Very nearly a masterpiece – if you have any doubts about the power of cinema or whether film is the highest form of civilisation known to humankind, you need to see the re-released version of Apocalypse Now on a very large screen straight away.
I kept thinking, ‘How did he do this?’ The cinematography; the set pieces; the editing; the music. It’s breathtaking. It’s a long time since I have giggled with sheer delight at the audacity of someone’s film-making.
What’s it about? War in general? The Vietnam war in particular? Madness? Morality? The risk of playing at God and thinking someone to be God and knowing that someone is not God? Possibly. Especially in Brando’s speech about the power that lies in the hands of those who are willing to dispense with moral scruples. Or is it about film itself?
This would have been Hitchcock’s answer: Film is not about anything – it’s not the content or meaning that matters – it’s the involvement of the viewer in the unfolding of the film itself, the momentum of desire and longing, the desperate need to know and arrive, and the delayed gratification of a story that is constantly twisting out of view.
It’s only the last half-hour that doesn’t quite work – too slow and too introspective. But then I’m not sure where else Coppola could have gone.
Do see this film on the big screen. It won’t be around for long. Here are the London listings for the next week.
PS – It was a joy to see this at Screen 1 of the Cineworld, Haymarket, just down from Piccadilly Circus, which is a huge old-fashioned screen with its proscenium arch still standing – such a change from the local multiplex.
I haven’t seen this film from start to finish and not at all on a big screen so I’d like to. Thanks very much for the recommendation.
Masterpiece.
The doors music in the opening and end sequence. The copters. That whisky voice. The beads of sweat. The magnified frames. The sound effects. That pause in the middle, when everything just stops dead, blackout. The reflections in the iris. The dynamic change over from the exterior to interior perspective. Brando when he scratches his eyebrow and it sounds like the crack of a razor going over stubble. The close up of the hand drying the beads of sweat on his head. Deadly dry. And that last line relevant from beginning to end. The horror, The Horror. The psychedelic senselessness and frenzy of the sacrifice in contrast to the calm still knowing, controlled waiting of the one to be slayed. The lights coming on in the cinema before the film stops rolling. The deathly silence of everyone waiting for someone to make the first move to move, having played their part as witness. MASTERPIECE. Iconic cinema at its best.
That golden Boughs gets everywhere!