Apocalypse Now Redux Details

Direcor Francis Coppola inherited a modest movie about the Vietnam War from writer John Milius, and turned it into a phantasmagorical ride, in which Martin Sheen travels up the Mekong river to terminate Marlon Brando's rebel command “with extreme prejudice”. Working under difficult conditions in the Philippines and running way over budget, Coppola delivered a harrowing masterwork that bursts with malarial, mystical images, such as Playboy playmates in the jungle and the Wagnerian helicopter attack that ends with marines surfing and Robert Duvall famously saying, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” Notable faces in support include Harrison Ford and Dennis Hopper, the latter playing a photographer among the fanatical Brando followers. Now, after twenty years, comes Apocalypse Now Redux in which Coppola hasn't just tinkered with his beloved epic, he's restored a whopping 50 minutes of extra footage. Along with more scenes featuring Duvall and Brando, there's another sequence involving the Playboy girls. Longest of all, however, is a meeting between the crew and the French inhabitants of a dilapidated colonial plantation that allows the laconic Sheen to have something of an emotional moment with wistful widow Aurore Clément. Whether the additional scenes greatly enhance an already exhilarating experience is debatable, but they are certainly worth the wait.

The film vividly captures the insanity of the Vietnam war and transfers to it the feeling of unimaginable horror that marked Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness, which was its first inspiration. It uses hyperbole and overstatement to convey in