BENNETT INVENTORY : That Moment

Apocalypse Now -- Terminate with extreme prejudice

Coppola infamously stated, "My film is not a movie - it's not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam." The assertion comes across as pretentious or even obtuse, though it's clearly some abstraction he thought up on his slow descent toward the threshold of madness. However the hell he meant it the movie is clearly metaphorical as a mood and comes across better as an idea rather than some basic narrative -- and thank god for that. To this day Vietnam War Movies abstain from its political backstory in preference of some combat action, and while there's potential drama under both columns, very few stories brave the balance of bloodshed and bureaucracy. And that's the sorta point of Apocalypse Now and probably what Francis was driving at: the film pulled from several themes surrounding the conflict and chose to illustrate them not with expository dialogue or even historical accuracy, but rather with ambient violence and eerie absurdity. In other words: The Vietnam War. And every scene or sequence or even the entire plot is only symbolic of the reality it's depicting, up to and including the movie's only real scene of exposition - the mission brief. 

I suppose on an objective level the scene is an analogy for generals and politicians and people of power devising sinister schemes behind closed doors, but that is also literally what's happening here. But it feels metaphorical because of the pageantry put into it: the orange muddy glow in the air, the shallow focus closeups of the unappetizing foods, the jangled delivery given by each of the characters, Brando's ghostly narration traveling across time & space. The intended dreaminess of the pace and performances and cinematography really promotes the urgency of the plot, but I'm just about the vibe here - when you stand back from it the whole movie is like this really, but for this brief sequence where we're out of the jungle and in this supposedly civilized setting, it plays like a well-crafted Thriller that you'd find in the midpoint between Jonathan Demme and David Fincher. This is a filmmaker I'd trust to make an effectively atmospheric Dracula movie. 

- Paul