Apocalypse Now

Released: August 15, 1979

Studio: United Artists

Genre: war/drama

Box Office (numbers in millions):

Domestic: 83.47 Worldwide: ?

Adjusted for Inflation:

Domestic: 335.50 Worldwide: ?

Directing: Francis Ford Coppola

Screenwriting: Francis Ford Coppola, John Milius

Starring: Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper

Review:

“Orson Welles abandoned plans to film Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and made Kane instead. In the early ‘70s, Francis Coppola returned to the idea, with George Lucas down to direct on location in the middle of the Vietnam conflict. Eventually, Coppola grasped the reins himself, and the project mushroomed into” ^T98 “a masterful, thought-provoking, pretentious film” ^FS “about the nightmarish, moral madness of the Vietnam War.” ^FS It is filled “with beautifully-chaotic,” ^FS “staggering, Oscar-winning photography by Vittorio Storaro,” ^LM “incredible battle scenes, and the famous helicopter raid.” ^VD Considered by many to be the best war movie of all time.” ^FS

The movie tells “an almost surreal account of a captain’s journey [Sheen] into the depths of the Vietnam jungle to assassinate a demented, decorated AWOL officer [Brando] who started his own loyal tribe.” ^VD “But it is the insanity of the Vietnam war…that really blows his mind. By the time he reaches renegade Green Beret Brando, his crew is dead, and he has nearly become the man he was sent to kill.” ^A07

A “grueling production in the Philippines led to vast budget overruns and physical and emotional breakdowns.” ^FS However, it was marked by “incredible performances, especially that of hawkish Lt. Colonel Kilgore (Duvall) who ‘loves the smell of napalm in the morning.’” ^FS “The casting of Brando is…brilliant as movie-making, but it turns Vietnam into a vast trip, into a War of the Imagination.” ^T95 The “film’s conclusion…is cerebral and murky [but it is] still a great movie experience most of the way.” ^LM