later that another officer, Colby (Scott Glenn), sent earlier to kill Kurtz, may have become one of his lieutenants.
Willard begins his trip up the Nung River on a PBR (Patrol Boat, Riverine), with an eclectic crew composed of the obstinate and formal Chief Phillips (Albert Hall), a Navy swiftboat commander; GM3 Lance B. Johnson (Sam Bottoms), a tanned all-American California surfer; GM3 Tyrone Miller (Laurence Fishburne), a.k.a. "Mr. Clean", a black 17-year-old from "some South Bronx shit-hole"; and the Engineer from New Orleans, Jay "Chef" Hicks (Frederic Forrest), who Willard describes as "wrapped too tight for Vietnam, probably wrapped too tight for New Orleans".
The PBR arrives at a landing zone where Willard and the crew meet up with Lt. Colonel Bill Kilgore (Robert Duvall), the eccentric commander of 1/9cav AirCav, following a massive and hectic mopping-up operation of a conquered enemy village. Kilgore, a keen surfer, recognizes and befriends Johnson. Later, he learns from one of his men, Mike, that the beach down the coast which marks the opening to the river is perfect for surfing, a factor which persuades him to capture it. The problem is, his troops explain, it's "Charlie's point" and heavily fortified. Dismissing this complaint with the explanation that "Charlie don't surf," Kilgore orders his men to saddle up in the morning to capture the town and the beach. Riding high above the coast in a fleet of Hueys accompanied by H-6s, Kilgore launches an attack on the beach. The scene, famous for its use of Richard Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries," ends with the soldiers surfing the barely claimed beach amidst skirmishes between infantry and VC. After helicopters swoop over the village and demolish all visible signs of resistance, a giant napalm strike in the nearby jungle dramatically marks the climax of the battle. Kilgore exults to Willard, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning", which he says smells "like...victory" as he recalls a battle in which a hill was bombarded with napalm for over twelve hours.
The lighting and mood darken as the boat navigates upstream and Willard's silent obsession with Kurtz deepens. Incidents on the journey include a run-in with a tiger while Willard and Chef search for mangoes. The boat then moves up river and watches a USO show featuring Playboy Bunnies and a centerfold that degenerates into chaos.
Moving up the river, Phillips spots a sampan and against Willard's advice they make the boat stop and inspect it. As Chef hostilely searches the sampan, one of the civilians makes a sudden movement, causing Clean to open fire on the wooden boat, killing all the civilians save for one badly wounded survivor. An argument breaks out between Willard and Phillips over whether to take the survivor to receive medical attention. Willard ends the argument by shooting the survivor, calmly stating "I told you not to stop."
The boat moves up river to a surreal stop at the American outpost at the Do Long bridge, the last U.S. Army outpost on the river. The boat arrives during a North Vietnamese attack against on the bridge, which is under constant construction. Upon arrival Willard receives the last piece of the dossier from an officer named Lt. Carlson, along with mail for the boat crewmen. Willard and Lance go ashore and they make their way through the trenches where they encounter many panicked, leaderless soldiers. Willard asks a machine gunner where the commanding officer is, but the machine gunner replies "ain't you?", implying no officers are left. As they talk, a North Vietnamese soldier hiding under a pile of his dead comrades screams obscenities at them. A soldier named Roach (Herb Rice), armed with a tiger-striped M79 grenade launcher, promptly dispatches the NVA soldier. Willard asks Roach if he knows who the commanding officer is, and Roach only smirks and replies that he does. Realizing the situation has devolved into chaos, Willard and Lance return to the boat. Chief tries to convince Willard not to continue on with his mission (which he does not truly know the details of). He compares the mission to the Do Long bridge, which is destroyed every night but rebuilt so that it can be said the road is open, and that the mission is insignificant. In response, Willard snaps "just get me up river"! As the boat departs, the NVA launch an artillery strike on the bridge, enveloping it in smoke and destroying it.
The next day the PBR, while its crew is busy reading mail, is ambushed by Viet Cong hiding in the trees by the river which results in Clean's death as he listens to a tape from his mother. Chief, who had a father-son relationship with Clean, becomes openly hostile to Willard. As they approach the outskirts of Kurtz' camp, Montagnard villagers begin firing toy arrows at them. The crew opens fire until Chief is hit by a real spear. As Willard hovers over the mortally wounded Chief, Chief attempts to strangle Willard. Willard subsequently smothers Chief with his bare hands.
After arriving at Kurtz' outpost, Willard leaves Chef behind with orders to call in an air strike on the village if he does not return. They are met by a seemingly crazed freelance photographer (Dennis Hopper) who explains Kurtz's greatness and philosophical skills to provoke his people into following him. Willard also encounters Colby, in an apparently shell-shocked state. Brought before Kurtz and held in captivity in a darkened temple, Willard’s constitution appears to weaken as Kurtz lectures him on his theories of war, humanity, and civilization. Kurtz explains his motives and philosophy in a famous and haunting monologue in which he praises the ruthlessness of the Vietcong he witnessed following one of his own humanitarian missions.
While bound outside in the pouring rain, Willard is approached by Kurtz, who places the severed head of Chef in his lap. Coppola makes little explicit, but we come to believe that Willard and Kurtz develop an understanding nonetheless; Kurtz wishes to die at Willard's hands, and Willard, having subsequently granted Kurtz his wish, is offered the chance to succeed him in his warlord-demigod role. Juxtaposed with a ceremonial slaughtering of a water buffalo, Willard enters Kurtz's chamber during one of his message recordings, and kills him with a machete. This entire sequence is set to "The End" by The Doors, as is the sequence at the very beginning of the film. Lying bloody and dying on the ground, Kurtz whispers "The horror... the horror," a line taken directly from Conrad's novella. Willard walks through the now-silent crowd of natives and takes Johnson (who is now fully integrated into the native society) by the hand. He leads Johnson to the PBR, and floats away as Kurtz's final words echo in the wind as the screen fades to black.
Several actors who were, or later became, prominent stars have minor roles in the movie including Harrison Ford, G. D. Spradlin, Scott Glenn, and R. Lee Ermey. Fishburne was only fourteen years old when shooting began in March 1976, and was credited as "Larry Fishburne." Martin Sheen's sons, whom are famous actors now, Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen had already acted in this film. Estevez had a small role as a messenger boy that was ultimately cut from the film2, Charlie Sheen made appearance as an extra3. Apocalypse Now took so long to finish that Fishburne was seventeen (the same age as his character) by the time of its release.
At the time of its release, many rumors surrounded the ending of Apocalypse Now. Coppola stated an ending was written in haste in which Willard and Kurtz joined forces and repelled the air strike on the compound; however, Coppola never fully agreed with the two going out in apocalyptic intensity, preferring to end the film in a more encouraging manner.citation needed
When Coppola originally organized the ending of the movie, he had two choices. One involved Willard leading Lance by the hand as everyone in Kurtz's base throws down their weapons, and ends with images of Willard's boat pulling away from Kurtz's compound superimposed over the face of a stone idol which then fades into black. Another option showed an air strike being called and the base being blown to bits in a spectacular display, consequently killing everyone left at the base.
The original 1979 70 mm theatrical release ended with Willard's boat, the stone statue, then fade to black with no credits. Later, when it was no longer practical not to have final credits, Coppola elected to show the credits superimposed over shots of Kurtz's base exploding (anamorphic 16 mm rental prints circulated with this ending, and can be found in the hands of a few collectors); however, when Coppola heard that audiences interpreted this as an air strike called by Willard, Coppola pulled the film from its 35 mm run, and put credits on a black screen. In the DVD commentary, Coppola explains that the images of explosions had not been intended to be part of the story; they were intended to be seen as completely separate from the film. He had added them to the credits because he had captured the footage during the demolition of the set in the Philippines, which was filmed with multiple cameras fitted with different film stocks and lenses to capture the explosions at different speeds.
Because of the confusion over the misinterpreted ending, there are multiple slightly varying versions of the ending credits. Some TV screenings maintain the explosion footage at the end, others do not, and there are several other versions.
The 70 mm release ends with no credits, save for 'Copyright 1979 Omni Zoetrope' right after the film ends. This mirrors the lack of any opening titles, and supposedly stems from Coppola's original intention to "tour" the film as one would a play: the credits would have appeared on printed programs provided before the screening began. This was, in fact, done in certain cinemas and was repeated during the theatrical release of Apocalypse Now Redux.citation needed
The first DVD of the theatrical version plays like the 70 mm version, without beginning or ending credits, but has them on a separate part of the DVD. The credits to Apocalypse Now Redux are different again: the credits play over a black background, but with ambient music by the Rhythm Devils.
In 2001, Coppola released Apocalypse Now Redux (Latin for "bringer back", presumably intending the meaning "brought back")citation needed in cinemas and subsequently on DVD. This is an extended version that restores 49 minutes of scenes cut from the original film. Coppola has continued to circulate the original version as well: the two versions are packaged together in the Complete Dossier DVD, released on August 15, 2006.
The most significant footage added in the Redux version is an anticolonialism chapter involving the de Marais family's rubber plantation, a holdover from the colonization of French Indochina, featuring Coppola's two sons Giancarlo and Roman as children of the family. These scenes were removed from the 1979 cut, which premiered at Cannes. In behind-the-scenes footage in Hearts of Darkness, Coppola expresses his anger, on the set, at the technical aspects of the shot scenes, the result of tight allocation of resources. At the time of the Redux version, it was possible to digitally-enhance the footage to accomplish Coppola's vision. In the scenes, the French family patriarchs argue about the positive side of colonialism in Indochina and denounce the betrayal of the military men in the First Indochina War. Hubert de Marais argues that French politicians sacrificed entire battalions at Điện Biên Phủ, and tells Willard that the US created the Viet Cong (as the Viet Minh), to fend off Japanese invaders.
Other added material includes extra combat footage before Willard meets Kilgore, a humorous scene in which Willard's team steals Kilgore's surfboard (which sheds some light on the hunt for the mangoes), a follow-up scene to the dance of the Playboy playmates, in which Willard's team finds the playmates awaiting evacuation after their helicopter has run out of fuel, and a scene of Kurtz reading from a Time magazine article about the war, surrounded by Cambodian children.
There is a deleted scene entitled "Monkey Sampan" which was used as a way to represent the whole movie in a three minute scene. The scene shows Willard and the PBR crew suspiciously eyeing an approaching Sampan juxtaposed to Montagnard villagers joyfully singing "Light My Fire" by The Doors. As the Sampan gets closer Willard realizes there are Monkeys on it and no driver. Finally just as the two boats pass, the wind turns the sail and exposes a naked dead civilian tied to the sail boom. His body is mutilated and looks as though the man was whipped. The singing stops. It is assumed the man was tortured by the Viet Cong. As they pass on by, Chief notes out loud "That's comin' from where we're going, Captain." The boat then slowly passes the giant tail of a shot down B-52 bomber. The scene is ominous and the noise of engines way up in the sky is heard. Coppola said that he made up for cutting this scene by having the PBR pass under an airplane tail in the final cut.
There is also a longer 289 minute version which circulates unofficially. It has never been officially released but circulates as a video bootleg, containing extra material not included in either the original theatrical release or the "redux" version.4
Although inspired by Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, the film deviates extensively from its source material. The novella, based on Conrad's real experiences as a steam paddleboat captain in Africa, is set in the Congo Free State during the 19th century. Kurtz and Marlow (who is named Willard in the movie) both work for a Belgian trading company that brutally exploits its native African workers.
When Marlow arrives at Kurtz's outpost, he discovers that Kurtz has gone insane and is lording over a small tribe as a god. The novella ends with Kurtz dying on the trip back and the narrator musing about darkness of the human psyche: "the heart of an immense darkness."
In the novella, Marlow is the pilot of a river boat sent to collect ivory from Kurtz's outpost, only gradually becoming infatuated with Kurtz. In fact, when he discovers Kurtz in terrible health, Marlow makes a concerted effort to bring him home safely. In the movie, Willard is an assassin dispatched to kill Kurtz. Nevertheless, the depiction of Kurtz as a god-like leader of a tribe of natives and his malarial fever, Kurtz's written exclamation "Exterminate the brutes!" (which appears in the film as "Drop the bomb. Exterminate them All!") and his final lines "The horror! The horror!" are taken from Conrad's novella.
Coppola argues that many episodes in the film—the spear and arrow attack on the boat, for example—respect the spirit of the novella and in particular its critique of the concepts of civilization and progress. Other episodes adapted by Coppola, the Playboy bunnies (Sirens) exit, the lost souls, "taking me home" attempting to reach the boat and Kurtz' tribe of (white-faced) natives parting the canoes (gates of Hell) for Willard, Chef and Lance to enter the camp are likened to "The Inferno" and Virgil by Dante. While Coppola replaced European colonialism with American interventionism, the message of Conrad's book is still clear.5
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In the late 1960s, filmmaker John Milius came up with the idea for a film adapting the plot of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness to the Vietnam War setting.6 Milius had no desire to direct the film and felt that George Lucas was the right person for the job. However, filmmaker Carroll Ballard claims that Apocalypse Now was his idea in 1967 before Milius had written his screenplay. Ballard had a deal with producer Joel Landon and they tried to get the rights to Conrad's book but were unsuccessful. Lucas acquired the rights but failed to tell Ballard and Landon.6
Milius claims that he wrote the screenplay in 1969.6 He based the character of Willard and some of Kurtz on a friend of his, Fred Rexer, who had experienced, first-hand, the scene related by Marlon Brando's character where the arms of villagers are hacked off by the Viet Cong. At one point, Coppola told Milius, "write every scene you ever wanted to go into that movie", and he wrote six drafts - over a thousand pages.6 The film's title came from a button badge popular with hippies during the '60s that said, "Nirvana Now". Milius was also influenced by an article written by Michael Herr entitled, "The Battle for Khe San", which referred to drugs, rock 'n' roll, and people calling airstrikes down on themselves.6
Coppola was drawn to Milius' script, which he described as "a comedy and a terrifying psychological horror story".7 George Lucas was originally interested in directing and his friend and producer Gary Kurtz traveled to the Philippines scouting suitable locations. They intended to shoot the film on a $2 million budget, documentary style, using 16mm cameras, and real soldiers. However, Lucas got the go-ahead to make his pet project, Star Wars, and declined the offer to direct Apocalypse Now.6 Coppola was determined to make the film and pressed ahead himself. He envisioned the film as a definitive statement on the nature of modern war, the difference between good and evil, and the impact of American society on the rest of the world. The director said that he wanted to take the audience "through an unprecedented experience of war and have them react as much as those who had gone through the war".7
Coppola's American Zoetrope assembled $8 million from distributors outside the United States and $7.5 million from United Artists who assumed that the film would star Marlon Brando, Steve McQueen, and Gene Hackman.7
Such weather helped fuel the shoot's history as being legendary for its length and difficulty; filming took so long, critics eventually began referring to it as "Apocalypse When?". The film went far over budget and over schedule for several reasons. A typhoon destroyed many of the sets, which had to be rebuilt at great expense. The Philippine Air Force helicopters used for shooting Col. Kilgore's attack on a Vietnamese village were constantly being called back by President Ferdinand Marcos to serve in actual combat against anti-government rebels.
The lead role of Captain Willard was to be played by Harvey Keitel but it was recast two weeks after shooting began. Keitel's footage was re-shot with Martin Sheen, who suffered a near-fatal heart attack during production and was suffering from alcoholism during the shoot. In 50 Films to See Before You Die, aired on the United Kingdom's Channel 4 on the July 22, 2006, Sheen reveals that the opening scene was completely improvised, that he had been drinking all day, his 36th birthday, before it was shot, and that he broke the mirror by accident. When he started bleeding, Coppola wanted to stop filming, but Sheen insisted that he continue. Watching the scene back, Sheen said it was good to see where he'd come from knowing that he was never going to go back there again. It took Sheen weeks to recover and return to the set, during which time the film was in danger of being shut down. Being similar in appearance and voice, Joe Estevez, Sheen's brother, stood in for Sheen in some of the long shots and would later record some of the film's narration.
Marlon Brando appeared on set massively overweight, despite his character's description as sick and emaciated. The majority of Brando's dialogue had to be improvised due to the relatively short length of time that he was available for the film.
Coppola famously said of the shoot: "We had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane." The director faced bankruptcy and financial ruin if the film was not finished or shut down; his personal investment and the bizarre circumstances of the production created immense personal pressure. According to the 1991 documentary, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse directed by George Hickenlooper and Fax Bahr and featuring archival documentary footage of the filming of Apocalypse Now by Eleanor Coppola, Coppola's marriage almost fell apart and the director suffered a nervous breakdown, including threatening to commit suicide three separate times through the making of the film.
The film took over a year to edit, with the editor making an average of three cuts a day, mostly on state-of-the-art editing equipment purchased by Coppola specifically for the production. The initial rough cut was just over four and a half hours long and had to be severely cut. A three-hour version was screened as a "work in progress" at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d'Or for best film. It was at the Cannes press conference that Coppola made his famous comment that "My film is not about Vietnam, it is Vietnam." The director, according to archival materials in the recent "Complete Dossier" edition, also stated that his plan was to create a single theater, in the geographical center of the United States (likely Kansas) that would show Apocalypse Now, and only Apocalypse Now. It would be specially tailored to the film, with 3D 70mm projectors, the precursor to 5.1 surround sound, and the Sensurround system, which would vibrate the seats at the appropriate intervals. In his eyes, it would be "an event", and he likened it to travelling to Mount Rushmore. It was, incidentally, exactly the same idea which motivated Richard Wagner's Bayreuth Festival. Wagner's Parsifal was initially only to be shown in Bayreuth and Bayreuth too was chosen as the festival location because it is more or less in the heart of Germany. Considering that Wagner's music features so prominently in Apocalypse Now, Coppola may have been inspired by Wagner's example.
The portrayal of the enemy was a key factor in the film. During the helicopter attack, the Viet Cong are clearly seen mostly because its a bright sunny day. However, after this attack the Viet Cong are never seen again. After the USO show the PBR passes the flaming wreck of a Huey that was just shot down meaning the crew just missed the enemy. This is also the case as the PBR nears Kurtz' camp. The Do Long bridge scene is perhaps the best example of the faceless enemy in Apocalpyse Now. It seems as if the camera is going out of its way not to show the NVA who the audience knows is attacking. Later on the PBR is attacked by unseen machine gunners firing tracers. Although there are many machine guns, the enemy is never actually seen.
The original released version of the movie was just over two and a half hours long, and was a box-office success in the United States and overseas. It eventually made over 100 million dollars at the box office.
Coppola re-released the film in 2001 under the title Apocalypse Now Redux. The new print was supervised by Vittorio Storaro, who used a color process of his own invention to restore the film for release. Storaro has claimed that Apocalypse Now Redux looks better than the original release print of the film.
The catastrophic production of the film made it symbolic of the dangers of excessive directorial control over major productions. The shooting was said to have taken a toll on all involved, especially Coppola, both mentally and emotionally.
Apocalypse Now premiered in 1979 to mixed reviews and received polarized responses from audiences. It is said that it was as lauded as it was reviled. Many critics slammed the film, calling it overly pretentious, while others felt that it ended anticlimactically after a splendid first act.citation needed
Roger Ebert, who hailed it as the best film of 1979 and added it to his list of Great Movies, stated:
Apocalypse Now is the best Vietnam film, one of the greatest of all films, because it pushes beyond the others, into the dark places of the soul. It is not about war so much as about how war reveals truths we would be happy never to discover.
Today, the film is widely regarded as a masterpiece of the New Hollywood era. It is on the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list at number 28. Kilgore's quote "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" was number 12 on the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes list. In 2002, Sight and Sound magazine polled several critics to name the best film of the last 25 years and Apocalypse Now was named number one. It was also listed as the second best war film by viewers on Channel 4's 100 Greatest War Films, and ranked number 1 on Channel 4's 50 Films To See Before You Die. At the 1979 Academy Awards, it was nominated for Best Picture, but lost to Kramer vs. Kramer
In a 2004 poll of UK film fans, Blockbuster listed Kilgore's eulogy to napalm as the best movie speech.8
A water buffalo was slaughtered with a machete for the climactic scene. The scene was inspired by a ritual performed by a local Ifugao tribe which Coppola had witnessed along with his wife (who filmed the ritual later shown in the documentary Hearts of Darkness) and film crew. Although this was an American production subject to American animal cruelty laws, scenes like this filmed in the Philippines were not policed or monitored, and the American Humane Association gave the film an "unacceptable" rating.9
Wins
In 2000, Apocalypse Now was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Nominations
American Film Institute recognition
The first home video releases of Apocalypse Now were pan-and-scan versions of the original 35 mm Technovision anamorphic 2.35:1 print, and the closing credits, white on black background, were presented in compressed 1.33:1 full-frame format to allow all credit information to be seen on standard televisions. The first letterboxed appearance (on laserdisc on 12-29-1991) cropped the film to a 2:1 aspect ratio (conforming to the Univisium spec created by cinematographer Vittorio Storaro), featuring a small degree of pan-and-scan processing - notably in the opening shots in Willard's hotel room, featuring a composite montage - at the insistence of Coppola and Storaro. The end credits, from a videotape source rather than a film print, were still crushed for 1.33:1 and zoomed to fit the anamorphic video frame. All DVD releases have maintained this aspect ratio in anamorphic widescreen, but present the film without the end credits, which were treated as a separate feature. As a DVD extra, the footage of the explosion of the Kurtz compound was featured without text credits but included a commentary by director Coppola explaining the various endings based on how the film was screened.
| Awards | ||
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| Preceded by The Tree of Wooden Clogs |
Palme d'Or 1979 tied with The Tin Drum |
Succeeded by All That Jazz tied with Kagemusha |
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