Apocalypse Now - with Nick Dent

Welcome to War Movie Theatre, where everyone gets everything they want. We wanted a podcast, and for our sins, they gave us one. That's right, we're watching Apocalypse Now. My name's Rob Hutton, and I've been ordered to travel deep into Ashington Woods to a place where a man who thinks he's a god is mumbling nonsense and burying corpses. Unfortunately, following complex contractual negotiations, Duncan Weldon will be joining this recording late, without having done any preparation.

and will then ramble incoherently. To tide me over in the meantime, all the way from Australia is a man whom I'm assuming is a champion surfer. It's Nick Dent, the culture reporter at the Brisbane Times. Hello, Nick. Hello, Rob. No, I'm sorry to disappoint you. I can't surf. Charlie don't surf. Charlie don't surf, you don't surf. Yeah, and that's a common misconception here in Brisbane because we are actually, you know, a good hour.

You have to go a good hour north or south to hit any nice beaches. There are lovely beaches there, but they're not here in Brisbane. We're a river city. And in fact, we have a river that goes, it's called the Brown Snake. And it's not plugged straight into Kurtz, but it does wind all the way through the city in a quite spectacular way, which is nice. And when you get to the top of it, do you have to kill someone? I'm not sure what's at the top of it. I know there's a dam up there, but... But yeah, but yes, here we are in Brisbane. And I have to say, it's really nice of you to have me on the show. I'm one of your Antipodean fans. I love the show. Here in Australia, we have a tradition of watching war movies in

the afternoons, Sunday afternoons with our dads, I would say. But this is not one of those films, of course. No, I bet it's not. No, no. Yes. This is still definitely not Vietnam month. And Duncan has an amazing and complex explanation for why this is not a Vietnam film, which I've been looking forward to hearing. And one way or another, we're going to get it in. In the meantime, I'm going to offer you the view of the director, Francis Ford Coppola. My film is not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam. The way we made it was very much like the way the Americans were in Vietnam. We were in the jungle. There were too many of us.

We had access to too much money, too much equipment. And little by little, we went insane. Nick, what is this film to you? It's a long story, Rob. It's a long story. This film was my favorite film when I was 14. And yes, like everyone's first love, it does sort of... Throw you a bit. Yeah, it was very exciting for me as a 14 -year old to discover something like this. I think I saw it for the first time on a small square TV with lots of commercials. And it blew me away.

And then subsequently, I came into possession of the soundtrack album on cassette. Now, the soundtrack album is quite unusual in that it doesn't just have the music. It did have... most of the most important scenes, the dialogue and the voiceover. So I want you to sort of imagine 14 -year -old me sort of lying on my bed in steamy Brisbane during the 80s and just listening to this dialogue over and over and over. And yeah, it's... It's amazing you turned out as normal as you have. Yeah, well, we'll see. We'll see about that. We'll see how things go. Yeah. So this dialogue, this voiceover narration, it's kind of burned into my brain. And at the time I must have watched the film, I watched it on

VHS and I saw it twice in cinemas, re -releases. I must have seen it about a dozen times, I would say. But then in 2001, they released the Redux version. And as people probably know, the Redux version... restores about an hour of extra footage to the film to a two and a half hour film that was originally cut out. And watching the three and a half hour version of Apocalypse Now, the love affair definitely came to an end. This is a famously sort of troubled and recut and recut again film. think so my confession is i think that this is the first time that i have watched it all the way through without falling asleep which is people are horrified so it wasn't it wasn't massively shown on british tv i think

i think that i know that i watched it at a friend's flat at university in the mid 90s so this would be this would be the original cut and they started showing it at 10 o 'clock or something and you sort of 10 o 'clock on a sunday evening to start with i know that around midnight you know sitting on sitting on my mate's bed or whatever it was i just fell asleep and i thought that's weird people say how can you possibly fall asleep during a podcast now and the thing is well actually when i was watching it this time i thought i know why it's because you get towards the end a you starting late in the evening you've had a few drinks and You get towards the end and it gets quite dark and Marlon Brando's talking

very softly. And, you know, it's just quite easy to just nod off. And I think then I didn't see the redux version because I'd read the reviews that said this is much too long and doesn't add very much. And the other thing is actually watching it, I found watching it on a small screen. I really don't think you get what it is. I think maybe I went to a university screening on a big screen. I'm not sure. I sort of feel like I probably would have tried to do that. So at various points, I have seen it. I then definitely didn't see it once I was married. There was an Onion story in about 2000 or 2001 when I was... dating my wife that was area girlfriend hasn't seen apocalypse now and that actually became a sort of joke in

our marriage that that my wife still still have never watched the film all the way through but so this so i got the 4k final cut version which coppola says is is the one that he likes which is three hours long which restores the stuff that some of the stuff that was taken out and leaves other stuff out and I watched that last weekend, and this time I thought, oh, right, no, I completely get it. Watching it in 4K, watching it on a big screen with a proper sound system, all of which I think really matter for this, suddenly you completely get it. You see the helicopters.

In fact, the version I've got has got a little featurette where it shows all of the different home release versions of the helicopter attack. sort of going from one to the other and you can see how rubbish all of the early ones are you know before before finally they get even the dvd the dvd is the first good one i think and it takes them ages to release it on blu -ray and then you know for most of the last 20 years there hasn't been a point in my life to watch a three -hour film about people slowly going mad in vietnam so yeah you know so i in fact it was only because i said i'm Damn it, I've got to watch Apocalypse now. Okay, well, that's interesting. That's interesting. Yeah. I thought it would have been canon for you. Yeah, well,

that's the thing. I feel like there was a Michael Frayn joke about an English professor who's playing some version of I Have Never at a university party and wins the game but loses his job by confessing that he's never seen Hamlet. And I feel slightly about this. I've always felt shifty about this. Yeah, well, this is the Hamlet of war films. People just assume that you... And the odd thing is I do find I know an awful lot of it by heart. And I have definitely seen parts of it. I think I've seen the first hour of it quite a lot. But it's a weird... I just don't feel that... I mean, somebody will get in touch and say, no, no, the BBC has been running this every afternoon at six o 'clock for the last

10 years. But I don't think it's shown on British TV much because it's quite long. And they tend to show it quite late in the evening because it's got quite a sort of bloody start. So it's one of these things where you could watch the first hour quite a lot and then it sort of slows down a bit and you think, this is still going to be playing at one o 'clock in the morning and I've got to go to work. Fair enough. I will wait until... So I've seen the helicopter attack on Charlie Point. I've seen that quite a lot.

I think everyone has. Yes, yes. Yeah. And I have definitely seen the bits. I mean, I must have definitely seen the bits with Dennis Hopper in. There was nothing in it that I thought, oh, I have no, except for the, well, the French plantation bit, which is the one bit of this that I definitely hadn't seen before because it was only added in the Redux version. And I don't think they've, there's no way they've shown that on TV. Okay.

Yeah. So I know, yeah, there was no way I was ever going to get away with bringing home a three and a half hour film. There are things I can't sneak onto the TV in the evening. I know what you mean. I mean, my wife hadn't seen it either. And then after I'd watched the final cut, I found out the next day that she'd stayed up and started watching it herself. And she was very impressed by the first 15 minutes of it. and fully intends to watch the rest, which is odd, which is very odd. Yeah. It's quite a male film, I think. Yes.

So, yeah, no, this is my guilty apology for it being a complete fraud. This is the great war movie that I have never really had strong views about. And it's one of those weird ones as well where I think I'd seen the document, I'd seen Hearts of Darkness. which is mrs coppola's documentary about making apocalypse now which was released that was released in about 1991 and actually i think i think i think possibly the bbc had a double bill where they showed hearts of darkness first and that's why i'd seen i think we watched hearts of darkness and then then they then they showed you apocalypse now but of course by that stage yeah you know four hours in i was i was racing i mean hearts of darkness which is one

of the many things on the one of the many extras with the 4K. Have you seen that? I have, yes, yes. I watched it recently again. And it's, yeah, it's very handy when there's a movie about the movie. Yes. I mean, it's an award -winning movie about an award -winning movie, which must be a fairly small category. And I think it's just quite sweet about the Coppola relationship, in a way, that he asked her to make the film really sort of as an excuse to have her around. And then she makes this, I mean, it's not a flattering portrait of her husband, exactly, is it? Well, no. I mean, he has a major crisis of confidence and says things like, you know, I really hope they stop me making this movie. And I'm seriously

thinking about killing myself. I mean, that's, which isn't funny, I suppose, but it shows you how, you know, he is a tortured artist. He really identified with the characters in this film. Yes. Yeah, well, I think the thing is when you're writing fiction in a way, you do have to kind of enter into the minds of the people you're writing. And when you're doing that while you're also – because he's writing it while they're making it. Yes, they went to the Philippines without – he went knowing that he hated the ending and the script and that he was going to rewrite it at some point. But he hadn't done it yet.

Yeah, so you're – and – And right, for people who don't know, well, look, for people who don't know, Apocalypse Now is the story of Captain Willard, played by Martin Sheen, going up a river in Vietnam to kill Colonel Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando, who is a special forces colonel who has gone mad and is now leading his own private war.

That's it, really. And along the way, they have adventures. I mean, everything about the making of this story is... This film is crazy. The original script is by John Milius, who will be familiar to listen to the podcast as the director of Red Dawn. Don't forget Kona the Barbarian. Kona the Barbarian as well. Yeah. If you don't have a mental image of John Milius, just picture John Goodman in The Big Lebowski, who is famously based on John Milius. And that's him. He was desperate to be in Vietnam, but was kept out by his asthma. And he, I think, was a surfer as well. But he sort of bases the story. He writes a version of the story, which is based on things that his friends have told him coming back. He

says he sees it sort of, I mean, it's sort of based on Heart of Darkness. It's sort of based on The Odyssey. There's a reading of that, you know, where you've got... Kilgore. Kilgore, he says, is the Cyclops. Cyclops. And the Playboy Bunnies. Playboy Bunnies are the Sirens. And okay, fine, you know. George Lucas is going to make it, as we discussed when we did Star Wars.

And Lucas is going to shoot it on 16mm, you know, going into South Vietnam. That idea is next. Nobody wants a Vietnam film. I mean, Coppola at this point has made The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, and I think The Conversation as well. Yes, he's on top of the world, basically. He's already won an Oscar for the script for Patton.

Yes. Yeah, and then The Godfather wins Best Picture. Then two years after that, he has two movies up for Best Picture, The Conversation and The Godfather Part II. Yeah. The Godfather Part II wins, and he wins Best Director. He's very hot at this point. Can Coppola get backing to make this film? No, he can't. Nobody wants a Vietnam picture. It's too soon. And it's too soon. I think there is probably a suspicion that this looks like quite a hard shoot. Not wrongly. And Coppola, this is where your mad genius... auteur thing comes in basically puts his house up on mortgages his house puts his house up as collateral puts his vineyard up as collateral and says well i'm going to make it oh the the net effect of

this is that is that he completely owns the film in a way that very few filmmakers completely own the product which is which has you know paid off although marlon brando got i think 10 or something which seems like an awful lot Yeah, I think it was a million a week, but it might have been points. It was definitely a million a week, but I think there was a percentage of the gross as well. So we can come to a discussion about whether they overpaid for that. Yeah, so they go down to the Philippines for a four -month shoot. Is it a four -month shoot, Nick? No, it goes for a bit longer than that. I think at the four -month mark, is where the sets get destroyed by a typhoon around about there. Yeah. And they

have to stop filming. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, which is one of the, you know, one of the interesting things that happened during the shoot. It lasts 14 months is from beginning to end, 238 days of shooting. One of the more enjoyable bits of the documentary is the parties they have when they reach 100 days of shooting. And 200 days of shooting. You're not supposed to have these parties. You should never be having these parties.

No, no, that's right. And not to mention, you know, firing your leading man. Right. So Harvey Keitel is cast in the leading role. And they, yeah, it's a couple of weeks in. They just think it doesn't work. I don't know if anyone's ever seen his performance. He's not even in the Hearts of Darkness documentary. No, I'd hope they might.

I guess there's a level of sort of professional courtesy where you don't, you know, if you think someone, and I understand that, you know, because, because like, you know, he was actually doing his best. It didn't work. And in a way you're only humiliating. Like Eric Stoltz in Back to the Future, you know, fine actor. Yeah, let's move on. Michael J. Fox. Yeah, so he is replaced.

Martian Sheen, fantastic. I mean, who did they want for this? Other people. They wanted Steve McQueen. They wanted Robert Redford. They wanted James Caan. They wanted Jack Nicholson. Al Pacino says, I know what it's going to be like. Al Pacino, keep in mind, has worked with Coppola twice at this point. I know what it's going to be like.

You're going to be up there in a helicopter and you're going to tell me to jump into a swamp and I won't do it. Wise man, a wise man. He wasn't wrong. No, well, Martin Sheen, he's terrific in the film and he embraced the part. And in the opening sequence, we see him actually drunk and actually in a very unhappy state, all being captured on camera. And then a little while along, he wakes up with a heart attack. At 36. You're not supposed to have heart attacks at 36. Does he crawl to the street? He crawls to the street to hail a bus in the Philippines to take him to where the hospital is. Something like that.

Yes. Yeah, it's absolutely. And Coppola is going mad in the course of this as well. So he has various ideas. At one point, his plan is that this will be shown in a single cinema somewhere in the middle of America. with an interval so that people can go and have lunch. But it's sort of a huge screen with a proper sound system.

And everyone will have to make pilgrimages to go and see it. How much of this is all a real idea? I don't know. But how much of it's just Coppola sort of mouthing off? They invent 5 .1 sound for this. The reason why my wife wants to know why I have all speakers around the living room, it's Coppola's fault. And I mean, it's one of those things where it's sort of they invented, but of course, most cinemas don't have it. But when they show it at Cannes, crucially, they show an unfinished cut at Cannes and have spent the night rigging up the sound system beforehand.

And it wins the Palme d 'Or, which is... I think the first time, possibly the only time an uncompleted film has won the Palme d 'Or. It tied. It tied with another war film, The Tin Drum, actually. Right. Which we haven't done yet. He's on our list. But another one I haven't seen, I have to say. It's a good one. It's a good one. But yeah, but the film, against the odds, the film turned out to be a success. Yes. I mean, the other highly enjoyable thing about the documentary is all of the various sort of shots of... you know, apocalypse when, apocalypse never, you know, as people in Hollywood try to work out whether this film is ever going to happen. Yeah, and a point at which they show it, I think Coppola

is really quite... I think at that point he sort of had to put his car up as security. He's really, really running out of things that he can use. And he's obviously went... When Sheen has his heart attack, he's terrified that they're going to shut him down. United Artists, I think, are the studio that's given him some backing for some of it. And the great fear is they're going to say, well, look, bring what you have back and we'll cut it together. And of course, one of the things he doesn't have is an ending. For the ending to happen, he needs Marlon Brando to show up. Marlon Brando shows up not having read the script. Having promised to lose weight, but in fact having, I think, gained weight, not

having read Heart of Darkness, and not being willing to do anything that Coppola wants him to do, and you're paying him a million dollars a week. Well, it's interesting because he's gained weight, and Coppola goes, well, let's play him as an overweight, indulgent sort of guy. And Brando doesn't want to do that. He says, no, no, no, I don't want to be portrayed as overweight.

Yeah. i mean this is proper high -end diva material it's like neither i'm not going to lose weight no i'm thin i'm thin but yeah you're gonna you're gonna shoot me as thin okay it's interesting you know and it means that you know he has to be in the dark all the time and you you barely see him so you've waited two and a half hours to see him and then he's barely in it anyway and You know, you could argue that this is a bit like the shark in Jaws. It's a good idea.

It increases the mystique. Yes. Well, I think one of the things about this film is the extent to which things going wrong make it a better film. You know, not getting the things you want or the constraints. I mean, well, why don't we go to the After Action Report? Quick, Dad. Quick, Dad, they're on the river. When do you want to be called in? Are your children watching this in the other room without you? I hope not. I hope not. Yeah, they're not so interested in films. They're more into YouTube -length things at the moment, which I'm trying to get them to get over. So yes, yes, Quick Dad, they're on the river. Actually, it's Quick Dad, they're playing Ride of the Valkyries. Yeah. That's pretty

obviously the part. For me, I think the film starts really well and it really sucks you in. But if you're short of time, you can pretty much come in at the ride of the Valkyries and figure out what's going on and also see what is arguably the most amazingly realized sequence in the film. Yes. Yeah, I think that's it. I mean, let's talk quickly about Going Mad in the Hotel, which is the opening. Which is amazing, actually. And as you say, you know, Sheen gets drunk. And actually, again, you can see it in the documentary. Basically, you've got Coppola sort of goading him, telling him, you know, giving him instructions. Sheen punches the mirror by mistake and cuts his hand and says, you know, Coppola says, let's get a

doctor and they keep filming. And that's, you know, the reason why he's covered. It's not. Fake blood he's covered. He's covered in blood because he's bleeding. Yeah, it's powerful stuff. And, you know, it's an interesting way to start a war movie, isn't it? Somebody obviously suffering from PTSD and deeply traumatized. And all to the soundtrack of a song by The Doors that could have been written for the movie, but of course wasn't. It was just one of the songs on the radio at the time. Yeah. I mean, you know who this guy is right from the outset. It's an amazing sort of introduction. Right. Look, he's been out. He's done his tour. He went home. He couldn't face it at home. He's come back. His wife has

left him. All he wants is a mission. All he wants to do is go. And I can't remember at what point it becomes clear exactly what kind of mission it is that this guy does. I mean, these people do exist. These people definitely do exist. And you find them in every war. People who just like, this is great. I mean, Willard, I think, is at the sensitive end of men who just discover that war is fantastic and they love being at war.

And they can't handle peace. In a way, it made me think of The Hurt Locker. Yeah, me too. Jeremy Renner's character in that, he just really likes diffusing bombs. That for him is the action. That's the excitement. And being at home can't do it. All of the things that we, as centrist dads, we think are important. things that can't satisfy him. So, yeah. Going around the hotel is amazing. The briefing, I think, actually is a really good little scene. It really establishes the mythic nature of the story, doesn't it? It's such a classic, you know, the commanding officer may as well have been called Commander Exposition.

He explains the plot. He explains what willard has to do and and you know where you are pretty much from from then on it's it's very well done yeah no and he's a little little little appearance there from harrison ford yes yeah well you know we'll get to that we'll definitely get to that and introduce uh but yeah everything about that also everything about those guys those guys who are kind of terrified of kurtz even even at a great distance are scared of him and are almost scared to talk about him and really scared to say what it is that they want Willard to do.

It's, oh, I know, it's a lovely, you know, it's not very like the rest of the film, but it, yeah, it does set up where we're going. But yeah, I think when we get the air cavalry, it's just amazing. And I have to say, it is... It is significantly more amazing in the re -released version. I don't often buy the 4K ones because they are 20 quid each, but I didn't regret it for a single second.

Yeah, I think Wagner is one of those composers that owes a debt to film in the same way that Strauss owes a debt to Stanley Kubrick for 2001. It's like everyone knows the Ride of the Valkyries, whether they've seen it in this film or whether they've seen it referenced elsewhere in a joking way. And it's, yeah, it's powerful stuff. It's amazing, actually, when you see the documentary and you realize that the way that they shot this really, you know, you see the idea of the explosions and things aren't real or done at some huge distance.

And you actually look at the filming of this and you think, it's quite impressive that nobody was. killed making this because yeah it's not a real the sequence has a real sort of documentary flavor to it yeah that's what struck me that's what struck me watching it yeah they said that was how they shot it I mean in fact obviously they sort of they well they've got helicopters because they're shooting in the Philippines as starting starting great great tradition of shooting Vietnam films in the cinema in the philippines and they've done a deal with ferdinand marcos to have all of his army's helicopters which is actually the other thing about this i think is really impressive compared to most things you

see these days where you know it's sort of it's the two or three viable flying spitfires and we're trying to make them look as though there might be six of them or something whereas here it's just like oh my goodness look at all those hueys there's a swarm it's a real swarm but uh But, you know, that was one of the other problems with the shooting was that they'd be setting up a shot with the helicopters and then they'd be going off in a different direction. And Coppola would be going, where are they going? And they say, oh, they've been called away to fight rebels.

Because, yeah, this is Marcos, you know, his dictatorship was, there was a rebellion against his dictatorship going on at the same time. So, yeah, interesting. Yeah, no, so completely, they are. There's a big worry. At one point, they turn around, there's a general there, and he's there because the Philippine army has realized that this film set has all of these military assets and has now become a potential target for these rebels themselves. If you want to wipe out Marcos' helicopter fleet in one go, I'll tell you where they are. They're all over there.

and they're not really being guarded, and they're being used by a bunch of Americans who don't know what they're doing, you know, this will be a problem. And the guns have blanks. Yes. Sort of surround it with mortars, and you could wipe them out. And, you know, each day they will plan the shots, and they will brief the pilots, and then when they come to shoot the shots, the pilots have changed because... People are going on and off shift and it's, again, you get good flavor of the crew are starting, the film crew are starting to go mad because nobody's where they're supposed to be and all of this stuff is incredibly expensive. Yeah, they're paying Marcos a lot for the use of his helicopters.

But my goodness, it looks amazing. Yeah. And of course, you get that amazing performance, of course, by Robert Duvall. Yes. Right. Yes. Well, let's talk about Kilgore. One of those guys who will never be killed. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny, isn't it? That was the line I hadn't noticed at all that really stuck with me. This idea that there are some guys that all the soldiers know they can do anything mad and somehow they're just going to get away with it. Yeah. And of course, he's the one who's obsessed with surfing. And in the extended version, the final cut, we get the extra scene where Willard and the others steal one of his surfboards when they leave. And Kilgore comes after them in helicopters

saying, you know, you will not be harmed. Return the surfboard. Which I think adds quite a lot to the film. That's one addition that I thoroughly approve of. But I guess it's the idea of the boredom of war that you've talked about on this podcast and how people get into things like surfing to pass the time. And it actually isn't as silly as you might think or even satirical as you might think in that sequence where he has... soldiers surfing while the battle is still going on while the the uh yeah the attack is still going on yeah and i think he he there's obviously lots about this film or we'll come we'll come to what's implausible but there's nothing about it that's completely you don't you don't look at that guy

and think oh well there simply wouldn't have been anyone like that you don't think no there definitely were there definitely were people who were at least a little bit like that you know, maybe they weren't all like, like all of that, all in, all in one morning. But, but the, the, especially because he's cavalry, he's cavalry.

So, you know, those, those, they've got a long tradition of being a bit mad, you know, going back, going back hundreds of years, cavalry officers. It's, yeah. And I mean, I was watching, trying to work out if the whole attack is a war crime. And it's not, because it definitely is a VC compound that they're attacking. There are defensive emplacements.

There are people there who are armed. There's a woman there who will come and throw a grenade onto a helicopter when it lands and that kind of thing. They definitely are enemy combatants, but also that... bit right at the start the cut right at the start after Kilgore said turn the music on and then it cuts to the village when they don't know the attack is coming and they've got you know the sort of the children walking across in their class or whatever and you think oh no oh boy yeah yeah but that is interesting yeah yeah which and the woman with the grenade possibly leads us into the next category quite quite well well we'll get there don't worry i mean yes so i think the air i mean i i i did

actually i i i so know that this is the scene that i want to be called in for that i started watching it again earlier that's um because it's so good and yeah yeah and you could you could happen you can watch it in isolation if if you if you want to it you know it's It is truly iconic as a scene of cinema. It's horrifying too, of course, because it's done so well. Yeah, but it's a great scene. Other things you could be called in for. I mean, the Sanpan encounter is quite something. I mean, it probably wasn't.

It now feels slightly like, There's a cliche of US soldiers in Vietnam sort of encountering the Vietnamese, misunderstanding something, killing an entire family. And, you know, we've now sort of seen that quite a lot. But I suppose in 1979, because nobody was making Vietnam films, this portrayal of the US military. just being sort of undertrained not equipped for what they you know what you're trying to do there is basically a stop and search sort of police type operation but you're doing it as a military so of course the moment someone does something unexpected you open up with your machine guns because you're the military because you shouldn't be trying to do stop you know you shouldn't be trying to

do policing there it's a it's a different kind of job how this is being filmed in 76 77 how you know americans at home felt about what had been happening oh definitely yeah it's you know it's an it's an anti -war film i feel but it's got it's got that tension between millius who is not necessarily anti -war no he's quite i think he's quite pro -war and then you've got coppola who is definitely anti -war He's putting his touches and they're sort of in balance in the film. So, you know, people can get a bit excited during the coastal attack, but you're in no doubt that, you know, the film's theme is that in order to prosecute a war, you pretty much have to go mad in order to do it effectively.

Or even ineffectively. Right. Well, then you've got the bridge, which is weird, sort of into proper. proper nightmare madness here that just... And again, you know, again, it's one of those scenes that you could just sort of take on its own and say, well, this is a war movie scene about how, you know, who's in command, I thought, aren't you? You know, you could be in a situation where you're just defending your bit and you've no idea what's going on anymore. Nobody knows what's going on and... Yeah, the whole thing is insane. And a lot of people are apparently on drugs, including the actors, according to the documentary. Dan Bottoms, I think, is the actor who played Lance, the surfer. In the film,

Lance has dropped acid. To film it, he was actually on speed and some other things, a number of other things. So he was dropping acid during the film, but not, he says, for this scene. Well, there you go. Horses for courses. Apparently, there was quite a lot of drug use. Very much, again, like Vietnam, there was quite a lot of illegal drug use on the set. Yeah. So if you wanted to give the impression that this film is about Vietnam as a hallucinatory experience, then you could start here, I suppose. But yeah, it's not just that, though. It's a coherent, I mean, the narrative is quite coherent, I think, of this film. It moves from scene to scene to scene to scene.

And you know where you're going pretty much the whole way. Yeah, well, what it's got is... like like like any road trip film it does it does start they say you need to go you need to you're here and you need to go to here and when you get there you need to do something but obviously you know the sort of the film is going to be well all the things that happen to you on the way and actually the the interesting thing about that is the extent to which you can add or delete bits from that so which which sort of brings us to the french who this is definitely the first time I had watched The Encounter with the French because they just took that out, which you could do without really losing anything from the rest

of the film because sort of. And if you want to find out about the French in Vietnam, of course, you could go straight to that scene. Yeah. But I don't know. Is this a good time to say what I think about that scene? Well, no, no, no. Please do. Yes. This is the perfect moment. Okay. Well, look. Would you like to be called out of the room during that scene? Quite possibly, because I think not only does it slow down the movie, it's kind of... I'd gotten used to the idea of Willard being someone who's now like an alien to humanity. He's a stranger to the nicer emotions.

So when... When the French woman starts flirting with him across the table, it's quite dislocating. And it seems to be from another film entirely. Yeah, yeah. I love Coppola talking about this. So they had gone mad by this point. We need French actors. Don't fly them from France. Get them from Hong Kong or somewhere else. Or if you have to get them from France, get them from France, you know. But he's giving instructions for the temperature at which the wine on the table should be served. Partly because he's an Italian, you know, so it matters. But with the best will in the world, you know, that doesn't really matter.

It matters for a dinner party. It doesn't matter for a film. But they go to this incredible sort of level of detail about what's on the table. And then he doesn't think that the actors did a very good job. And basically, he just sort of turns up and says, pretend that never happened. So that scene is not in the original theatrical release. And you just think, this is mad. You're worrying about the wrong things, for instance.

That's right. And that sequence also has the funeral of Cleen, the young Lawrence Fishburne. character who's who's been killed and it's done in a very sort of sentimental straightforward war movie type way that is very much it seemed very strange to me i mean it does explain what they did with the poor guy's body right but but but it's also you know it's that sentimentality to explain that i don't think you know you don't explain what they do with anyone else's bodies i think it's i mean i know that's the first it's the first one to die and everything but i yeah i think yeah i i agree with you i i i i think i think i would you could you could very easily skip over that you don't lose anything really

it i think it does slow the film down and and yeah and i i like my films to keep moving it's yes and then you've got well you know you've got sort of arriving with with being shot out with arrows and Finally, you get there. You meet Dennis Hopper. You find out how completely mad everything has gone. You get to new, higher levels of insanity. Yes. Because having one notoriously difficult and mad actor in your film is obviously not enough with Marlon Brando. You also have to cast Dennis Hopper. Dennis Hopper would at least take direction, but also refuse to learn the script. There's a great conversation between him and Coppola where Coppola is saying, well, look, the thing is, if you learn the script,

then you can jettison the script, you know, and you can improvise around the script and this kind of thing. And Coppola says, I've just not learned the script. And Coppola says, no, that's not how it works. You can't do it. You have to learn it first before you decide. Yeah. So, yes. On the other hand, completely convincing as a total lunatic. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, that character's based on the photographer Tim Page. And I think Tim Page, for a while he lived here in my hometown of Brisbane, Mianjin, and he had his photographic archive here. But it's also very... Clearly, the character is Russian in the novel, in the Joseph Conrad novel. And the character is in the novel quite a lot insofar

as it's a very short novel. So it's quite a good portrayal of that character, I think. And it really adds something. I like Dennis Hopper in this film. And when you enter that compound, you know, you... you really know that it's been built up so much. And when you start seeing heads lying on the ground, you know you're in some serious stuff. There's a lot going on in this scene. Do you think that Dennis Hopper even has film in his camera? I mean, you know, as in the character. How mad is this photographer supposed to have gone? Is he just sort of... What does he do with the film? Why isn't he going... to Martin Sheen at the end, here, take my film, go develop it, send it to Time magazine because,

you know, this stuff is really explosive. But no. Yeah. I mean, you, like me, will watch these films and think, when are you filing? You know, we need words, Dennis. We need words and pictures, Dennis. By what time? I used to be busy quoting T .S. Eliot. She's not so dumb. Are there any women in this film, Nick? Well, it's interesting because we were talking about the French plantation sequence, weren't we? And this is the one sequence in the film where a female actor, an actress, gets a monologue. Yeah, gets words. Yeah. She gets words, which is nice, which is good for her. I mean, I feel sorry for the actor. What's her name? Aurora. Clement, I think. Yes. And she does this whole scene. She doesn't know she's

been cut out of the film until the premiere. Oh, no. I know. But on the plus side, she did marry the production designer. Ah, that's nice. Which is nice. Which is nice. So, yeah. So, I've thought of this as a typical war film that's very masculine. I've known a few women who've enjoyed it, and my wife fully intends to watch the whole thing. I don't know how she'll react when she gets to the Playboy bunny scene, though.

But I guess you're supposed to take those characters as... I mean, I don't think that that is... I mean, there is a certain lasciviousness in its shooting, but I don't think... I think that that is offered very much for what it is, which is, you know, sort of everything is... Look. Well, we didn't really talk about that scene. They're in a supply depot where everything is a commodity.

And one of the things that's a commodity are these young women, I think is part of the argument. And I think one of the things actually that it's quite good at that possibly wasn't intended at the time, but certainly watching it. Now, you see, is you've got these beautiful young women, but living under the constant threat of male violence, you know, and literally facing thousands of soldiers. And the moment, you know, this all goes wrong, the moment the soldiers do what they were bound to do, which is trying to get on stage to get to the women, and you've got the helicopter lifting off and so on. I don't think it's a problematic scene. I think that the way that soldiers in Vietnam thought about playmates was probably

fairly problematic, but in fairly conventional ways. Yeah. Look, there is another female performance in the film that is very good, and that is the voice of Cleans. mother that you hear on the tape oh yes that's a good point yes oh boy yes yeah i know another another very sort of heart rending sentimental scene which is it's very well done but but of course it is it's a classic war movie trope isn't it as soon as you start thinking about home yeah that's what that's when uh that's when you die yes yeah i i mean yeah yeah as you say there's there's one really great female role and they cut it So for 20 years, that's a casualty list. Right. I didn't actually sit there tallying up figures. I was going to

try, and the thing is that basically it all kicks off, and I just thought, no, I'm not going to try. Someone will have done it, I thought. Okay. Well, it wasn't me, I'm afraid. No. Someone has done it, I can tell you. Do you want to make a guess? Oh, boy. Would it be overstating it to say 200? No, it would not be overstating it to say 200. This is one of these ones where it really strongly depends how you count. I think if you talk about actual people on screen that you actually see dying, it's about 30 -ish. But if you think about the level of implied death when, for instance, they blow up Charlie Point.

It's 215 or 213. I mean, yeah, you know, there's a range, but I think realistically it feels like it's at the higher end of that. Interestingly, you don't see Martin Sheen kill that many people himself. Oh, but, you know, he does execute that, you know, the poor woman in the sandpan. Yeah, no, all of his deaths count. Yes, yes. No, so yes, so that's... Yes. I mean, that's a really good, that's a good Sheen is harder than, is harder and meaner than all. You know, the weird thing about that is they've just committed this war crime, this horrific out of control thing.

And then he, a man who is completely in control, fires the final shot. And that's somehow more shocking. Even though, you know, they were never going to get, how were they going to? save her life at that point you know you could make a case that what he did was a mercy although that is definitely not a case that a military court would accept but yeah it's yeah it's funny and then yes then he kills Kurtz's guard I think and then he kills Kurtz but yeah most of the time he is sort of he is he's an observer of horrible violence rather than the perpetrator of it That's right. You're able to identify with him even though he does those things. Yeah. But you're right about him becoming somebody who is increasingly alienated from all of humanity.

He never identifies with anyone on the boat crew, really. There's no sense of great friendship or anything going on there. Well, the Kula King Award for the most gratuitous American character. Again, it's a very, very obvious choice. Well, okay. Who do you think is the most? What's your obvious choice? Well, it's Kilgore. It's Robert Duvall. Yeah. I mean, you can make a case for Dennis Hopper. Really? Okay. I think you could, well, in a sort of mad, different kind of American.

But no, you're right. You're right. Kilgore. Kilgore in his cavalry hat, standing up on the beach while things are exploding. Lifting up. Knowing that nothing is going to happen to him. Knowing that nothing's going to happen to him. Loving the smell of napalm. Yeah. He's going to go home and be absolutely fine. You know, and talk about, you know, he's never going to have a nightmare. He's just going to talk about what fun he had. And yeah, you know, probably run for Congress. Except when his surfboard got stolen. Yes. That actually is going to be the worst thing that happened to him in this war.

He's going to wake up in a cold sweat. Yeah, no, yeah, no, Kilgore. Right. And introducing. Who is in this, in a small part, who would go on to be a legend? I feel like... Oh, was there anyone? Was there anyone? I don't think there was. No one really. So the obvious one, I mean, the ultimate winner of this award surely is Harrison Ford, who... I was checking and I think this is right because this is being filmed at the same time as Star Wars is being filmed. He films his scenes for Star Wars and then he hops on a plane and films his scenes for this. So Star Wars has not been released, which is why, you know, Ford will play bad guys again, but this is the last time he will play a dweeb. Absolutely.

And he looks like a dweeb too. He embodies that dweebiness. It's a great dweeb performance, dropping the papers. All of it is terrific. And after this, it's Han Solo, Indiana Jones, all the way. And of course, if you believe the posters for Apocalypse Now Redux, he's one of the major stars of the film. His name is above the title. So, you know, a bit of revisionism going on there.

I mean, it was one of the interesting times. The teenager was in the room when I was watching and doing his homework and I said, do you recognize anyone in the scene? Is that Harrison Ford? You know, at once it obviously is Harrison Ford and at another level it doesn't look very much like Harrison Ford. But he's not the only one. Who else you got there? Heavens no. Well, you really have to go next to Larry Fishburne. I think so, yeah. 14 -year -old, 14 -year -old Larry. 14 year -old lies about his age. Yeah, to get in the Vietnam movie, to go in country. And yeah, and he's great too. Yeah, absolutely terrific in this. And proper future star material. I mean, it takes him a little while, I think. Yeah, what's

his first? He's in the Tina Turner movie, isn't he? But there's things before then. Boys in the Hood, I think, surely he's in Boys in the Hood. I mean, I think now that people would say he turns down Pulp Fiction because his agent wants him to take more serious roles. That's a proper fire agent moment, that one. I think so. Because Samuel L. Jackson gets the role and becomes Samuel L. Jackson. But Lawrence Fishman does then get the Matrix. Did you notice that one of the helicopter pilots was R. Lee Ermey? I did not notice it, but only in the research afterwards. I completely failed to see him. This time around, I went, hang on a second. That's Sergeant Hartman from Full Metal Jacket. Yes. Also, I mean, he's barely

in this version of it, but the predecessor to Willard who'd gone up the river and had fallen under Kurtz's spell is Scott Glenn, who I think basically gets about two scenes in this. I think it's one. Is it two? It might only be one. It might only be one. No lines. No lines. He gives a very good glare. And you see him standing there with his, presumably is his family of Montagnards people. But yeah, no dialogue. And you do kind of think, okay, so why did they set up that?

Why did they send that special letter to Martin Sheen to tell him that Scott Glenn, he would be meeting Scott Glenn there. And then Scott Glenn doesn't say anything to him. I felt like that was, is there not more of that, more of their relationship in Redux? If so, I've forgotten it, and I apologize. I think there might be, because I felt like there was, I could have stood a little bit more of why this, you know, because the letter that he sends back to his wife is so good. You know, sell the house, sell everything, divorce me. You know, that's like, oh, right, you've lost it. I guess you're meant to take it that there's a real danger that Willard will follow the same path. and join the Kurtz cult.

So yes, I suppose he serves a purpose, I suppose. He serves a purpose. I wouldn't mind him. I wouldn't have minded more. But yeah, but I think ultimately Harrison Ford is the all -time, we've got him in a small role and you will have heard of him. You know what his character's name in this is? Oh, I've forgotten. What is it? Lucas. Ah. Which is deliberate. G. Lucas, I think. He's Colonel G. Lucas. It's an entirely deliberate in -joke.

He's bought it, Sarge. The best death. Okay. So the film tells us that we need to kill Marlon Brando. And the film, to its credit, delivers on this. And some people might think it's anticlimactic, I think it's very well done. I think it's a good scene. It's a bit like the end of Coppola's The Godfather where you're cutting between a christening and various people getting murdered. And in this, you're cutting between Brando and a poor caribou who probably deserves the award, to be honest.

Which may feature in another category. Yes. Yes, which may feature in another category. But I think that's the best death. Do you have a favorite? I mean, I thought Mr. Cleen's death was quite impressive. I mean, the chief of the boat dying, looking down and going, a spear? You know, they were all those. So those were, as it were, more sort of classic war movie deaths. But yeah, I think you're probably right that this is very much a film about... killing one person and uh so yes i think you get you have to you have to you have to give it to that death in the end that's um best meme well yeah what a memeable film it's incredibly i mean i think best meme we can cross over with best lines because you've

got you've got i mean and again an awful lot of them involve the air cavalry you've got yeah well What's your pick? Well, I think you can make great use of all those helicopters flying in low over the water. You can make great use of... I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You can actually... I have made terrific use slightly later of Martin Sheen coming up out of the water. That's the one. That's very handy in social media, that one. Emerging from the swamp. Yeah, that's... That's absolutely the one. It's interesting that that's the shot that they've now put on the cover of the DVD, the film. Well, no one remembers who Marlon Brando is anymore. Yeah, it's interesting that, isn't it? Yeah. Who was this guy? Yeah. Well, yeah.

And let's talk about Marlon Brando for a moment, who's almost the opposite of and introducing. We've got a huge star. We're giving him an awful lot of money. and he is frankly not putting the hours in, I would argue. He's been paid a million pounds in advance, and at one point he then wants to sort of pull out and is not planning to give the million dollars back. He turns up not having done the most basic level of preparation. I think after a week, he reads Heart of Darkness. And at that point agreed to shave his head. You know, he won't even shave his head. They won't, they can't work out how to film him. Great sort of cinematography work to find ways, you know, go on. Yeah, to do it. But let's be fair, you know,

if you're going to pay a million dollars a week, you know, at least you've got an actor who is properly mad. Yes. I think Dennis Hoppel was pretty mad. I don't think they were paying him a million dollars a week. No, no. But Brando, yeah, he's an icon, obviously, by this time. And he's getting paid very well now because of the Oscar for The Godfather. But after that, he does Last Tango in Paris, where he has another very broken character. Which feeds directly into Kurtz, I think, in the trajectory of his career and the kinds of characters that he plays. So really, you just put the camera on Brando and eventually you're going to get what you need if you want to portray someone who's gone beyond

the bounds of humanity, someone who's properly mad. I think it works. Yeah. Okay, and you do get, which does matter, a big star name, which Martin Sheen definitely isn't at this point, which Robert Duvall isn't at this point. I mean, I think Robert Duvall does far more for this film than Brando does, but in terms of things that might get people queuing up to see it, you know, sort of Brando. Yeah, and Brando's, you know, the horror, the horror, his final lines.

That's memeable. That's a meme. That's good. That's a meme. That's good. It's good. It's memorable. It's, you know, it sort of, it pops up in other things. I mean, there's so much of this film that sort of just is in the culture now. Yeah, absolutely. It's one of those ones where actually watching it is almost a shock to see where everything comes from. Yeah, the whole film is practically a meme. Yeah. Yeah, I think my Protestant work ethic is offended by Brando getting paid a lot of money and not even learning your lines. I mean, come on. Oh, and one other meme I like.

There's one other one. It's in the helicopter attack, and there's one GI who's going, I'm not going. I'm not going. And then they drag him out of the helicopter. Yes, yeah, that's good. For me, I can see myself making use of that clip. Yeah, there is so much, actually. I mean, I have definitely seen that scene many times, that sequence many times before, the helicopter. But I was really struck anew watching it this time, how much there is in that. You know, it's a little movie all on its own. Do you think maybe Kurt also deserves a stiff upper lip award? I mean, he does pretty much say to Willard, you know, maybe if someone did kill me, maybe that could be you. Everything would be all right. And so

what do you think? Yeah, there's a lot of this film that I need to watch again. And understanding what is going on. with Kurtz. And, you know, the Kurtz, the ending of this, Milius, I think, had written, Milius and Lucas had got an idea that you would end with a fight because it's a war movie, right? So you're going to end with a big battle. And Coppola doesn't want to do that. And he... So this is why he can't work out what the ending is. And the ending they land with is actually, I think, quite close to the ending of Heart of Darkness, where basically it's, I think in Heart of Darkness, yeah, no, Kurtz is alive when, Marlowe is the name of the character, isn't it? Yeah. So Marlowe finds him

and he's very, very sick. Yeah. And he pretty much, and they meet, he gets, Kurtz gets on the boat, he tries to get off the boat, and then he gets back on the boat and he dies. Yeah. And, yeah. And his final words are the horror, the horror. And when Marlowe goes to see Kurtz's fiance, I think this is how the book ends, she says, what was his final words? And Marlowe says, your name. Your name, yes. Yes, it was your name.

Yeah, I think, yeah, the ending that they landed on for the film, I mean, that's very much going into the realm of myth. and the Fisher King, and the death of the old king to be replaced by the new king, and all that kind of stuff. Except that he's not replaced, because I think they possibly did consider whether Sheen will just take over this tribe, but he doesn't. And then... He's going to go back up the river to see Roxanne. Yeah, he's going to go out to the French last. Nastiest Nazi! Well, again, you know, it's funny because if you read Heart of Darkness, in a really strange way, the novel seems to be anticipating fascism. It seems to be anticipating Nazism. There's one line in it where they say, oh, you know, Kurtz, he would

have been great as the leader of one of... political parties, one of the extreme parties. And you go, ah, yes, yes. Well, that's what extremism is, is when you go beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior to enact what you want to do in a situation where you have total control. So in many ways, it's just got to be Kurtz. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, yes, I had Kilgore or Kurtz, but I think ultimately it actually does have to be Kurtz because I mean, yeah, Kilgore's a weird and interesting guy. Would you be unhappy if Kilgore were your commanding officer? You'd probably be pretty happy because he has that sense of nothing can happen to him. Nothing can happen to me. And you sense that he does care about his men. I

mean, you know, he's ordering his men to do dangerous things. I don't think I'd necessarily want to be ordered to surf. But on the other hand, he says you can fight. Maybe surfing is better than fighting. And we see him show concern for a wounded VC, I think. But then he gets distracted. Yes, that's a brilliant bit. I think it's a child.

And he puts a child on his helicopter. You know, very nice. And actually, you could almost just release that. Because all of the American contradictions are in there, right? You've got indiscriminate shooting from the air. blow up anything that moves, you know, napalm the forest. And then you've got, oh no, there's a mother with a wounded child. Put her on my helicopter and get her back to a, you know, get them to a medical base. Of course she can go with him. And one of the things that I think Coppola, I think it was Coppola, it might have been Milius said, was that he wanted to capture this mad contradiction where, you know, there's sort of, the Americans are being encouraged, obviously, to go out and kill people,

but they're not allowed to write swear words on the side of their helicopters. That's correct, yes. Because that's immoral. And he's like, well, you know, come on, guys. There's dialogue like that, isn't there, where he says, where Willard says, you know, you cut someone in half with a machine gun and then give them a Band -Aid.

Yes. And then Kurtz also says, You know, we drop fire on people, but you're not allowed to say the F word because that's obscene, which is like, yeah, that summarizes it pretty well. Yeah. So that's the, I guess the American, are we still the good guys? Yes, we are. Because look, you know, we give water to a wounded soldier. We put a baby on a helicopter. But in the meantime, you know, we put. playing cards on the bodies of the dead. That's pretty nasty stuff. That's pretty nasty stuff. That is pretty nasty stuff.

I think that's one of the signs that you're becoming a psychopath is calling cards, I think. I think we talked about best lines. I mean, do you have any completely implausible moments? Obviously, this film is a sort of mad trip and it does not feel real. But at the same time, there's nothing in it that you think, oh, I'm sure that didn't happen in Vietnam. Yeah, well, we've spoken about the French plantation scene, which is a bit unbelievable.

Judgment at Nuremberg. How many war crimes are committed in this thing? Well, again, I will bow to your expertise. Yes, so please eliminate me. I think you're not allowed to shoot a wounded, well... Right. First of all, you're not supposed to open fire on civilians just because one of them makes a sudden move. So the whole Sanpan thing is a war crime. I think probably leaving trophies is certainly not a war crime, but it's the kind of thing that if your side found out that you were doing it, they might say, we need to get this guy out of the field. Having, you know, having taken this wounded woman. prisoner which is effectively what she is you're not supposed to shoot her what else you're allowed to do what

you like to your own side so yes i in a weird way i think that killing kurtz might might be an american penal crime conceivably but i don't think it's a war crime because it's an american killing an american and that's that's for american military justice to sort out if you see what i mean you don't you don't get yeah taken to Nuremberg over it. Well, what about what Kurtz gets up to in his content? Oh, yes. I think all of that's war crime. I enjoyed finding out that in order to portray the severed heads, they had actual actors or people buried up to their necks in that scene. You're allowed to do what you like to extras. That's not a war crime. You can do what you like to actors and you can do what

you like to extras. That's in the Hollywood code. But perhaps instead we should talk about the Dan Buster's dog prize for the most problematic moments in this film. Do you want to have a go and then I'll sweep up? All right. Yes. All right. So let's start with the dialogue. So there are several creative words to describe Vietnamese people. Yeah. Yep. S word, G word, D word. I think, you know, and, and I, I apologize, you know, the word Charlie is probably quite offensive as well. So I, I apologize for, for repeating that word from the, from the film, but so yeah.

And look, you know, the film, this film is controversial among Vietnam veterans, you know, in America and Australia, I, I presume, but boy, you know, it's, how would you feel about it if you're Vietnamese? Let's think about that, you know. Well, right. So this is, I mean, this is the apogee of Americans making films about how they killed lots of people in Vietnam and it made them very sad. It's, that is definitely, yes. Well, this is that kind of film, isn't it? Yeah. We're meant to feel, I mean, we're not, we enjoy some bits of it, but we definitely are meant to feel sad when, and disgusted when we see killing on both sides.

And so you'd have to call it an anti -war film on one level. But, you know, still, John Milius' script, it's quite gung -ho as well. Well, and if you watch Jarhead, there's a fantastic bit where they're watching this and they're watching the helicopters and the ride of the Valkyrie and all the Marines are going, da -da -da -da, da -da -da -da, because they love it. Why wouldn't you? The actual opera is quite entertaining.

You get that earworm quite a lot in it. You don't have to wait three hours for the big moment in the Wagner opera. Siegfried, I think it is. Yes, but there is a problematicness to the whole thing. I mean, there are specific moments. Weirdly, The most controversial thing about this film is the water buffalo. Are you aware of this?

Yes. Well, yeah. So Mrs. Coppola is going to watch the... To portray the whatever Indians it is supposed to... I mean, Indians in the... As in what the Americans call all indigenous people wherever they are in the world. To portray the tribe that Kurtz is supposed to have taken over, they get... a local indigenous group in the Philippines to do the role. And Eleanor Coppola goes to watch one of their rituals and sees that this is all actually very interesting and goes and gets her husband just in time to see them ritually slaughtering a water buffalo, which they do by basically charging at it with machetes, which is probably not the most humane way to kill. an animal and and he in this sort of sees

oh right actually this is how i can end the film so as you say it like in the godfather where we cut between you know the sort of the sacred church service i and you know you renounce satan and all of this and and actually what what's going on in michael's life where everyone's being killed at once in this you have you you have the cut between lit properly so that he can shoot it and you cut between killing Kurt who is also a great bull of a man and killing the water buffalo with machetes and the American Humane Association when they find out about this go nuts because you know some animals definitely were harmed in the making of this film the other thing that was happening at that point in the camp When

he arrives at Kurtz's palace, whatever we're calling it, there are corpses dangling. And the production designer had gone to a guy who supplied cadavers for medical schools and said, could you provide me with some cadavers? So they're actual corpses, though I think not in the film. And there's some problems with this. One problem is that actual corpses. left dangling in hot weather tend to go right quite fast and the other they realize when the police arrive and arrest everyone is that their cadaver dealer was a dodgy cadaver dealer and he was finding corpses in the traditional way of grave robbing um and so so so they don't use actual corpses in the film right no No, that's why instead they dangle extras

up there for hours because you can do what you like to living people. Ah, okay. That's all right then. Yes. But not to Water Buffalo. It's, yeah. Rob, you've really gone deep on this film. No. I'm worried for you. I'm really worried for you. It's just so much good stuff. No, so I can't remember how they all get out of it. They basically have to convince the police. that they are not responsible for these corpses being corpses and that they don't really know how they got there.

And then there's an issue about where they can be buried once they've been released. And the police are saying, well, they're your corpses. You need to now bury them, but we don't know who they are. So it's all an unholy mess, literally. Well, I've just had a message from Duncan I should explain that normally we record in the mornings, but because we're recording with Nick, Nick is recording in the morning and we are recording late in the evening, but not late enough for Duncan's youngest daughter to have gone to sleep.

So he says he is currently sitting in a darkened room waiting for her to go off. I've suggested that he try sort of muttering things to her a la Marlon Brando. Yeah, a bit of TS Eliot. We are the hollow men. We are the stuffed men. So I'm going to ask you instead, Nick, is this the operation that changed the course of the Vietnam War? Well, okay. I'm going to take a swing at this. People don't think it's even a Vietnam movie. No. However, people do think that it does capture something of the hallucinatory quality.

of being in Vietnam. It does capture something of the behavior of certain people and of your regular soldier as well. And there is an argument, I'm told, that by taking lots of drugs, the U .S. Army dealt a pretty bad blow to its own morale. So in a way, Perhaps you could argue that the duality of the film that shows a hatred of war or a fear of war, a loathing of what has to be done by people like Kilgore, by people like Kurtz, that kind of embodies the protest against it, the forces within America that were working to bring the war to an end politically. That's my guess. That's the best I can do, I'm afraid.

Yeah, well, it does. I think it does. Ultimately, I think as we discussed recently, America pulls out the Vietnam War because it loses civilian support at home. And this film being made, you know, being written while America is still fighting and, you know, and being made really just after America has left. shows how far that support had fallen i mean the studios don't want to make the film but it mainly because they think it'll be expensive and difficult and nobody will want to watch it not because the studios feel that not because not because the studios are in favor of the vietnam war if you see what i mean nobody is in favor of the vietnam war Nobody complains about this film being, you know, there is no

sense that people say, oh, no, you shouldn't have done this. You know, you're you're you're producing the memory of our brave boys or anything like that. It is a it is it is an acknowledged failure, you know, within as they how could how could it not be a failure? You're helicoptering off the roof. The South has fallen. You know, it's it. So and. And the idea that the troops behaved badly while they were out there, that they were boys who, you know, as in Larry Fishburne's case, literally boys who really, you know, shouldn't have been there, weren't properly trained to be there, didn't understand what was going on, did some terrible things and then lost. Yes, all of that is contained in the fact that this

film can even be made as quickly as it's made. It takes a lot longer for people to start making revisionist Westerns. I think almost a revisionist Vietnam film would be one in which the Americans are goodies at this point. So, I mean, this film does also stop, I think, Vietnam films being made for several years because it's such a disaster in terms of its... Not in terms of its reception, but all of the period from 1976 to 1979 is not a period in which you would have wanted to go to a Hollywood executive and say, I'd like to take a film crew down to the Philippines and make a film about Vietnam. Because they would all have been reading what was going on with the one that was down there. No way, son. I'm

not giving you money for that. I mean, it's only seven years between the release of this and the release of Platoon, starring Martin Sheen's son, Charlie. And it feels like much longer. It feels like a completely different kind of era. It does. Apocalypse Now, in some ways, it's really, you could call it the apotheosis of 70s American filmmaking in that It is not afraid to be dark, negative, satirical, but it's also a huge, grand spectacle. It's got everything. It's enormously ambitious. I mean, you release this film today, people would lose their minds. They would not believe how good it is, how ambitious it is, what it achieves. So in a way, it kind of, and the 70s we know now, you know, in retrospect,

the 70s were an amazing time for American cinema. You got just incredible films. And this is the film that really brings it all together. Against the odds, it's a hit, it makes money, and it becomes a cornerstone of American culture. It cobbled in brackets the decade. because you've got The Godfather at the start of the decade, you've got this at the end of the decade. Both great films, both films about what it is to be American in some way, but also sort of completely different films. It's, yeah, an astonishing run from him. Yeah, he's kind of a bit broken after this one. Yes. And he never makes a film anywhere near as good again. Dracula has its admirers, and The Outsiders and Rumblefish are quite fun,

but it's downhill from here for Francis Coppola, sadly. Yes, yeah, but what a decade he had. I mean, we're almost there. Worth dying for. You've watched it a lot. Do you find new things each time you watch it? Well, when they keep re -editing the film and putting new things literally in the film - Yeah, you do find new things. You do find new things, right? I think that the moment that I'd never noticed before, which I think is new, was where Kilgore, during the attack, he walks past a GI who's sort of sitting there looking bereft in the middle of all the carnage and just says, cheer up, son. And just keeps walking. And it's like, oh, I've never noticed that before. He just says, cheer up, son. And

I thought, ah, that's just a wonderful little moment. And yeah, I think it is, watching it this time, I'm aware of its sentimental streak. So we talked about the trope of Cleen's death. And, you know, we talk. And his funeral is, as we see it now in this version, is very sentimental. And the whole, the romance scene with Aurore Clement is sentimental. It sentimentalizes it.

The puppy in the sandpan scene just puts that knife in, makes it a bit, just a bit too sentimental. And I think probably you would rethink all of those scenes now. Or maybe you wouldn't because, you know, that's who Coppola is. Yeah, I mean, he is massively sentimental. Have you seen his last film? No, no, should I? No, I fell asleep in that as well. The only thing that I took from that is it was made after his wife had died.

And the thing I thought coming out of that is he really wants us to know how much he loved his wife. It's really a film about, you know, about... And so far as it's a film about anything, it's a film about his grief, you know, grief at the end of a long and happy marriage. And it's funny then to go from watching that to watching Hearts of Darkness because you think, oh, well, that really was, you know, this was a happy marriage, you know, and you can see that this couple are sort of fascinatingly... devoted to each other, which is very sweet, really. And bluntly, he needs someone like her looking after him. So you can understand why he would have been bereft by her death. But no, you shouldn't. This, on

the other hand, I feel like... This is not the first time that I've watched this film, but I felt like I was watching this film for the first time, if that makes sense. Watching it... watching a really really good print watching it properly and and i suddenly i thought i can completely see and i keep thinking about scenes i want to go back and watch you know i and almost everything almost all of them except the french one to be honest you know that's just like oh there was something in there that i'd like to see again but no there's so much in this and i i i would i would cheerfully go go downstairs now and and re -watch almost any of these scenes if i thought i'd get away with it so no it's absolutely tremendous

at some point duncan is going to record his explanation for why this is not a vietnam film and um and we'll work out we'll maybe maybe we'll put that in now so duncan weldon has flown in to this production at the last minute and a bargain price of only a million dollars a week to tell us why it is that apocalypse now is definitely not about vietnam Duncan, hit it. Hit it. Well, I mean, it's an interesting one, isn't it? Because this is many people's favorite Vietnam movie. And if you Google a list of top Vietnam war movies, this is usually in the top five. Not unreasonably.

Well, I mean, it is set in Vietnam. I'll give you that. And I think you were quite surprised when I suggested it for not Vietnam month, as if I'd missed out one of the crucial words. in my in my understanding i'm gonna i'm gonna start by saying like it is obviously more of a vietnam war movie than star wars is i will i will give you that i'm not i'm not i'm not arguing yeah that point but those star wars as we have established is a vietnam yeah it is a vietnam yeah it is it is it is it's it's been a very confusing month mash star wars and apocalypse now but you know i've had fun and that's the important thing isn't it but no but i think Look, there is no doubt this film is set during the Vietnam War, and

it features lots of bits and pieces in and out of the Vietnam War, and lots of iconic pieces, which I'm sure you've spoken about at some point in the podcast, which I'm excited to listen to. But I think fundamentally, Vietnam is just the setting for this film. And I mean, it really is the Conrad novel, Heart of Darkness on film.

75 odd years after the book came out. And, you know, Heart of Darkness, for people who haven't read it, you know, is about a guy traveling downriver in the Congo Free State. That's the personal territory of the Belgian king in Central Africa. It's about him traveling downriver to go and meet Kurtz, who runs sort of a trading station, who has gone. mad who is now being worshipped as a god by the natives and it's about the sort of slow descent into madness as you head down the river and things get darker and darker and fundamentally it's about how you know lots that we think of as you know lots of our aspects of civilization of this very thin veneer with savagery sitting not far from it now that's obviously

all about European colonialism. I think this is fundamentally a similar approach, but sort of substituting the American military for European colonialism. But I think fundamentally this isn't really... You could have done versions of this film which were not set in Vietnam, which would have worked just as well. So when John Milius is at film school, he is told that no one has successfully adapted. heart of darkness and like like any ambitious writer that's what i'm gonna do right that's the challenge yeah so he is thinking about the yes okay and i mean i mean right down to the horror right down to the you know the horror right the final words like the horror okay i mean yeah there are fundamental changes

so yeah you know i mean the biggest change i mean obviously the biggest change is the setting and you know making it a former special forces guy rather than a guy running a trading station. But the biggest change in the plot is that our protagonist is in Apocalypse Now sent specifically to kill the target. Not to rescue. Not to rescue.

That's the fundamental tweak. Yeah. I mean, the ending of Apocalypse Now, as I discussed with Nick, is very much not set at the point at which they go off to start filming it. And it's actually only when Coppola is sitting down with Brando when he's finally turned up that they sort of talk themselves around to, okay, actually, well, we are going to bring in the ending from the book. So, yes. But you see, the fundamental themes of the book, which is why I understand it's been hard to put on as cinema, is this whole civilization fin veneer. madness and the descent into madness the journey up river as sort of a metaphor for this descent into madness coupled with you know fairly episodic encounters as you go down the

river it is quite hard to put on film and I think Apocalypse Now comes very close to doing it and Belgium's record in Africa is fairly horrific i mean i mean even by the standards of european worse than vietnam you know i mean really really awful i was sent i was sent by the way just so just so everyone's aware of my bias here i was sent a you know i i make it as a rule i don't read good reads reviews of books i've written and i don't read amazon reviews of books i've written i will read Books published by the press, and I will read proper interesting blog posts.

I'm not reading the paragraph someone has left on Goodreads, but I was sent one this week in which someone gave Blood and Treasure four stars out of five and very much liked it, except for my occasional bleeding heart anti -colonialism. That's us. Essential dad podcast for all your guilty white liberal needs. But the Congo was awful. Oh, absolutely. Once you've reached the point of, should we employ some cannibal tribes to keep the other ones in line? I may have mentioned before that one of my best friends is now a bishop in part of Congo. The things that are difficult there... now have a i think quite a lot to do with the way that belgium behaved 100 years ago yeah uh and we found ourselves dancing around

this a few times when we did um about twice a few times during our irish history month yes yes yes yes and also references to casement in other episodes yeah no so okay so actually um apocalypse now it's really it's a film about congo and it's just using vietnam as a pretext I think this is true. I think if you were making it now, I think if you wanted to put Heart of Darkness on film nowadays, you would probably set it in Afghanistan in the 2010s. Yes. Yes, you probably would, actually, because that's another place where what you need is an environment where anything seems possible. Yes. Completely lawless. Totally dangerous. Somewhere where when someone says, I'm thinking of going on a journey

there, you say, have you lost your mind? Yeah. Right. In the 1970s, that's Vietnam. In the 1970s, that's Vietnam. Yeah. Okay. Actually, that's quite compelling. I do feel like they thought they were making a film about Vietnam, but perhaps you know better. Again, though, if you want to make a critical film about the US role in Vietnam, then I think, Your role model, I know it comes out later, your role model is something like Platoon or any of those sort of 1980s movies.

Because here, yes, you're very critical about the US military in Vietnam, but you've exaggerated everything to levels of almost pastiche, which I think makes your criticism somehow less tangible. Yes, that's an interesting point. It's almost dreamlike as well. I mean, I think that The Godfather is a better critique of America from Coppola.

Yes. And a critique of capitalism, if that is what he wanted to critique, than Apocalypse Now is a critique of America's behavior in Vietnam. I think you're probably right. I think that the later films do that better. They do, because they're more grounded. Yeah. Well, okay, that's brilliant. I'm sold. Definitely not a Vietnam film. Definitely not a Vietnam film, and you heard it here last. I would like to say thank you to Nick Dent for bringing along Apocalypse Now, a war film you might have heard of. Thank you, Nick. Oh, it has been my absolute pleasure and a thrill, really, to be a part of this. this this fun really fun podcast so so thank you we've loved having you and thanks to everyone who's

listened like subscribe all of that kind of thing next week next week in a shift from apocalypse now that will give you whiplash we are watching duck soup see you all then

Apocalypse Now - with Nick Dent

Kapitelklicken springt direkt hin

Shownotes

Transkriptvom Podcast bereitgestellt · Zeitmarken springen hin