Kilgore: Smell that? You smell that? Lance: What? Kilgore: Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. [kneels] Kilgore:I love the smell of napalm in the morning.
Apocalypse Now is a very loose adaptation of the classic Joseph Conrad novella Heart Of Darkness, transporting the events of that book to 1969 Vietnam and Cambodia. The film took three years to complete before its 1979 release. It was directed by Francis Ford Coppola at the height of his career.Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is sent to kill Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who has gone mad and set up his own cult in Cambodia. After Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall) clears off his initial path, the captain and his crew -including a 14 years old Laurence Fishburne- go up a river and into the depths of humanity.Containing many famous scenes and quotes, most notably "I love the smell of napalm in the morning", "Charlie don't surf" and the climax ("The horror... the horror...") involving the slaughter of a real water buffalo, this movie at times feels like what one might imagine a bad acid trip to be like. Considered the definitive anti-war movie by many, Apocalypse Now is also one of the all-time greats. It is also legendary for having what is considered to be one of the most troubled productions in Hollywood history. To describe all of the mishaps that occurred on set would require an entire page, but for the sake of brevity, here are the highlights:
By the end of production, the film was over nine months behind schedule.
Coppola lost 100 pounds, threatened suicide several times, and attempted it once.
Coppola shot literally millions of feet of footage, and had to cut it all together to make a coherent motion picture.
Many crewmembers were drunk or stoned while filming. Dennis Hopper got 14-year-old Laurence Fishburne hooked on heroin.
Marlon Brando showed up to the set morbidly obese, rather than with the muscular build that his character called for (which is why Kurtz is almost never shown below the shoulders during the movie), and having not read either the script or Heart Of Darkness like he had been asked.
Martin Sheen had a heart attack due to the stress of filming, and had to struggle for a quarter-mile to get help.
The budget was expected to be about $12-14 million, but wound up being well over double that amount ($31.5 million).
The helicopters that the government of the Philippines lent to Coppola for the famous "air cavalry" scene were frequently taken back during shooting, as the government needed the helicopters to fight communist rebels.
This film's nightmarish production was documented by Coppola's wife Eleanor, who would later use footage she shot on set to make the documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse. It would later be parodied in Ben Stiller's action-comedy Tropic Thunder and the Community episode "Documentary Filmmaking: Redux"'.In 2001, Coppola drastically Re Cut the film, extending the running time by nearly an hour, adding some additional scenes and re-shuffling some existing ones around. The new version was released (to slightly lower reviews) as Apocalypse Now Redux.Not to be confused with Apocalypse How or Apocalypse Wow, which deal with destruction apocalypses. It should be noted that the original meaning of Apocalypse was, "a revealing of the truth.", which is why the Book of Revelation is sometimes rendered as the Apocalypse of John. Under this definition someone who has been through an Apocalypse has had the truth revealed to them. The original definition definitely fits better with the themes of Apocalypse Now rather than the destruction definition.
This movie contains examples of:
Above Good and Evil: In a deleted scene Kurtz visits Willard while he is in captivity, bringing up the subject of how he thinks the Vietnam War could be won. A lecture ensues about how Americans care too much about their public image and how the rest of the world views them, it is a mistake to let public opinion prevent victory in a war. If war wasn't a popularity contest then America could do whatever was necessary to win. Willard calls Kurtz cruel and that his methods destroy all moral standards of right and wrong in appropriate conduct of warfare. Kurtz responds simply, "Winning is what is right. Losing is wrong."
Actor Allusion: Dennis Hopper playing a unstable hippie photographer is quite fitting.
Subverted. Villagers (unseen at this point, as in Conrad's book) attack Willard's boat with arrows. Due to the 20th century setting, Willard does not take them seriously. He refers to them as "toy arrows," and in a shout out to Conrad, he says "they're just little sticks, they're trying to scare us!" After the sailors start shooting back, they switch to spears, and one of the sailors dies as a result.
Lance at one point breaks an arrow in half and sticks the two halves in his hair.
An Arm and a Leg: Kurtz tells a story about the time he was with the Special Forces and they inoculated children:
Kurtz: We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went back there, and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms.''
Badass: Willard's prowress is shown early on in Redux when he beats some sense into a military orderly who is red-taping fuel supplies.
It's flat-out amazing how little Marlon Brando there actually is in this movie. Not to mention that Robert Duvall gets second billing despite not getting much more screentime than Brando.
On most dvd covers (for the Redux version at least) it lists off the cast members who became famous after the fact such as Lawrence Fishburne, Dennis Hopper and Harrison Ford, despite Ford's role being a very brief bit-part at the start.
Black Dude Dies First: To be fair, everyone dies. This is still a particularly cruel example though, considering both black crew members die first. Way before that, a black soldier dies in the helicopter explosion in the village.
Breaking Speech: When Willard is captured by Kurtz the Colonel asks a simple question, "Are you an assassin?" Willard's response is that he is a soldier. Kurtz mocks Willard by saying the following, "You're neither. You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks".
Broken Ace: Kurtz was groomed to become a top military officer but something in him snapped after his first tour of 'Nam. Willard discovers by reading Kurtz' dossier that the Broken aspect was intentionally self inflicted by Kurtz. Kurtz was going to be a high ranking General in the "corporation" one day, but he was dissatisfied with being a desk jockey and decided to join the Special Forces. As a Lieutenant Colonel at the time Kurtz could have been anything he wanted, but being a Special Forces operative would put a nail in his career's coffin so deep that he would never go above Colonel. Willard is astonished that such a gifted officer would screw his own career over like that.
Calling Card: Kilgore throws "Death cards" with the emblem of his Air Cavalry Regiment around corpses to let Charlie know who killed them.
Cat Scare: Quite literally, but with a considerably larger-than-usual cat. Hell even the actors were scared!
Celebrity Paradox: Kurtz reads aloud from The Hollow Men (1925), which contains an epigraph quoting from Heart of Darkness (i.e. the basis of the movie), written twenty years earlier. The paradox was not present in the orignal script, where Kurtz was originally called "Col. Leighley". A scene with Harrison Ford has the original name redubbed.
Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys/Vestigial Empire: In Redux, the declining might of the French Empire is discussed by the French plantation owner, who is ready to defy the defeat streak with a Last Stand at his home, if it comes to that.
Both Lt. Colonel Kilgore, and Colonel Kurtz. Probably can be considered a Trope Codifier. Kilgore loses some badassery in redux; He's pitiful when Willard steals his surfboard and his attempts to retrieve it are mocked.
Colonel Kilgore: The Trope Namer is introduced casually Strolling Through The Chaos of a vicious battle. He later speaks poetically about his love of napalm, which "smells like victory." He seems to share equal enthusiasm for combat as he does for his hobby, surfing. He attempts to indulge both pastimes at once, ordering his men to surf in a warzone despite their discomfort (and the bullets whizzing past them into the water). He looks downright sad when he says to Captain Willard and Private Lance that "someday this war is gonna end." Kilgore loves war as much as he loves life itself.
Combat Pragmatist: Colonel Kurtz praises the tenacity and dedication of the Vietnamese enemy who are willing to do whatever it takes to win, even going so far as to cross the Moral Event Horizon if that is what it takes.
Crazy Bird Lady: One of the playmates love birds a little too much.
Cool Hat: Colonel Kilgore's cavalry hat serves to enhance his mystique.
Creator Cameo: Coppola appears◊ as the Bearded Director making a Documentary and is aided by key crew members Dean Tavoularis and Vittorio Storaro.
And how!. Behold. Kilgore orders and leads an attack by the Air-Cavalry and then a napalm strike on the jungle. The phrase is also seen written in the front of Kilgore's helicopter.
Willard tells Chef to call an air strike in case he doesn't make it. Coppola had to alter the end credits because the Stuff Blowing Up was interpreted by audiences as the air strike happening.
Despair Event Horizon: Kurtz is a Fallen Hero who lost it after seeing horrors like the VietCong mutilating and killing a group of children who were treated by Western doctors.
Do Not Do This Cool Thing: The helicopter attack scene. The usage of the Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" was intended to invoke the Nazis, but since the scene is cinematographically awesome the carnage tends to be overlooked and much misaimed fandom ensued.
Dramatically Missing The Point: The French plantation owner poignantly accuses the Americans of this; North Vietnam is not fighting for Communism but for national independence, and the Vietnamese hate the Russians and the Chinese more than they hate the Americans.
If tomorrow the Vietnamese are communists, they will be Vietnamese communists [...] You are fighting for the biggest nothing in history.
Dwindling Party: As soon as the squad gets upriver near Kurtz, they start dropping like flies.
Elites Are More Glamorous: Willard is with the 505th of 173rd Airborne Brigade assigned to MACV-SOG, ordered to assassinate Colonel Kurtz, who was Operations officer of the 5th Special Forces Group, and is helped by a Patrol Boat, Riverine, crew, and is escorted up the Nung River by Colonel Kilgore of the 1st Squadron of the 9th Air Cavalry.
Elite Army: Colonel Kurtz points out in his dossier that an Elite American Army could win the Vietnam War easily if the Commanders were willing to put in the resources to train them. He scoffs at the idea that the drug addicts and the party animals, and the soldiers that just plain don't want to be there, are going to help attain an American victory. Kurtz recommends that the American military downsize to approximately 200,000 or 300,000 highly trained soldiers and turn them lose on the Vietnamese enemy, that we could win with quality over quantity.
Emerging From The Shadows: Colonel Kurtz. It goes a great deal into establishing an aura of mystery and subtle evil about Kurtz's character.
Fan Disservice: The Redux version has a sequence where the Playmates, whose helicopter has gone down, are whored out to Willard's men in exchange for aviation fuel. Cynthia Wood and Colleen Camp, two spectacularly gorgeous women, appear topless. It is weird and disturbing and wrong.
Fatal Family Photo: A recording concerning Mr. Clean's family, but it has the same effect.
Fighting for a Homeland: The vestigial French view their situation as this, because they built the place from scratch for generations, there was nothing when they arrived and now Indochina is their home, as opposed to France.
Colonel Kurtz goes out of his way to call the Commanders running the Vietnam War this. He detests how they refuse to do what is necessary to win and then lie to everyone about how everything they are doing is adequate, multiple points in the movie have Willard reading excerpts from Kurtz' dossier where it was recorded he had criticized the way the war was being run. Willard eventually comes to agree with Kurtz and wonders why the hell he is even meant to kill this man. This comes to a head in the ending where it is shown that Kurtz' records his philosophy on war as a sort of auto-biography where he famously states this:
Colonel Kurtz: We train young men to drop fire on people... and yet their commanders won't let them write, "Fuck!", on their airplanes because it's obscene!
Willard realizes that his superiors are full of it when he's assigned the mission to terminate Kurtz:
Willard: Charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets in the Indy 500.
It's discussed in redux that the Americans are following the same path of the French, despite their superior might.
Kurtz makes a point by showing Willard two almost identical and over-optimistic - if not Blatant Lies - reports in the media about the "improving" situation of the Vietnam War. The first one was written under LBJ and the second one years later, now with Nixon in power.
Hoist by His Own Petard: Discussed in the plantation. The Americans created the Viet-minh to undermine French imperialism, and now its offshot is giving the Americans hell.
Coppola granted Brando a lot of creative liberty out of necessity, since the unwritten ending was being crafted every day. Brando engaged in a series of long and profound monologues and ramblings off the top of his head and at one point ran out of dialogue.
Similarly, Dennis Hopper was allowed to forget the script (in the odd case he had learnt it) because his quirky character worked better that way.
Kill It with Fire: Plenty, with the "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" scene being the most memorable.
Large and in Charge: Kurtz looks like a giant. A happy by-product of the angled camera shots needed to conceal Brando's obesity and of the ensuing body double.
Large Ham: Colonel Kilgore is not exactly low-key.
Madness Mantra: ''Never get off the boat! Never get off the boat!"
Male Gaze: In the director's cut, a Playboy bunny complains that no one sees her as a real person or respects her for her mind...all while Lance, and the camera, is focused on her breasts.
A particularly brutal one when Willard shoots the wounded Vietnamese woman... not because she's dying, but because he doesn't want to take her along with them.
Willard: I told you not to stop.
By the end of the story Willard views killing Kurtz as a mercy on his part. Willard realizes that the mission to kill Kurtz is bogus because the Colonel isn't really any more insane than the commanders that want him dead. However Kurtz is a thorn in the side of the American war machine and they will inevitably send someone else after Kurtz if he doesn't do the deed. Furthermore Willard feels that Kurtz is very broken up over what the war has turned him into, and that he actually wants the death that he has been marked for, he would rather go out like a warrior by the hand of someone who can understand him (Willard being that person) then by some faceless, passionless assassin.
Willard: Everyone wanted me to do it, probably him most of all. I felt as if he was waiting for me, waiting for me to take all the pain away. He wanted to go out like a soldier, not like some poor, wasted, rag-ass renegade. Even the jungle wanted him dead, and that's where he took his orders from anyway.
Obligatory War Crime Scene: The massacre of the family on the river sampan, done because the cast wanted a "My Lai" scene.
Old Soldier: Kurtz's backstory. He was able to hack it at airborne training. At 38 years old, he was twice the age of the next graduate. An impressive feat.
Pet the Dog: When he's not killing people or distracted by the surfing, Kilgore cares for his men and for civilians; he is concerned about them receiving medical treatment as soon as possible.
Playboy Bunny: Cynthia Wood (Miss February 1973, Playmate of the Year 1974) and Linda Carpenter (Miss August 1976). Possibly examples of As Herself, since Wood and Carpenter are both playing Playmates.
Popcultural Osmosis: Many lines of this movie are downright legendary, in particular the "I love the smell of napalm" speech, and "The horror, the horror...", the latter taken directly from Heart Of Darkness.
Pretty Boy: Lance, the blonde California surfer whom Willard describes as "Looking like he never held a gun in his life".
Professional Killer: Willard's shtick in the military. He has a history of at least three assasinations, but is uneasy about having to terminate an American, an unprecedented task.
Punch Clock Villain: Discussed by Kurtz. Kurtz recommends that you find men of strong moral fiber and who are loving and kind to their friends and family, but when push comes to shove are capable of putting that aside and killing for the greater good. A soldier has to realize his job is to win, once he has won then he can go back to being a good person. Kurtz praises the Vietcong for getting it right for they were willing to commit horrific atrocities to demoralize their enemies, yet were still normal men who loved their friends and family after all was said and done.
The Quiet One: Jerry, the CIA officer who silently eats his meal as Willard is being briefed on his mission. He doesn't say anything the entire scene until the end when Willard is told what he must do once he finds Col. Kurtz:
Terminate. With extreme prejudice.
Rage Against The Reflection: Yes, Martin Sheen really just punched a mirror, and it's not made of Soft Glass. It wasn't staged as he was drunk at the time. Martin Sheen actually noted in later interviews about his involvement with the movie that he was struggling with personal demons at the time, so you could say that Willard's insanity/despair is actually Martin Sheen's being imposed on the character. An unplanned Anger Montage is used for continuity issues because Sheen injured himself.
Reality Subtext: The helicopters used for the air cavalry scene against the communist Vietcong rebels were recalled during the shoot by the Philippine government... to fight communist rebels.
Re Cut: Apocalypse Now Redux has no credits, adds almost an hour of footage and alters the order or pace of some scenes. Notably it puts back the plantation scene, a contextual encounter that Coppola grudgingly had to cut due to problems with the illumination.
Willard concludes that the Viet Cong will be victorious because "Charlie's idea of great R&R was cold rice and a little rat meat" during a USO show.
The scene in the Redux cut where the main characters trade their fuel for some private time with Playboy models.
With his insistence on going surfing in the middle of a battle, the character of Kilgore definitely exemplifies this trope.
Colonel Kurtz comments on this in his dossier. Kurtz expresses his concern to his commanders that having too many delinquent military personnel in Vietnam is going to compromise the war effort and that they should only utilize the very best trained men they can find.
Secretly Dying: The photojournalist hints that this may be Kurtz's case. A nod to the the original source left ambiguous in the film and discussed by Coppola during interviews.
Send In The Search Team: More like send in the assassination team. The American Command has decided that Colonel Kurtz's continued operations in Laos and Cambodia are a threat to the war effort and want Willard to terminate Kurtz's command by any means necessary.
Shadow Archetype: Used in combination with Not So Different. Is Willard, in the last analysis, any better than Kurtz? Probably not. Kurtz points this out during his haunting monologue to Willard. Can Willard judge Kurtz when he is basically the same as him?
Kurtz: I have seen horrors, horrors that you have seen. You have a right to kill me, you have a right to do that, but you have no right to judge me.
Shirtless Scene: Sheen spends a lot of the time shirtless, and is naked in the beginning. Robert Duvall, too, right in the middle of a battle. Vietnam is hot.
There are several to the Werner Herzog movie Aguirre, the Wrath of God, also based on Heart of Darkness and which, oddly enough, had a similarly troubled production. One scene (of the natives attacking with arrows) is a shot for shot remake of Aguirre.
John Milius, a close friend of Coppola's (and one of the two directors Coppola tapped to finish the movie if he died - the other was George Lucas), makes a fairly convincing case for the film's plot being based on The Odyssey - the analogy works better for Redux than for the original cut.
General Corman's name is an homage to Roger Corman, Coppola's mentor. Colonel Lucas is named after George, Coppola's close friend.
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning" [...] "Smelled like... victory"
"Charlie don't surf"
"The horror... the horror..."
Skewed Priorities: Colonel Kilgore is annoyed with Charlie (who don't surf) because the VC are occupying a terrific beach that should be used for surfing. His Death from Above air-strikes are meant to clear the zone so he can exercise his hobby, the military importance is not the issue. In fact Kilgore never would have escorted Willard and his crew there if he hadn't gotten word of a nice beach being there alongside Willard's destination.
Taking You with Me: Chief's last-gasp attempt to impale Willard on the spear sticking out of his chest.
Talkative Loon: Dennis Hopper's character, an insane hippie journalist.
Tell Me About My Father: Inverted, Kurtz asks Willard to tell the true story to the Colonel's son.
There Are No Therapists: It is quite troubling to see the mental state many of the characters are in. The plot of the entire movie could have been avoided had someone simply sat down with Kurtz and helped him deal with the trauma of the deeply horrific things he had to deal with during his tour in Vietnam. Even more troubling is that they send Willard, a recently divorced soldier who is clearly traumatized by his time in Vietnam, to get rid of Kurtz. That alone right off the bat should show you how badly the mental healthcare of soldiers was handled during that time period.
The scene where the crew boards the Vietnamese cargo boat.
Calling in an airstrike with napalm to kill some VC hiding in the jungle. A staple of the Vietnam War.
Thousand Yard Stare: Willard sports one right at the end, after he completes his mission.
Title Drop: Textually. The words "OUR MOTTO: APOCALYPSE NOW" can be seen painted on a wall behind the Montagnards in the scene outside Kurtz' temple when Chef tries to convince Willard to leave. Supposedly this was to satisfy copyright requirements, since the movie lacked opening credits.
Too Dumb to Live: Lance foolishly and pointlessly making smoke signals in a hostile zone immediately costs the life of Clean. Ironically Lance is the only grunt to survive the movie.
The Unfettered: The movie's central concept: exactly how effective a person with no restrictions can be, and how much of a monster. The answer to the latter: a lot.
Visual Pun: Invoked by the young hot-blooded Frenchman in the plantation by breaking an egg: "The white leaves, the yellow stays".
War Is Hell: One of the most iconic examples ever.
Warrior Poet: Or so Kurtz' followers think he is. The reality is that while he does have some poetic flare to his words and he is a good solider, he has gone insane and has lost all decent sense of restraint.
Through stories told by Willard's escort, it's clear the South Vietnamese and the Americans are not getting along.
The boat crew are not entirely thrilled with the assignment of escorting Willard up river, The Chief in particular. And when the Chief is dying with a spear through his neck, he tries to impale Willard on it before finally succumbing.
The troops at the USO show riot amongst themselves to try and get at the Playboy Bunnies.
The U.S military is sending their own assassin to kill one of their own Colonels gone rogue. The movie has Americans killing each other while trying to fight this damned war. It isn't like those resources couldn't be used fighting the Vietnamese enemy, talk about skewed priorities.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: Colonel Kurtz can come off as this. Kurtz can be viewed as a rational if brutal character, he realizes how the war can be won but his commanders refuse to see things the same way he does. His job as a soldier is winning the war, not being nice. Naturally the film leaves plenty of room for other interpretations such as The Unfettered and Knight Templar.
Kurtz: Are my methods unsound?
Willard: I don't see any method, at all, Sir.
We Used To Be Friends: When General Corman is relating how the brilliant Kurtz felt from grace, the tone of his voice and the sadness in his face indicate that they were close.
What Happened to the Dog?: That is still the most asked question to all the actors from the film. Gets lampshaded at one point in the film. Given that it disappeared during the attack that killed Clean, it was most likely shot or jumped off the boat to escape the gunfire.
Kilgore praises a mortally wounded VC soldier who had killed a lot of American allies and declares that he will give him water despite the opposition to his doing so. Played with in that Kilgore gets Distracted by the Surfing and forgets to actually give the man any water.
Col. Kilgore: Any man brave enough to fight with his guts strapped on him can drink from my canteen any day.
Colonel Kurtz praises his Vietnamese enemy, saying that due to their unfettered resolve in doing whatever it took to win that they were stronger than the Americans. He goes so far as to say if he had 10 divisions of men like his enemies, expressly the ones that were willing to butcher children to send a message, then he believes the Vietnam War could be won with alarming speed.
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