Apocalypse Now Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description

Apocalypse Now is a film by Francis Ford Coppola, based loosely on Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness but set in the Vietnam War, in which a taciturn American soldier is sent to kill (or rather "terminate with extreme prejudice") a rogue US special forces colonel.

The colonel, once considered a model officer and future general, has gone insane from the horror and the pointlessness of the war. In his personal compound deep in the Cambodian jungle, he has turned to cannibalism and murder and is worshipped by the natives.

The film features performances by Martin Sheen as Captain Benjamin L. Willard (Marlow, in the novel), Marlon Brando as Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, and Dennis Hopper as a seemingly insane photojournalist (the harlequin).

The film deviates extensively from the book, for example in that Captain Willard is not sent to investigate, but to kill, and that Colonel Kurtz does not die a natural, though mysterious, death; also Marlow is sent to Cambodia, not the land of the Congo River.

Filmed in the Philippines, the film went extremely over budget and over schedule, partly due to a typhoon, but also due to the excesses of Coppola and others. The film was originally six hours long and had to be severely edited, with the result that some of the symbolism was lost in the original theatrical release. Coppola re-released the film in 2001 under the title Apocalypse Now Redux, featuring over an hour of restored footage. For background information on the film, see Eleanor Coppola's documentary, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, released in 1991.

Several other actors who were, or later became, prominent stars, had minor or supporting roles in the movie, including Robert Duvall, Harrison Ford, and Laurence Fishburne.

Apocalypse Now won the 1979 Palme d'Or (Golden Palm, the highest prize) at the Cannes Film Festival. It was the first and remains the only film to win this prize before the film was actually completed.

It also won two Academy Awards in 1980:

• Best Cinematography - Vittorio Storaro
• Best Sound - Richard Beggs, Mark Berger, Nathan Boxer and Walter Murch

Other nominations were:

• Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Robert Duvall
• Academy Award for Best Art Direction - Set Decoration - Angelo P. Graham, George R. Nelson and Dean Tavoularis
• Best Director - Francis Ford Coppola
• Best Film Editing - Lisa Fruchtman, Gerald B. Greenberg, Richard Marks and Walter Murch
• Best Picture - Francis Ford Coppola, Gray Frederickson, Fred Roos and Tom Sternberg
• Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium - Francis Ford Coppola and John Milius

In 2000 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Table of contents

1 Cast 2 Characteristic lines 2.1 Willard 2.2 Col. Kilgore 2.3 Kurtz 2.4 Minor characters 3 External links

Cast

• Marlon Brando - Col. Walter E. Kurtz
• Martin Sheen - Capt Benjamin L. Willard
• Dennis Hopper - "American photojournalist"
• Robert Duvall - Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore
• Frederic Forrest - "Chef", sailor
• Albert Hall - Chief Phillips, Navy boat commander
• Sam Bottoms - Lance B. Johnson, sailor and famous surfer
• Larry Fishburne - Tyrone, AKA "Clean", sailor
• G. D. Spradlin - Gen. Corman, G-2
• Harrison Ford - Col. Lucas, aide to Corman
• Scott Glenn - Lt. Richard M. Colby, previously assigned Willard's current mission
• Tom Mason - supply sgt.
• Colleen Camp - Playmate, "Miss May"

Characteristic lines

Willard

• "The shit piled up so fast you needed wings to get over it."
• "Mr. Clean came out of some South Bronx shithole, and I think the light and space of 'Nam put a zap on his head."
• "Charlie didn't get much USO. He was dug in too deep, or movin' too fast. His idea of R-'n'-R was cold rice and a little rat meat. He had only two ways home: death or victory."
• (In dialogue with two minor characters:)
  • Willard: "Who's in charge here, soldier?"
  • Infantryman: "Ain't you?"
  • [Dialogue and action intervene.]
  • Willard: "Soldier, do you know who's in command here?"
  • The Roach: "Yeah." [Turns away from Willard, and the scene ends.]

Col. Kilgore

• "I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like .... victory!" [Wistfully:] "Ya know, someday this war's gonna end."
• "Charlie don't surf!"
• "[As audio psychological warfare in the minutes before an airborne attack opens,] we use Wagner. My boys love it. It scares the hell outa' the slopes."

Kurtz

• "You're neither [an assassin nor a soldier]. You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill."
• "The horror. The horror."
• "It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face, and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies."
• "If I had ten divisions of those men, then our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill - without feeling, without passion, without judgment - without judgment. Because it's judgment that defeats us."

Minor characters

• "Never get out of the boat!"
• "Dis sho' is a bizarre sight in the middle o' this shit."
• (Upon receiving an obviously mortal wound, in the midst of a mock attack of blunt-headed arrows:) "A spear!"

External links

• Filmsite.org page

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