Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Apocalypse Now (1979)


Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is sent up river to find and kill Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando) while the Vietnam War rages on around them.

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The common consensus on Apocalypse Now is that the reason the film is so effective, is because the insanity of the subject matter was mirrored in the actual production of the film. All you have to do is check out the amazing documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse and you will find ample basis for this  opinion. And while it's fun to gossip about who said what and who was or wasn't high, the often glossed over fact is that EVERYONE involved in this film was an artist of the highest order: Francis Ford Coppola, Marlon Brando, Vittorio Storaro, Walter Murch, the list goes on. I don't care how much dope you smoke, film students with video cameras could not have produced a work this brilliant. Only this elite squadron of creative minds could have pulled such beauty from such chaos. I could honestly watch this movie all day on a loop.

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