It was a little ecstatic joy to see Apocalypse Now on the big screen again. It is wonderful to be reminded of what a magnificent masterpiece it is; as much a mental state as a dumb mastodont movie.

Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 creation is a child of his time. It was done during a politically conscious time in the United States, where people questioned power. It is one of very few war films that really tries to reflect the madness of war. It's a bombastic descent into hell, so incredibly well-staged, with tremendous timing in the big panoramic scenes, and an acute sense of presence in the little ones. A hallucinatory nightmare at the same time as a political commentary on the US presence in Vietnam.

Well, there were other American films that criticized the US involvement, not least Michael Cimino's excellent Deer Hunter, which, however, was mostly about the effects afterwards.
Here we are in the midst of madness.
Or as Coppola himself said in connection with the premiere at the Cannes film festival in 1979 (where Apocalypse Now won the Gold Palm):
“My movie is not about Vietnam. It's Vietnam! ”

The chaotic recording is mythical and is tinged with hassles and disasters. There were drugs, collapses, madness. And a seriously overweight and underperforming Marlon Brando who improvised his efforts. He couldn't even read the script, which made Coppola so pissed that he let another director record Brando's scenes.
The filmmaker, for his part, lost 50 kg himself during the recording. Threatened several times by committing suicide.

Apocalypse Now is a potent mix of realism and fairy tale. Which was typical of the American film's golden 1970s, which unfortunately was a parenthesis in film history, and it can probably be said that Apocalypse Now meant the peak and at the same time the end of the author-driven era that allowed selfish filmmakers to devastate freely by their own neurotic head.

Production dragged on time and the budget tripled, giving all financiers anxiety-related stomach ulcers. After that, with the unprecedented success of Star Wars (1977), the industry stepped into the era of fat French films - which we are in today.

In today's conservative United States, the Vietnam movie has played its part, few want to talk about reckless soldiers who do not understand why they are fighting. Now you want mandom, courage and motherly men. Now, again, it is the old safe World War II that is being dealt with in patriotic epics such as Dunkirk, Midway, Fury and Flags of our fathers. So that is where, according to the myth, pure and glorious war in which the United States was the good guys and of course had God on his side. It is a kind of nostalgic war movie that responds to the need to look and decorate the image a bit. Making "America great again".

The original version of Apocalypse Now was about two and a half hours long. When Apocalypse Now Redux arrived in 2001, it was said to be the version Francis Ford Coppola had initially intended to do.

The main difference was that a long sequence was added from a French plantation in the jungle plus a scene where the main characters had sex with some playboy bunnies. In total, the film was now up for three hours and 20 minutes long. The plantation scenes were a bit tough but have their place, as they enrich the nightmare with a political commentary on colonialism.

But apparently Coppola was not really happy with the Redux and is now releasing an edited, and digitally renovated, three-hour version. The plantation is left, but the Bunny sex is gone. Which is good. It felt obsolete and boyish already 18 years ago.

So, at the risk of teasing the purists, I still want to say that Coppola now gives us the best version of Apocalypse Now.
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