Film Forum

APOCALYPSE NOW: 1979 ROADSHOW VERSION

Francis Ford Coppola · 1979 · U.S. · 149 min

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Inspired by Joseph Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness “Starts with what proves to be a nightmare: a stand of pale green palm trees, ominous air-beating chops, the fleeting blurs of attack helicopters, a sudden rush of flame engulfing the trees as, in magically perfect rhythm, Jim Morrison’s high, thin voice croons, ‘This is the end...’ Then the dreamer of this recurring vision appears mingled with his own demonic images, in a Saigon hotel room during the Vietnam war, drunk, stunned, virtually deranged—an American captain named Benjamin Willard (Martin Sheen). Soon afterwards, his superiors send him upriver to Cambodia on a secret mission to find and kill a Green Beret colonel, Walter Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who is rumoured to be running amok there with a private army of Montagnard tribesmen and renegade Americans.” – Sight and Sound