Film in 1979: A Review and Christian Perspective of "Apocalypse Now"--It's About the 'Heart of Darkness'

Apocalypse Now! is a 1979 Vietnam war film directed by Francis Ford Coppola (who directed the two Godfather films in 1972 and 1974) and came out with more well-received but controversial cinema with Apocalypse Now.

Apocalypse Now! is based on Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, and other material. Orson Welles (who made Citizen Kane in 1941) wanted to be the first to film the book. Instead, producer, director, and writer Francis Ford Coppola updated Joseph Conrad’s visionary novel.

Story

In Saigon, during the Vietnam War, jaded and disillusioned Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is awaiting his next mission. In a surreal scene, he seems to be on automatic pilot, having been conditioned to obey orders from his previous missions.

When his new mission comes, it is to “terminate with extreme prejudice” a subversive Colonel, once a celebrated American military man, E. W Kurtz (Marlon Brando).

Kurtz has taken control of a community of Vietnamese and uses “unsound” methods to eliminate dissidents. He is not a good look for the American military.

On river boat with soldiers accompanying him Willard heads towards the end of the river to assassinate Kurtz.

Much of the film goes down river with one or two excursions along the way. Scene follows scene portraying Willard’s increasing revelation of Kurtz’s character, his unsustainable victories and descent into madness (even twisted genius).

The subject is not conducive, and I did not enjoy it all conscionably: some war violence, profanity, a scene of nudity that, even a Playboy revue in the middle of the river. All in the context of the Vietnam war. There are also parts which slow the film down. However, there is much that is quite obviously good in the film—its technical aspects, performances, and direction.

Robert Duvall as Colonel Kilgore takes centre stage in the first hour as a war-mongering eccentric. Duvall, who won the BAFTA award for Best Supporting Actor and in the next year stunned in The Great Santini as an equally odd war monger, takes the acting honours in the first hour of Apocalypse Now although the character he plays is of dubious qualities.

Kilgore likes surfing the waves of Vietnam while cares less about the killing going on around him. He enjoys napalm. The young soldiers under him are puppets of this careless military man. He orders the triggers on innocent Vietnamese civilians and bombs quiet villages, all set to classical music which he plays over helicopters.

All the same, Vittorio Storano’s moody atmospheric photography makes Apocalypse Now surreally textured, and even farcical elements work. It is a film of epic proportions. Finally, the film is powerful.

Christian Perspective

Captain Willard completes his behind-the-scenes mission of assassination a changed man and returns like a man whose soul has been destroyed. Willard emerges from the shadows, and we the audience have watched Willard’s own descent into the heart of darkness, but was there not a better way?

Apocalypse Now says that a colonel’s, Colonel Kurtz’s, propensity to the heart of darkness was amplified by the U.S. war machine, the authorities are willingly and unconscionably blind to what they have allowed to happen to their men in the name of war. The effects of a sinful, fallen world….

There is a sense of the verse from the gospel of John: one feared coming to the light because their deeds are evil. The moody look of the film and its brooding sense of the human condition segue into a lament on the nature of man, rather than a bold, striking statement on U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

The compromises one makes – like Willard’s - can make one reconsider that human nature is all good.

Apocalypse Now is a soulish experience as one has come to see a reflection of the broken heart of humanity. The very downside of human nature Apocalypse Now exposes, prompts one to look for something better.

Other versions: Apocalypse Now Redux with added scenes (2001), and the Final Cut Version (2019). Censor’s notes: R-Rated, for war violence, profanity and coarse language, sexual references. Cast: Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest, Albert Hall, Sam Bottoms, Larry Fishburne, Dennis Hopper. From Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, with added material from T.S. Eliot, Jesse Weston and Sir James Fraser. Screenplay: Francis Ford Coppola and John Milius. Director and producer: Francis Ford Coppola. Released August 15, 1979.