Film Review

To a great extent, one cannot help but feel a loss for words when considering the release of a new version of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. The film, in a sound-enhanced format that now boasts an impressive three hour-plus running time, speaks for itself—and quite loudly at that. Even in its original form, Apocalypse Now (1979) was already too big, too abstract, and too ambitious to contain. Audiences were confused and critics sceptical, but with lines like "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" and the sheer impact of Marlon Brando's glistening skull, Apocalypse Now marked its place in cinematic history. Furthermore, the film's making has itself long since become mythic; the physical, emotional, and economic setbacks endured by Coppola, his cast, production crew, and family have been recorded both in textual form (Peter Cowie's Apocalypse Now Book [2000], Eleanor Coppola's Notes [1991], and Marlon Brando's Brando: Songs My Mother Taught Me [1992]) and in a documentary film (Eleanor Coppola's Hearts of Darkness [1991]). As a result, there seems little that either a new version of the film, let alone another film reviewer, could offer that has not already been said, implied, or inferred in the passage of time. Surprisingly, however, Apocalypse Now Redux does have something new to offer, especially for those who barely remember or never even experienced the original theatrical release on the big screen.	1
To begin with, the new version contains added dialogue and whole sequences that explicitly articulate the thematics of the absurd waste and amorality of war, the schizophrenia of human nature, and the ways in which the former illuminate the latter. Over and over, for example, characters meditate on the dual nature of man: "There are two of you, one that loves and one that kills," Roxanne de Marais (Aurore Clément) tells Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) in a restored scene. The repetition of such contrived and sophomoric sentiments reminds the audience that Apocalypse Now was never a mere war film, never really "about Vietnam" (as Coppola himself announced at the press conference for the film at the Cannes Film Festival in 1979). Nor was it ever, for that matter, a satisfying translation of Conrad's colonial novella Heart of Darkness. The film aspired to more than a mere translation of that novel's exploration of imperial self-justification mapped out along the voyage up river in search of Kurtz. Yet, as much as the newly restored scenes so often bolster the abstract, aesthetic, and auteur-driven aspects of the film by protracting or contrasting what was already there, there are also moments whose inclusion, deletion, or sheer detail offer hints as to how America's relation to its history—both military and cinematic—has changed.	2
Perhaps the most interesting example of how the two versions might reflect sentiments specific to the eras in which they were released can be found in considering the restoration of scenes that take place at a French plantation. The sequence, which connects American involvement in Vietnam to the dark precedents of French colonialism in the region, was apparently cut from the original release because it provided too much of a departure from the forward movement of narrative. But, in the new version, Willard and his crew pause on their journey upriver to investigate a landing. The river mist opens to reveal Philippe de Marais (Christian Marquand), a French plantation owner and colonial holdout. He is surrounded by his family and servants, virtually identical in affect and dress. He orders the Americans to lay down their guns. Willard and his crew, it turns out, have happened upon an anachronism. Long after French imperial power had abandoned Vietnam, De Marais and his family have remained, ghostly reminders of a bygone era. Refusing to relinquish their land and their habits, the De Marais family engage in formal dinners replete with fine wines and exquisite dishes.	. . .