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There is a conflict in every human heart between the rational and the irrational, between good and evil. The good does not always triumph. Sometimes the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature.
—Capt. Willard (Martin Sheen) Apocalypse Now Redux

The most critically acclaimed movie of the year was made 22 years ago. Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979) stands on many critics' lists of all-time favorites. Some call it the most important war film ever made. Basically an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness, which sets the story in the Congo rather than Vietnam, Apocalypse Now is about Americans lost in a war they do not understand. Conrad's novel gave Coppola the perfect vehicle for a cinematic odyssey into the heart of the Vietnam conflict.

Martin Sheen stars as Captain Willard, an American soldier sent upriver through Vietnam into Cambodia to find and assassinate another American, Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando). Kurtz has gone insane, Willard's superiors tell him; he has disappeared into the wilderness to start some kind of cult. At first, Willard cannot comprehend how this "perfect soldier" could use such "unsound methods." But the farther he travels into the hellish battlegrounds of the jungle, the more he realizes the madness, audacity, and, yes, "unsound methods" of America's participation in the struggle. As young and bewildered soldiers die meaningless deaths around him, he feels his own soul, and sanity, suffocating. In the end, Willard has some inkling that he perhaps he is as lost as the man he has been sent to kill.

In the new Apocalypse Now Redux, Coppola integrates 49 minutes of additional footage. After suffering a long and forgettable year at the movies, most critics are rejoicing, hoping future filmmakers will learn some lessons about great moviemaking.

The Phantom Tollbooth's J. Robert Parks of calls Apocalypse Now "absolutely required viewing, especially if you've never seen it on the big screen before. It is a masterpiece in every sense of the word and a thought-provoking and deeply unsettling portrait of what lies at the heart of all of us." He praises the performances: "Martin Sheen perfectly captures a man coming to grips with himself but losing his grip on reality. His slow descent into darkness is compelling. The famously incorrigible Brando gives a haunting performance as Kurtz. And as Anthony Lane wrote in last week's New Yorker, has there ever been a better cameo than Robert Duvall's?" Parks has minor reservations about the new scenes: "Each of these additions provides a greater context for the film … [but] they also have the result of dragging out what is already a long movie." The Christian Science Monitor's David Sterritt writes, "The expanded Redux is even more resonant—partly because of its added material, and partly because the passage of time has increased the film's value as a key cultural document of the Vietnam War era and its aftermath. It's a movie not to be missed."

Apocalypse Now—and its Redux as well—remains one of the most rewarding moviegoing experiences of my life. I agree with Parks; the new material isn't entirely necessary, and some may find it excessive. But this version's virtues far outweigh its flaws. See it on a big screen; to see it on video is to settle for a concert on the radio rather than going to hear a symphony. (CAUTION: The onscreen violence and nudity make it inappropriate for younger viewers and grownups for whom such images might be stumbling blocks. But if you remain focused on what is happening, and the attitudes of these brutish soldiers, you will see clearly that this behavior is not condoned by the storyteller.) Coppola's greatness is that he binds all of these searing images and sounds into a meaningful purpose. When humankind decides there is no god beyond itself, it slowly spirals downward into self-destruction—no film portrays this truth better. There are painful moments when these broken men seem ready to cry out for God, but instead they reach for the wrong things. When prostitutes arrive and "comfort" the men, new scenes show the men ignoring the needs and the sadness of these ladies; in the end, the women are trampled and abused just like Vietnam itself at the hands of ugly Americans. When the men look for dignity in their duty, violence begets violence, spiraling out of control into chaos. Every man that Willard encounters along his dark path is at another stage of madness born of despair. The film was obviously not intended to act as a testament to the power of Jesus Christ, nor is it trying to be uplifting. Instead it inadvertently echoes Ecclesiastes—human effort is futile without the humbling, guiding influence of God's grace and love. It is a giant DO NOT ENTER sign posted at the edge of the human heart's sinful abyss.

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August (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45