Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube
    Nostalgia Central
    Banner
    • Home
    • Blog
      • Lists
      • Playlists
    • Television
      • Shows by Decade
        • 1950s Television
        • 1960s Television
        • 1970s Television
        • 1980s Television
        • 1990s Television
      • Shows by Genre
        • Comedy
        • Drama
        • Kids TV
        • Variety
        • News & Sport
        • Advertisements
      • Shows by Country
        • UK TV
        • USA TV
        • Australia & NZ TV
        • Canada TV
        • Europe TV
        • Japan TV
      • Shows A to K
        • Shows A
        • Shows B
        • Shows C
        • Shows D
        • Shows E
        • Shows F
        • Shows G
        • Shows H
        • Shows I
        • Shows J
        • Shows K
      • Shows L to Z
        • Shows L
        • Shows M
        • Shows N
        • Shows O
        • Shows P
        • Shows Q
        • Shows R
        • Shows S
        • Shows T
        • Shows U
        • Shows V
        • Shows W
        • Shows X
        • Shows Y
        • Shows Z
      • Shows 0 to 9
    • Music
      • Music by Decade
        • 1950s Music
        • 1960s Music
        • 1970s Music
        • 1980s Music
        • 1990s Music
      • Music A to K
        • Music A
        • Music B
        • Music C
        • Music D
        • Music E
        • Music F
        • Music G
        • Music H
        • Music I
        • Music J
        • Music K
      • Music L to Z
        • Music L
        • Music M
        • Music N
        • Music O
        • Music P
        • Music Q
        • Music R
        • Music S
        • Music T
        • Music U
        • Music V
        • Music W
        • Music X
        • Music Y
        • Music Z
      • Music 0 to 9
      • Genres
      • Music on Film & TV
      • One-Hit Wonders
      • Online Radio
    • Movies
      • Movies by Decade
        • 1950s Movies
          • Movies 1950
          • Movies 1951
          • Movies 1952
          • Movies 1953
          • Movies 1954
          • Movies 1955
          • Movies 1956
          • Movies 1957
          • Movies 1958
          • Movies 1959
        • 1960s Movies
          • Movies 1960
          • Movies 1961
          • Movies 1962
          • Movies 1963
          • Movies 1964
          • Movies 1965
          • Movies 1966
          • Movies 1967
          • Movies 1968
          • Movies 1969
        • 1970s Movies
          • Movies 1970
          • Movies 1971
          • Movies 1972
          • Movies 1973
          • Movies 1974
          • Movies 1975
          • Movies 1976
          • Movies 1977
          • Movies 1978
          • Movies 1979
        • 1980s Movies
          • Movies 1980
          • Movies 1981
          • Movies 1982
          • Movies 1983
          • Movies 1984
          • Movies 1985
          • Movies 1986
          • Movies 1987
          • Movies 1988
          • Movies 1989
        • 1990s Movies
          • Movies 1990
          • Movies 1991
          • Movies 1992
          • Movies 1993
          • Movies 1994
          • Movies 1995
          • Movies 1996
          • Movies 1997
          • Movies 1998
          • Movies 1999
      • Movies A to K
        • Movies A
        • Movies B
        • Movies C
        • Movies D
        • Movies E
        • Movies F
        • Movies G
        • Movies H
        • Movies I
        • Movies J
        • Movies K
      • Movies L to Z
        • Movies L
        • Movies M
        • Movies N
        • Movies O
        • Movies P
        • Movies Q
        • Movies R
        • Movies S
        • Movies T
        • Movies U
        • Movies V
        • Movies W
        • Movies X
        • Movies Y
        • Movies Z
      • Movies 0 to 9
    • Pop Culture
      • Fads
      • Toys & Games
      • Fashion
      • Decor
      • Food & Drink
      • People
      • Radio
      • Technology
      • Transport
    • Social History
      • 1950s Year by Year
      • 1960s Year by Year
      • 1970s Year by Year
      • 1980s Year by Year
      • 1990s Year by Year
      • Events
    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»1970s Movies»Movies 1979
    Movies 1979 Movies A 9 Mins Read

    Apocalypse Now (1979)

    Share
    Facebook Twitter Pinterest WhatsApp Reddit Email

    Speaking retrospectively about his 1979 film, director Francis Ford Coppola once said, “Apocalypse Now is not about Vietnam, it is Vietnam.”

    Coppola referred to the immense difficulty and hardship he experienced in making the film, but his words are also true in another sense. Apocalypse Now is not an accurate film – it does not depict any actual events that took place during the long history of American involvement in the Vietnam War. It is, however, a true film that clearly conveys the surreal, absurd, and brutal aspects of the war that were experienced by many who took part in it.

    The broad outline of the script is adapted from Joseph Conrad’s bleak 1902 novella Heart of Darkness, which concerns nineteenth-century European imperialism in Africa.

    Screenwriter John Milius transplants the latter part of Conrad’s tale to Southeast Asia and gives us the story of Captain Benjamin L Willard (Martin Sheen), United States Army assassin (pictured), and his final assignment in Vietnam.

    “I wanted a mission,” Willard says in voice-over narration, “and, for my sins, they gave me one. When it was over, I’d never want another.”

    Willard’s mission is to journey up the Nùng River into Cambodia and there find Colonel Walter E Kurtz – a renegade Green Beret officer who has organised a force of Montagnard tribesmen into his own private army – and terminate him “with extreme prejudice”.

    Kurtz’s methods of fighting the Viet Cong are unremittingly savage – according to the General who briefs Willard on his mission: “He’s out there operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct.”

    And so Willard begins his own journey into the heart of darkness, courtesy of a Navy river patrol boat and its crew: Chief Phillips (Albert Hall); Mr Clean (Larry Fishburne); Chef (Frederic Forrest); and Lance (Joseph Bottoms). Along the way, Willard and the patrol boat crew encounter people and situations that highlight the absurdity of the American approach to the war.

    This idea is brought in early when Willard remarks after accepting the mission to find and kill Kurtz: “Charging people with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.”

    The absurdity escalates when Willard meets Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore (Robert Duvall), a macho 1st Cavalry commander and surfing enthusiast who leads the Airmobile unit that is supposed to escort Willard’s boat to the mouth of the Nùng River.

    Kilgore (pictured) is bored at the prospect until he learns that the section of coast where he is supposed to deliver Willard offers excellent currents for surfing.

    At dawn the next day, Kilgore’s helicopters assault the Viet Cong village that overlooks their objective, wiping out the inhabitants so that Kilgore and his troops can surf – and, incidentally, allowing Willard to continue his mission.

    The famous sequence where the helicopters attack the village while playing Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries through loudspeakers is perhaps the best fifteen or twenty minutes ever committed to film.

    And the aftermath of the airstrike that Kilgore calls in to finish off the village allows Duvall to deliver one of the film’s more famous lines: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning! It smells like . . .  victory!”

    Later, in a remote American outpost where the boat stops for supplies, Willard and the crew arrive just in time to see a gaudy United Service Organisations (USO) show, replete with a band and go-go dancing Playboy Playmates that
    quickly dissolves into chaos as lustful soldiers try to get to the showgirls.

    apocalypsenow_322This highlights another theme in the film – the Americans do not like the jungle, so they attempt to turn the jungle into America. In Willard’s words: “They tried to make it just like home.”

    And that, the film seems to say, is why they would lose – you cannot win a jungle war by trying to make the jungle into America.

    As the boat departs the outpost and its go-go dancers, Willard’s thoughts turn to the enemy: “Charlie didn’t get much USO. He was either dug in too deep or moving too fast. His idea of good R&R [rest and relaxation] was a handful of cold rice, or a little rat meat.”

    Willard’s parting thought on the spectacle he has just witnessed is: “The war was being run by clowns, who were going to end up giving the whole circus away.”

    That quotation evokes another of the film’s themes: the distinction between “clowns” and “warriors.” Most of the United States military people Willard encounters can be considered clowns.

    They commit massive, mindless violence, which is inefficient and counterproductive to the stated goal of “winning the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people.”

    apocalypsenow_057zOn the other hand, a warrior uses violence only when it is necessary and then does so surgically. His response is precise, controlled, and lethal.

    Lance sets off a smoke grenade that inadvertently alerts enemy soldiers on shore, and Mr Clean is killed in the ensuing firefight. Chief is hit by a spear released by native tribesmen and tries to kill Willard.

    Willard finishes him off, and Lance disposes of Chief’s body in the river. Willard shares his plan with Chef and the two continue on together.

    The scene greeting Willard when he arrives at Kurtz’s stronghold is like something out of a nightmare. The bodies of dead Viet Cong are everywhere. A crashed plane hangs half out of a tree. A pile of human skulls leers from the shore. The Montagnard warriors, their faces painted white, stand silent and ominous as ghosts as they watch Willard’s boat pull in.

    apocalypsenow_008

    Willard encounters a manic freelance photojournalist (Dennis Hopper) who praises Kurtz extravagantly. Returning to the PBR, Willard and Lance soon depart, telling Chef to initiate an airstrike on Kurtz if the pair fails to return – a futile safeguard because Chef is soon decapitated by Kurtz’s men.

    Willard thinks Kurtz may be insane – but, if so, it is a form of insanity perfectly suited to the kind of war he is fighting. As Willard notes while reading Kurtz’s dossier on the trip upriver, “The Viet Cong knew his name now, and they were scared of him.”

    apocalypse_022Willard is caged and brought before Kurtz in a darkened temple where he is lectured by Kurtz on war, life, and the fanaticism of the Viet Cong who cut off the arms of children newly inoculated by the Americans.

    That night, Willard enters Kurtz’s chamber and attacks him with a machete. Quoting directly from Heart of Darkness, Kurtz whispers “The horror, the horror” and dies.

    When Willard leaves the compound, Kurtz’s minions bow down to him but Willard refuses to supplant Kurtz as their new demi-god; he leads Lance to the boat and they depart downriver as the screen fades to black.

    The filming of Apocalypse Now was in itself a remarkable undertaking: Endless problems – including a typhoon (Typhoon Olga) that destroyed most of the sets, difficulties with the authorities of the Philippines (where the film was shot) and personal problems with the actors and the crew – brought the costs sky high and the shooting process from the scheduled six weeks up to 16 months.

    Initially, Harvey Keitel played Captain Willard. They filmed for six weeks before Coppola instituted the cast change.

    Eight months into production Martin Sheen – then in the throes of severe alcoholism – had a near-fatal heart attack which delayed production for another six weeks while he recuperated.

    Marlon Brando took on the role of Kurtz for the exorbitant fee of $3.5 million for 20 days work ($175,000 a day).

    He also presented problems when he arrived on set weighing some 300 pounds and clueless about the role he was supposed to play.

    Valuable time was wasted as Brando and Coppola improvised Kurtz’s lines and Brando’s corpulence forced Coppola to dress him in black and shoot him mostly in close-up and deep shadow to obscure his bulk.

    By the end of filming, Coppola – who had to subsidise the production with millions of dollars of his own money – was almost physically, financially and psychologically devastated.

    Post-production complications with editing, sound mixing, and voice-over narration delayed the movie’s release until the Cannes Film Festival on 10 May 1979, more than three years after the start of principal photography and a full decade after Coppola commissioned John Milius to write the script.

    Apocalypse Now shared the Palme d’Or for Best Film with Volker Schlöndorff’s The Tin Drum at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival and earned eight Oscar nominations, winning two (for Best Sound and Best Cinematography).

    It also did well at the box office, earning $81.2 million and receiving almost universal accolades from film critics.

    When Coppola approached the Pentagon for US military assistance in the production of Apocalypse Now, he received a reply stating, “The Army does not lend officers to the CIA to execute or murder other Army officers, and even if we did, we wouldn’t help you make a picture about it”.

    The documentary Hearts of Darkness (made by Coppola’s wife about making the film) is a vital companion piece to the original film.

    Captain Benjamin L Willard
    Martin Sheen
    Colonel Walter E Kurtz

    Marlon Brando
    Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore
    Robert Duvall
    Gunners Mate Jay ‘Chef’ Hicks
    Frederic Forrest
    Gunners Mate Lance B. Johnson
    Sam Bottoms
    Gunners Mate Tyrone ‘Mr Clean’ Miller
    Laurence Fishburne
    Chief Petty Officer George Phillips
    Albert Hall
    Colonel Lucas
    Harrison Ford
    Photojournalist
    Dennis Hopper
    General R Corman
    G D Spradlin
    Lieutenant Richard M. Colby
    Scott Glenn
    Kilgore’s Gunner
    James Keane
    Playmate of the Year
    Cynthia Wood
    Playmate, Miss May
    Colleen Camp
    Playmate
    Linda Carpenter
    Lieutenant Carlsen
    Glenn Walken

    Director
    Francis Ford Coppola

    Video

    Related Posts

    • American Friend, The (1977)
      American Friend, The (1977)
      Director Wim Wenders - one of the wunderkinder of the new German cinema - adapted this psychological thriller from the…
    • Apollo 13 (1995)
      Apollo 13 (1995)
      The subject of Apollo 13 is exactly what the title suggests. The movie charts the fraught 13th Apollo space mission, undertaken in…
    • Muppet Movie, The (1979)
      Muppet Movie, The (1979)
      Jim Henson's beloved, zany puppets made their feature film debut in this entertaining adventure relating Kermit the Frog's inspirational journey…
    • An American In Paris (1951)
      An American In Paris (1951)
      The music of George and Ira Gershwin underscores this Academy Award-winning tale of an artist caught between two women in…
    • Awakenings (1990)
      Awakenings (1990)
      This true story is adapted from a 1973 book by Dr Oliver Sacks, a clinical neurologist who in a New…
    • All The Right Noises (1971)
      All The Right Noises (1971)
      Originally sold with the provocative tagline "Is 15-and-a-half too young for a girl? Is one wife enough for one man?",…
    • Meteor (1979)
      Meteor (1979)
      A five-mile-wide chunk of the asteroid Orpheus is on a 30,000 miles per hour collision course with Earth and NASA…
    • Life Of Brian, The (1979)
      Life Of Brian, The (1979)
      The Monty Python team are synonymous with dark, subversive humour that defies comparison to anything else. Although often attempted, no…

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest WhatsApp Reddit Email
    Previous ArticlePlace In The Sun, A (1951)
    Next Article Apple Dumpling Gang, The (1975)

    Comments are closed.

    NC Radio Player
    Search the site

    Nostalgia Central has been a labour of love since 1998. The site carries no advertising, and I rely on donations to help with running costs and to keep the site running for your entertainment and education.

    If you find the site informative or enjoyable, please consider a donation – no matter how small. 

    Thank you so much.
    Enjoy your trip in the time machine!

    You may also like

    • Odd Angry Shot, The (1979)
      Odd Angry Shot, The (1979)
      When Aussie movie The Odd Angry Shot was released in 1979, it came in for a good deal of misdirected critical…
    • Tin Drum, The (1979)
      Tin Drum, The (1979)
      Very occasionally a movie comes along that is so unique that it eludes conventional criticism. Such a movie is The Tin…
    • Hair (1979)
      Hair (1979)
      The 1960s stage musical Hair was rigorously anti-Vietnam, vigorously anti-authority and glorified free love, bisexuality, long hair, draft-card burning, LSD and body…
    • Dawn! (1979)
      Dawn! (1979)
      The film Dawn! may have been made on the assumption that Australians never lose interest in their sports champions as long as…


    Nostalgia Central covers the period 1950 to 1999 and contains some words and references which reflect the attitudes of those times and which may be considered culturally sensitive, offensive or inappropriate today.
    Copyright © 1998, 2023 Nostalgia Central. Run by volunteers. Funded by donations.
    • About Nostalgia Central
    • Contact
    • FAQ

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.