Cinema
Apocalypse Now
Francis Ford Coppola · 1979
Synopsis
In a Saigon hotel room, Captain Willard awaits a new mission. Summoned to Nha Trang, he is ordered to find and eliminate Colonel Kurtz, a special forces officer who has broken free of his command and rules, beyond the Cambodian border, over an army of his own. Willard goes up the river aboard a patrol boat, with Chief Phillips and three young sailors. On the way, he sees helicopters attack a village, watches a show put on for the soldiers and reaches the Do Lung bridge, the last post on the river, constantly destroyed and rebuilt.
Context
The shoot took place in the Philippines: 238 days of filming, from March 1976 to May 1977. A typhoon destroyed the sets in May 1976; the first actor in the lead role was replaced shortly after filming began by Martin Sheen, who suffered a heart attack in March 1977, at the age of thirty-six; the helicopters rented from the Philippine army were recalled to fight insurgents. Coppola put his house, his car and his past profits up as collateral to finish the film, which was presented unfinished at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival: it was the first time the festival had selected an unfinished work for competition.
Who it is for
A film of two hours thirty-three minutes in its 1979 version; the 2001 version adds forty-nine minutes, and the 2019 version runs three hours two minutes.
Prizes and reception
Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1979, shared with a German film by Volker Schlöndorff, and thirtieth in the American Film Institute's ranking in 2007.
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