Apocalypse Now (redux) - What it all Meant 

I always heard the boat acted as a time machine sort of. The further they go the more primitive everything gets. from the weapons and even the french colony from the past. My 2 cents. I liked the idea

The greatest scene that encapsulates the phony American image of killing to save the victim is when Colonel Kilgore walks by a Viet Cong holding in his guts as soldiers taunt him. Kilgore gets all-soldier-like and offers his canteen for the "brave soldier" to drink from. Before he gives that canteen to the soldier, he is told that the surf was up and Kilgore walks away from the dying man reaching out for the water and walks away toward the ocean.

The thing with Willard 'repeating his cycle of violence' - the moment he drops the cane knife he used to kill Kurtz is the moment he breaks both his cycle and the larger cycle in general (as mirrored in the rest of Kurtz followers ready to follow the stronger Willard, following him in dropping their own weapons instead) - he leads Lance by the hand back to the boat - a very human gesture he does not exhibit elsewhere in the film - and finally he shuts off the radio, not just severing the figurative (and literal) link to the hypocrisy of his prior actions and his prior service but also hinting at him not actually calling in the air strike and letting the followers of Kurtz be.

This whole movie felt like one long acid trip... slowly meandering through the various stages of it on the river until you arrive at “the horror” that awaits you in the end. That’s why they always say you don’t watch Apocalypse Now, you experience it, just like any other psychedelic adventure. Personally in my top 3 movies of all time along with There Will be Blood and No Country for Old Men

He did not say “horrors of war” the said “horror”. This movie is about modernism, it’s edges, fears, and weaknesses. The idea that we are the good guys and we are helping with war is an illusion. We separate ourselves from horror and don’t put bad words on our helicopters as we blow people to bits. We act, we’re liers, we lie to ourselves, and it will end us. That’s the apocalypse.

Apocalypse Now in my opinion is one of the greatest films of all time. I love this film.

I love the smell of what it all meant in the morning.

The whole movie was brilliant. It perfectly displayed what many disillusioned veterans of the war felt about it and their stages of feeling it. At first he goes off with the helicopter cavalry and we see the violence and extreme prejudice of the military. People like Kilgore do what needs to be done, but ultimately get so entrenched in it they become numb to it so that casualties no longer matter. A random captain shows up and says that he needs to go up the river and he knows of two ways, one that's guarded by an enemy town and one that's unguarded. Kilgore is initially dismissive and we as the viewers assume that he'll choose the route that's safer. But when the surfer kid tells him there are really good waves for surfing in the dangerous way, Kilgore immediately orders a full scale invasion of the place and is largely unphased by the prospect of casualties, having two of his men surf during the middle of combat. This to me almost seems like a critique of American war movies. They're over the top and presented as glory missions while the subtext of murder and destruction is left largely untouched in any meaningful way. But more than that, it's what a disillusioned soldier would see- Excessiveness for the sake of excessiveness. Then we have the Playboy USO show. You have men so unbelievably stressed and horny that they beat the shit out of each other just to touch the playboy chicks. They clamber over one another and get the show cut early because they can't control themselves. The captain remarks that while US soldiers are acting like animals over what's ultimately just a morale show, the enemy acts like animals because it's the only way they get to go home. Then they get to the boat of Vietnamese civilians and check it for weapons, but they're so stressed out from their PTSD that they end up lighting them up for no reason at all. This is the point, I think, where the boat crew first shows their descent into madness. Before this the tiger ended up freaking Chef out, but ultimately that was just random stress from the job. This is where they went batshit insane by how terrified they were of being blown up. And yet the captain is still unphased, because he's been through all of this before, and callously murders an innocent woman. This represents the point where a soldier would feel apathy and would truly turn into a monster. Next we have the bridge that gets blown up every night. The Lt dubs it "the asshole of the world" because it's constantly under fire. As they go up the river, things progressively get worse for them, and this is their final destination before they leave their world of civilization. The fact that the last Army outpost before reaching the Colonel is no accident; it's symbolic as a bridge between worlds. The Captain goes out to find the commanding officer of the bridge, only to discover that there is no commanding officer, or if there is then nobody knows who he is. Soldiers are acting on instinct, like animals. They do what they were taught to do- Stay in a trench and fire at the enemy opposite them. In the carnage, there's no leadership and no order- Just chaos. This represent the final transformation of a soldier before the last step in which they lose all of their humanity. The apathy is palpable when we discover that the only reason they're fighting to keep this bridge is for political reasons above their heads so that the generals can say that they "kept the road open". After this, we learn that the Captain was not the first captain to be sent to kill the Colonel. The previous one went through the same path, and eventually succumbed to his insanity to fight for him. The final stage is insanity. The depths of the Colonel's depravity are shown here as we discover exactly what happens to people who went through the conflict. First everybody starts with a Kilgore and sees the useless waste of men and resources, then everybody sees the decadence of USO shows and how people will devolve into their base instincts under stress, then we see how everybody will stand on the edge of civilzation and forget their previous lives, going into complete and utter disorder, and finally there is nothing left for the soldier but all of the violence cooking in his imagination. An amazing look into how people came to get PTSD.

One of the most extraordinary, deep and important movies of all time

'Apocalypse Now' Is like 'Full Metal Jacket' on acid. Lots of acid.....

Upriver dude, upriver, not downriver.

The Do Long Bridge scene gives me chills

This is my favorite movie of all time. When I first watched it, I was 17 and deeply depressed (due to various circumstances in my life) and that movie hit me like a ton of bricks. It’s the only movie that genuinely made me want to die. I came out of the cinema feeling like the entire weight of humanity’s pain came down on me. I spent the next few months literally obsessing over this movie, I kept rewatching different scenes on RU-vid, listening to the soundtrack, I learned Kurtz’s monologue in two languages, etc. I’m usually not into war movies and I don’t know anything about war anyway but something in this movie resonated with me. It just speaks to my demons in a way no other movie does. Three years later, Apocalypse Now is still the most important movie in my life and I come back to it occasionally. I just rewatched it for the fifth time yesterday. Felt the need to do it, considering the situation that unfolds around me (I’m Russian and anti-war). A lot of stuff in my life has changed, I’m genuinely better now and my perspective on Apocalypse Now is also much more optimistic these days. In the end, Willard was stronger that Kurtz and he came out the other side standing. My favorite moment in this movie was when the French woman spoke to him and said: there’s always been the two of you, the one who loves and the one who kills. This phrase initially overwhelmed me, I could say it even transformed my outlook on life but now I understand it even better. Veterans of war suffer because they are fractured, they can’t integrate these two parts of themselves into one. How can someone so good and loving do such atrocious things? Well, it’s not so hard, apparently. We’re all perfectly capable of crossing that line even if we don’t mean it. The hardest part is to remain whole. Remember when Hopper’s character spoke gibberish to Willard about dialectics? I think it’s another important part of the movie. This is simple dialectics, he says, there’s only love and hate. Kurtz is quintessential hate. He overcame the hypocrisy of American army and war in general but he failed to overcome himself. He succumbed to the binary world of hate and it turned out to be a dead end. He suffered and he was glad to die. The truth is, there are no dialectics - you can do both, you always could. Willard understood it. He did what had to be done but not for the army. He refused to follow Kurtz into the false darkness like Colby did. In the world of false dichotomy, where American army only “loves” and “saves” everyone at war and people like Kurtz engage themselves in total destruction, Willard stepped on a path of reintegrating himself back together. It gives him a chance to survive, maybe live on. Maybe one day he’ll even forgive himself. Not Lance though, Lance is a goner. Poor kid. Anyway, it’s simply a masterpiece. The only movie that made me achieve actual catharsis. One day I’ll move on from it but it’ll always stay in my heart. Sometimes you just watch a movie like Apocalypse Now and think how lucky you are to live in a world with such genius works.

“The longer I stay in this room I get weaker while the longer Charlie squats in the bush he gets stronger”

My take on this is that the Willard was afraid of ending up as a Kurt's but he deeply lusts over that very idea. But finally, he comes to his senses and took control of his life by ending Kurt's for good.

I never realized watching this when I was 15 how insane and difficult this movie was to make. Not just from a technical and practical standpoint, but philosophically. Incredible

“We’re going 75 clicks above the DuLong Bridge” “That’s Cambodia Captain”

"Any given society is only sustainable through self-control, fear, and social norms."

I feel like the scene at the French plantation is super important. It’s not only an interesting history lesson but a direct comparison between the old French colonialism and the American Vietnam war with striking similarities. Including how both the Americans and the French try to make this foreign place like home with no regards to the Vietnamese people. It shows how the Vietnam war was nothing but a new colonialism. While I feel the sex scene was kinda pointless the conversation with the French colonists really helps to drive many of the films messages home imo.

Watched the release of Apocalypse Now: final cut at the cinema and it was amazing. I recommend seeing it on the big screen with surround sound.

Small nitpicking. Use of a Labrador breed was reference to being blindly led. Also puppy underscores innocence. In both book and movie they go up the river rather than down. Speaks to constant resistance to change, journey. It's more explicit in the book. Again, very minor. Great video.

My parents were complaining about the "ambiguity" of the ending, wondering if he made it back to base or not. Me: "why do you need to know that?" Dad: "you're missing the point." My dad missed the point entirely

"Drop the bomb. Exterminate them all." Written in Colonel Kurtz's memoir. I was hoping you'd talk about this. The movie is a journey. More than one time "the end of the river" is mentioned, or something along those lines. It's been mentioned in other comments that this is similar to stories in Greek mythology where it's a descent into the afterlife, from which you can't return. I think this is Colonel Kurtz's belief as well. Colonel Kurtz believes that in order to win war, you have to befriend horror and moral terror. But he also believes you can't ever come back from that. He - and every soldier that has ever fought a war - is forever changed, never to return. They are sacrificial bulls given up for something intangible. And so he writes a message to the main character - exterminate them all. Kurtz's war is over, and without the war, there is nothing left and nothing left to do but die. Because he became the war himself.

I wached this movie for the first time after i got out of the Marine Corps, and it felt like pure PTSD. I just sat and stared as the credits roled.......................

One of the best war movies ever. Such a huge production. Everything you see is insanely well detailed

The beauty of movies like this that become fodder for discussions is anyone can watch it and come away with something either the same or different.

Francis Ford Coppola. Apocalypse Now. In Vietnam in 1970, Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) takes a perilous and increasingly hallucinatory journey upriver to find and terminate Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), a once-promising officer who has reportedly gone completely mad. In the company of a Navy patrol boat filled with street-smart kids, a surfing-obsessed Air Cavalry officer (Robert Duvall), and a crazed freelance photographer (Dennis Hopper), Willard travels further and further into the heart of darkness. Of all the war movies that I have seen, this film is the only one that truly made me see how someone could go insane after being a participant in any war conflict. The movie has two endings, the first involved Willard (Martin Sheen) leading Lance (Sam Bottoms) by the hand as everyone in Kurtz's (Marlon Brando) base stands by and looks, and ends with images of Willard's boat pulling away from Kurtz's compound superimposed over the face of a stone idol which then fades into black. The better ending shows an air strike being called and the base being blown to bits in a spectacular display, consequently killing everyone left alive. Apocalypse Now...Great Movie, Impressive Cast, Amazing Story. "The horror, The horror."

Sgt. Kilgore???? Try Lt. Colonel ....

In the nearly forty since I've first seen this movie, for all the discussion that I've heard on it, yours' is the very first and only to spend even a moment contemplating what Lance Johnson the surfer is experiencing. Well done!

Kilgore is a Lieutenant Colonel, not a Sergeant. You even said his name as his actual rank was displayed on the helicopter.

It is shot so incredibly. I heard that Francis Ford Coppola was the first to use a brand new film stock, or at the very least, one of the first to use it. Incredible.

Incredible analysis of themes and motifs as always!

Bro Don't stop your videos are super dope

Coppola has directed so many epic masterpiece films with “The Godfather” being my all-time favorite, but “Apocalypse Now” is Francis Ford Coppola’s grand OPUS. The combination finished product and the long, mind bending journey to get it made may never happen again.

You show me new way to appreciate movies.

I think you are off about Willard and "cycles of violence." Willard's narration says, "I wanted a mission, and for my sins, they gave me one. Brought it up to me like room service. It was a real choice mission, and when it was over, I never wanted another." It's clear that the events changed Willard and he no longer had a desire to be sent out to kill again.

A great video analysis of a true masterpiece! (Major (Retd) British Army ... veteran of 3 conflict zones). Nice work!

One of the best films ever made! Very well done video dude! Thanks.

Thank you for taking the time to make this.

This scene at the bridge before they reach Cambodia has stuck with me ever since I first watched this movie. Really hope Netflix keeps this up because I don’t want to rent it online again for a 5th time but I probably will.

So well made that you’d have no idea it was made in 79. Such a powerhouse of a movie and Brando’s best performance ever for me 🙌🏻

Great job on the synopsis. Very intelligent and provoking.

I genuinely believe your machine of society analysis is the way to view the movie. At the same time each character and scene serves a purpose it also captures moments unexplained from the war. In which it made each individual soldier crazy. There was a number of things. Overall a top 5 movie all time on my list forsure.

Before I watched Apocalypse Now I never had a favourite movie. There were too many great movies to choose from. It was almost bizarre to me how sure I was that Apocalypse Now was my favourite movie when I first watched it. Before I watched it there wasn't a single movie that I had watched that stood out so much from all the rest the way that Apocalypse Now did, and if I'm being honest I'm not sure what it is about Apocalypse Now that stands out so much from every other film I've seen. I'm not entirely sure why it's my favourite film but the curious thing is I am absolutely positive that it is indeed my favourite film.

THere's so much more to say about this masterpiece.

Well done, thank you

Awesome video dude thanks

I dosed on edibles last night - and I mean it was like taking a DOSE of lsd... And I watched Apocalypse Now--redux. WOW, I've seen it before....but this time, it totally blew my mind!

got to write an essay on this by tomorrrow and ive just finished watching it...too stunned to start writing now lol

The theme I found most important in this film is the quote made by Kurtz when he was talking about horror

You notice "sergeant " Kilgore's hat in camp has his lt.col insignia and not the next day during the surf scene. The scene with the French was fascinating.

The book isn't about war, it has been a long time since I've read the book so it is hard to be specific about it, but my thoughts were it was about a man who ceased to be civilised.

"Who are YOU?" "I'm next, ma'am!" Not bad acting for the Playmate of 1974.

The moral terror, to know that it's perfect.

pretty good video but dude you need to simplify your script. you use an excessive amount of technical words which makes some parts of the video seem overcomplicated. i understood everything you said, but found myself having to rewatch some parts of the video. also a mini summary at the end of the video would help its flow and get your point across

At that time when that Coppola's movie was released, it didn't have good critics nevertheless, over time Apocalypse Now has been considered a masterpiece, don't you agree?

One of the greatest movies ever.

Not since Tropic Thunder has a film so accurately depicted the hell of war.

I'm just glad the surfer dude survived, not cos he's my favourite, but because I hate it when a team is sent to do something and then everyone does except the main character.

I felt the whole chapter with the French colony was good in a vacuum and I know why it was in there but it was a bit too convenient for my liking how they got there. It did highlight some interesting overlooked facts about the Vietnam conflict in general which I why I think it's important. It was well acted as well but just from my opinion it was simply a too easy bridge for the characters to recoup. I love both cuts for different reasons. I felt the original has an edge since it focused tightly on the boat and the mission if that makes sense. I do love the redux simply because the world is just darn interesting to watch.

Our main character did show growth in the end by not dropping the bomb. He switched the radio off and brought Lance back with him so he did grow and is a better person by the time the credits roll.

I understand the nature of "less is more" and "gratuitous overkill" but for me, Redux, or for that fact Redux+documentary+another 6 hours wouldn't be enough for me. Coppola has a Malick like quality of creating living poetry on a beautiful canvas. The French Plantation scene is one of my favorite scenes not only for Clean's funeral but it is almost like another bonus film. A new and varied protagonist to join even if for less than an hour. Solid job. Under ten minutes. Impressive

A brilliant masterpiece. By far my favorite. A descent into the darkness of man's soul. Everyman has a breaking point.

Lt. Col Kilgore. Not Sgt.

Don't know who will see this but i have a theory about the French outpost. The necessity of the outpost isn't exactly explicit in the way it relates to the plot, however there is a line from the leader of the outpost that i found interesting. I'm paraphrasing now but essentially the French man shows a plaque of people that they had killed, and they mention American soldiers. I believe they said 6 or so, which if you do the math those soldiers would be Kurtz, the man who joined Kurtz before Willard was sent, Willard, Chef, Lance, and the Captain. I believe it represents these characters because the military command had explicitly said to Willard that the mission didn't exist nor would ever exist. Also the mission in it's own right was a suicide mission of sorts so none of those who were sent would be expected to make it back alive, therefore there would need to be an acceptable cover-up story for what happened. That's my own theory and I'm sure there's likely holes in my analysis but i was drunk as shit the last time i watched it in my defense.

I watched this while I was high and I was so into it. Great movie.

“At first I thought they handed me the wrong dossir, I couldn’t believe they wanted this man dead. 3rd generation West Point top of his class, Korea, airborne, about a thousand decorations et cetera et cetera.”

Wild Mangos Man

There was a certain point where he felt the river was going towards him and this would represent the point of no return, where you could feel it pulling you and you had no choice

Perhaps you can argue scenes that do not flow the plot, but they are significant to the MEANING, and artistically beautiful... The best two music compositions of Carmine Coppola were cut out of the original, and present in the Redux. Cleans Funeral, and the Love Theme

The journey to the heart of darkness is an eternal archetype, probably necessary on many a hero’s journey

I think it’s one of those “it’s about the journey not the destination” story’s. The journey to the deepest darkest corridors of the human soul.

Did you do this as an assignment for a Film Critic class your taking? Well done, I've not watched the film but I can almost understand the whole plot. I will look for this Classic masterpiece.

"You're only a errand boy" the horror the suspense nothing anything like it

Was that a Spec Ops The Line reference at the end? Very nice.

I get flashbacks to this movie and the bathroom scene from FMJ.

I always thought H2G2 should have been filmed in the same way, pure amazing story telling

Probably one of my favourite movies theres so much in it definitely a movie that can be watched over and over

It’s been 50 + years since I served. I flew out of Saigon in January 73. Lost my wife of 48 years in September 21. Watching this triggers to many memories. Looking for the exit. Called the VA veterans crisis hotline right after my wife’s death. They responded a week later. Called back again put on hold for 45 minutes. It’s a good thing my wife would not allow guns in the house. I figure about 100 plus miles off the side of the mountain from the Skyline Drive will work just fine.

I was thinking the only scene in the movie where I hoped for better was the very final shot which shows Willard with PTSD in his eyes & the words "horror, horror": It doesn't feel redemptive, and redemption might feel difficult for people who experience war. However, redemption feels possible in the final scenes. As Willard kills captain Kurtz he.. i) drop the sword irrespective of what might happen to him (puts down his weapon, a symbol of relinquishing war) ii) leads Lance back to the boat (begins to help, rather than hinder others) iii) Turns off the radio and his link to the war effort (is no longer seeing himself as a soldier under authority) & explains how he's no longer in their army. iv) Takes the reverse boat journey, out of the heart of darkness and back to civilisation (is on a journey back to redemption) This is perhaps his point of understanding the true reason for war and to resolve the war in his conscious: In context: The french woman explained there are 2 versions of a man: the one who kills and the one who loves, and whilst that is true and men are compartmentalised and riddled with PTSD they can only self medicate or try to escape themselves, or give into the horror. They are not whole. This is the journey of war, into the heart of darkness. At the end of the movie Willard shows the true and honest part war can play in the world of men, which is to defeat that which is horrifically evil. Willard does as much as is needed in slaying Kurtz, who has settled into the heart of darkness as his final resting place e.g at peace with evil, horror and insanity in his heart. Conversely Willard chooses to visit the heart of darkness to end the evil present there but then gets out of there stat. He does not take his place on top of the pile of madness that is Kurtz's cult at the heart of darkness, neither does he return to his employer for the next mission. Instead, he drops his weapon, disassociates from the army and starts a journey out from the heart of darkness. In short, he's now reversing his journey back toward civilised humanity, both literally and figuratively. To that end it has the potential for a reverse journey back to his humanity and into redemption. However, Copolla then ends the movie by saying "horror horror" with a look of PTSD in Willard's eyes. This is a man still very much haunted by PTSD and we can only perhaps hope that as he journeys out from the heart of darkness, that too might be overcome by hope; although we've seen Willard has not been able to in the past. Whilst the individual scenes of the Vietnamese war in this movie are realistic the overall narrative feels contrived. However, the moral philosophising of the movie is legendary, if disturbing. Would have loved to have seen the possibility of redemption glinting in Willard's eyes at the end to represent his journey back from darkness and into light to remind everyone that redemption is a journey too. Powerful movie.

Only watched for the first time a few days ago, followed swiftly by Platoon. I watched FMJ some years ago and never cared about it. Platoon was a cheap attempt in my opinion but this...... Made me just sit and think for some 15 minutes after the credits rolled and I hit pause to give myself time to think about what I just saw. The number of films that have made me do that, I could count twice over on one hand. What a piece of work

What does the redux do different/ add to

Masterpiece!

They travel upriver, as Martin Sheen gets closer and closer to the target of his mission. He becomes more like that target. He starts to agree with Colonel Kurtz and his methodology. Willard is just a soldier who has to choose to follow his orders. Which are just as mad as everything around him. How do you keep your sanity. By parroting back the shit you learned in film school. I think the only way to understand Apocalypse Now. Is through the eyes of somebody who has actually been in country. Because until you go up that river you're just looking at a map. The surfer he just rides the wave. "if you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs" We are members of the audience. We are entertained.

A masterpiece. My favorite film of all time

I would have to say this is the best movie on the Vietnam War. Not because it’s conveying a historical passage; but lessons on human condition, morality and the insanity of it all.

I'd love to see someone do a comparison to Bird Box and Apocolpyse Now/Heart Of Darkness

Amazing film which I watched in the 80s x a group of us sat in my house watching it on video ! Our age group grew up in Britain while this war raged in Vietnam ! The whole story line was amazing and sad ! With the beautiful back drop of Vietnam in an awful war that was conflict with a huge question mark ?? Amazing film with fabulous music of the that time ! Very very sad how humans behaviour destroys everything ! Especially when eventually the outcome of Vietnam war didn’t even give America victory ! Only destroying their own service men even those that survived x

Love me that Redux version. The French plantation has depth and scope that too many seem to overlook.

I thought the French Scene anchored Willard. It ga e him someone to return to within the Indochina world.

The boat is going UPRIVER!.

Was in Atlanta in 1979 and was just looking for a moive to see with my future wife. We picked this was and I was distured for the next 3 days.

Today i rewatched the film, firs time watching the redux (bad movie for a quarantine i must say. hehe) I'm halfway (and a bit late) to the video, but i had to make a stop to say that IMO the french family scente actually adds to the plot, maybe not in a very direct way or totally related to the story, but more in a intrinsec way. You see, as is correctly being pointed in this video, a lot of the story of the film revolves around the effects on war on soldiers, the breaking points they have and how they perceive the war. And this scene does a great work of adding that in the mix on Willard's head. They talk a lot about what's the role of the USA in the war, what is the war they're fightin, the interests behind that, and even the way the oldest guy talks about being able to struck a working deal with the Viet Mihn (and also the chat between the wife and Willard at the bed scene). I think this all contributes in a very major way to the development of Willard's character on the film (he even says in the end "Even if i'm not in their army anymore) or something amongst those lines. Also it was pretty good to see a good farewell to Clean. So, the scene could be out of the film and it still would be a concrete story and a complete production but i think that it actually adds a bit more of deep to the plot or at least the character development in it

You can't even handle his GENIUS man...

I doubt it was intentional, but this film “became” the Vietnam War. When America first entered into Vietnam we had a clear vision, a clear purpose. But, as the war dragged on, it turned into a nightmare. Nobody knew what was going on anymore.

I think this movie is more a retrospective on the horrors of man rather than the horrors of War.

Just realized after watching last night that this book is based off the novel "heart of darkness"

Only when we are prepard to go up the river into the jungle to face a guy like Kurtz, can we find out who we really are, wether good or bad !!

I watched the Final Cut, and I don't remember the scene at 5:32. Is it in another version, or did I just miss it somehow?

A key to the movie is a book seen in Colonel Kurtz room, it was "The Golden Bough ", by James Frazier en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Bough?wprov=sfla1