Do Lung Bridge: The Making of This SURREAL Scene | Ep17 | Making Apocalypse Now 

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The bridge scene is definitely the border between the films realism and its surrealism because after that scene it becomes a different type of film

The Do Lung bridge scene is the best in the movie imo. It perfectly encaspulates the horror and pointlessness of war. Visually it is one if the most stunning scenes ever put to film. Last year I got to watch Apocalypse Now in a movie theater and seeing especially this scene on the big screen was just breathtaking.

Absolutely my favorite scene since I was a kid. Roach is a legend.

The scene involving the Roach is taken from or at least was heavily inspired by this section from Michael Herr's book Despatches - "We heard then what sounded at first like a little girl crying, a subdued, delicate wailing, and as we listened it became louder and more intense, taking on pain and sorrow as it grew until it was a full, piercing shriek............ A Marine brushed past us. .... on his hip he wore a holster which held an M-79 grenade-launcher. "Put that fucker away," the Marine said, as though to himself. He drew the weapon, opened the breech and dropped in a round that looked like a great swollen bullet, listening very carefully all the while to the shrieking. He placed the M-79 over his left forearm and aimed or a second before firing. There was an enormous flash on the wire 200 meters away, a spray of orange sparks, and then everything was still except for the roll of some bombs exploding kilometers away and the sound of the M-79 being opened, closed again and returned to the holster. Nothing changed on the Marine's face, nothing, and he moved back into the darkness." (pp. 142-43.)

The continuous destruction and reconstruction of the bridge illustrating the absurdity and pointlessness of the conflict reminded me strongly of the bridge scene in "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly."

Your Apocalypse Now videos are always worth the wait

When they finally leave, and the soldiers were running into the river with suitcases, etc, the last voice from the river cries "Youll get what you deserve!" Ive always thought that was a nice touch.

Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket two of the greatest war movies of all time.

I love Cinema Tyler in the morning.

Well done! I have liked this sequence every since viewing in 79 when released. I spent a night at a bridge that was lighted at night during my tour. It was quite different as it was the perimeter (both sides of the bridge) that was lit, don't think the bridge itself was - the Song Be bridge on the road to Phuoc Vinh basecamp, north of Saigon. My night was pretty uneventful, sitting just outside a bunker with grunts assigned to the bridge, drinking beer and occasionally tossing grenades down into the river maybe 90 feet below us, and listening to the racket of all the generators running to support the lighting. There was a Bailey bridge spanning the missing middle section which was probably destroyed during the French involvement. Interestingly enough it is bypassed now by the super highway going north, but on google maps (or Earth) you can still see the old approaches and end piers. I think I was there with my ACAV as a radio contact with Squadron or Regiment. Our tanks started crossing the bridge before daylight while moving forward to engage in Operation Montana Raider (if memory is correct). Allons! 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment 68-69.

"I'll talk about him in the post production episodes" I love this series. You should made a single cut of all the parts together when you are done.

People think that the suitcase scene was weird but I and many others bought suitcases really early in our tour. At Camp Eagle I gave money to a dude who was going to the PX to purchase a suitcase for me. He got some cheap ass Asian one because the PX was all out of Samsonite brand. The handle broke the first time I used it after I was transferred to the south. Bought a Samsonite at the PX near Saigon and it’s my attic to this day.

One of my favorite scenes from one of my all-time favorite movies. "Hey, soldier. Do you know who's in charge here?" "...Yeah..." It took 13 nights to shoot that scene. The statistics of the materialist took to create this scene are absolutely astounding.

My favourite bit of Apocalypse Now is, Willard: "You know who's in charge here?" Roach: "Yeah" Roach is so cool he deserves a film of his own.

I saw Apocalypse Now during its first theatrical run in 1979, and now we have that same sense of occasion and the feeling of an event every time you post an episode in this series.

The Roach should have won an Oscar and the Medal of Honor.

Every single time I watch a new episode of this series, I have to fight the urge to not watch the film again. I seriously have seen Apocalypse Now (in its various cuts) at least 5 times over the last year. I love this series. It's so professionally done. You should be proud of what you're doing.

16:14 - one of my favorite scenes. It's not just about how he knows where his quarry is. He's intuitively one with his weapon, knows its trajectory and where it will hit. Doesn't even bother using those crude "ladder" sights...

I always thought that actually was Hendrix on the guitar, the impersonator did a great job sounding like him

Tyler, thank you so much for doing this scene from Apoc Now! I originally saw the film in '79, being 12/13 the tix booth lady and it being the middle of the day was cool enough to let me buy a ticket. I kept thinking, wow...this what my older brother's friend Richie went through??? He was Vietnam Vet and came back home in '74, when I'd visit my older apt, both he and Richie would be smoking Kents and he'd tell stories to my brother. Richie would say they had to go deep in the jungle and kill guerillas. Being a child of 9 at the time I'm thinking they mean the ape/gorilla. LOL. But this scene is my favorite from the movie; it always haunted me bc the brotha with the Thumper looked just like Richie. On a sad note, years after my brother passed away, I ran into his old GF Karen on 42nd street NYC subway and she told me that Richie committed suicide. All our veterans need help and support, especially those who have seen combat. Please pass on to you viewers to give support to the VA and groups that help vets suffering from PTSD. Peace.

I had a funny idea that Roach just says "Yeah" at Willard's question because Willard didn't ask "Who is in command here?" or said "Tell me who's in command here". He just answered his question in the most literal way possible, kind of showing how truly gone he is, he became more of a machine than a man. But it also shows how much clarity he has compared to everyone else, unlike other soldier here who think Willard is their leader or the soldiers back in that campsite where it was raining like hell, Roach knows who is in command... And who that is? That is for Roach to know. Someone who got so deep into darkness and insanity that he came back with pure sanity and complete awareness of everything around him, but in the process he lost his humanity.

For me, this sequence may actually be the most mind-blowing in the film - along with Kurtz's death. I know the Valkyries sequence is the most iconic, but... _MAN!_ The soldiers in the water begging to be saved... the demented circus music... the "YOU THINK YOU BAD?!?" scene, with the psychedelic guitar solo (thank you, btw - I always wondered who that Hendrix-sound alike was)... "Who's the commanding officer here?" AIN'T YOU?!?!?... "The Roach"(!!!!!! - maybe my favorite character in the whole movie)... all _bravura._ INCREDIBLE! Amazes me films get made at all. Especially under circumstances like these... lol! Keep up the great work, Tyler 🙏🏼

Saw this movie in theaters, Made my decision, Joined the U.S.N. 80/84 🇺🇸 AWESOME MOVIE .

Thank you once again for this series, also for getting this up rather quickly after the last one. Probably my favorite scene in the movie, every actor knocks it out of the park, roach is so well acted & underacted by herb rice, crazy to think this is his only ever acting scene in anything (yes, he was an extra in 3 other things in the background)

Roach is one of the coolest characters in the history of cinema. Awesome character..

One shame for my odd mind is that the haunting circus track has never been put on the soundtrack and you can't find it without dialogue etc.

This is one of the greatest scenes ever filmed.

I would give this video more likes if I could. This cannel deserves millions of the views for each video, the quality of research and attention to detail is just out of this world.

watching this movie as a 13yr old kid, i knew it was something special, and time has reinforced my thought.

I’ve been waiting for this let’s go

That this scene - beautiful, surreal, hellish, and funny - became the basis for Bob Peak’s awesome theatrical poster was no accident.

I think this sequence also inspired the opening cinematic for Starcraft: Brood War, where a space marine is fighting some zerglings in a trench and gets rescued by the rockets fired by a silent black space marine just sitting there listening to a radio blaring out a guitar riff

For years I thought this scene was shot in a studio. I even created a history in my mind that they filmed it in Hollywood when they were rebuilding sets back in the Philippines after the typhoon! Blows my mind that they filmed it on location! I love this series on the making of Apocalypse Now!

The B-52 tail.. I love this scene

Was listening to the "Dispatches" audiobook and the bit with Roach is taken almost exactly from an experience Michael Herr had during the Siege of Khe Sahn. Likewise, the chopper gunner scene from Full Metal Jacket also has its origins in Dispatches. There were so many others that it's hard to even remember. I'd known that Herr had been a source of inspiration for both films, and had been consulted to differing degrees on the films but I had no idea just how much entire sequences were lifted from Dispatches. It's like Kurtz is as much Herr as Coppola wanted to be Kurtz.

Highly recommend you read Michael Herr's "Dispatches." Several scenes in Apocalypse Now (including the Roach scene) are taken directly from it and are based on things directly witnessed by Herr in Vietnam.

I’ve been waiting for this episode as this whole sequence is my favorite part of the movie. You didn’t disappoint. Great job as always. The amount of work Coppola and crew did in extreme climate to achieve those shots…incredible.

I've always loved this scene - Apocalypse is my favorite Vietnam War film. I've got friends who complain it's "not at all realistic" - and that's true, but misses the point. It captures some very real truths about the war in it's surrealism. It wasn't trying to be a film like "We were Soldiers" - it wanted to capture a FEEL for the insanity of that war - which it did.

Loving these videos. As a retired soldier, the Do Lung sequence has been a love/hate thing for me. I love the Roach and bits like that. The music. The tension/fear with the Chief. Desperate soldiers attempting to leave. Lance on acid etc. Overall, it's a great scene that serves its purpose to plunge the audience in to Kurtz's world. Leaving 'civilization'. Going outside the wire. What I don't like is the lights. Particularly the string of Christmas lights on the bridge cables and the inexplicable square panel of light bulbs off to the side. I totally understand how difficult it is to light a night set. I also get that "cinema is not reality but an interpretation of what looks real" as stated in the clip. The lights make no military sense at all. They would just help the NVA to more easily target the bridge. However, I accept it for what it is. I have mixed feelings about the use of fireworks (as another poster stated). Some are quite effective - like the big ground burst that sends out numerous burning trails. This looks like white phosphorous exploding. the other 'sparkly' things not so much. In the final sequence there are things burning on the bridge sending showers of sparks raining down on the ground that look like someone is welding while the bridge is under attack. I was never keen on the use of suitcases but a vet has explained that early on in these comments. So, I learned something today. I'm always on the look for continuity stuff. It must have been incredibly difficult given the length of this production. One that jumps out in the Do Lung scene is Willard's helmet band. Earlier in the film he has an issue, OD, cloth elastic helmet band. But for Do Lung (and only Do Lung, I believe) the band changed to a black strip of material (not tire rubber which was very common in those days). It might even be the bandana that he is seen wearing around his neck at times. Anyway, great scene.

Thank you for this video. This whole series on Apocalypse Now is top notch.

Watching this series shows how the Film itself is a series of isolated events that are greater than the sum of their parts.

I'm so thankful for your work. I'm astonished by ammount of research and all other work that went into making this series. You are making something that will last. It's rare on YT.

I hadn’t really thought about it but after watching your fantastic breakdown, I think this might be my favourite part of the whole movie, apart from the amazing visuals the sound effects/music is just astounding & surreal. I think it changed my perception of it being “just” really good war movie, based on a classic book, to...something else, something I found very profound.

This series ROCKS...carry on dude

Tyler, you do an amazing job on these videos. There is a ton of cuts and edits. Well produced. Thanks

I love this series!

“Solider, do you know who is in charge here” “Yeah”

Amazing work once again!

This series good enough to be a companion on the special features for Apocalypse Now. Hell, all your videos and series of of that quality

Another piece of brilliance from Cinema Tyler!!!!

Been waiting for this episode for years.

Your work as a documentarian in these videos is incredible. You really shine a light on aspects of Apocalypse Now that just make me love the film that much more. Your videos on Alien and the films Kubrick made are also excellent. Kudos to you, great sir. I've been a fan of uour channel for a couple of years now and will continue to be. 📽🎬❤

These videos are killer man. You do fantastic work.

Truly impressive research and work, Tyler. Your videos are always top shelf, many thanks for your dedication to film.

Hello! I discovered your channel through Adams Savages video. Got yourself a new subscriber and a mention from Adam Savage. Keep doing what you're doing

Your series is friggin amazing!

Very cool series, i like them sooo much! Thank you Tyler!

This series has been such a pleasure, so glad you're keeping it going! Cant wait to get to Brando 😁

Seeing this on a huge theater screen in 1979 was one of the major moviegoing experiences of my teen life. I loved sf and horror, and this was the most SURREAL moment in a non-sf/h flick I had seen, like a visit to hell.

"Ain't you?" Maybe my favorite line in the movie.

That carnival music always scared me like it added to the eerieness of the scene and that the soldiers in that camp have lost their minds they went insane

Christ - now I have to watch this movie AGAIN ... my wife is definitely gonna leave me.

Love all this detail, Tyler!!!

17:20 little historical tidbit..my dad's family were farmers in the Mississippi delta in the 50s, and then were in Vietnam. They told stories when I was growing up in the 80s about the barrels of chemicals they sprayed on the farms as pesticide were the same chems they saw being used in Vietnam, just higher concentration.

Hey soldier, do you know who's got the best opium? YEAH!

Yes another part this is awesome!!

I love the morning after this scene traveling up the river with the thick early morning fog like passing into a new reality were you can't tell if your awake or asleep, alive or dead

been waiting for this vid

Nice upload. This is one of my favorite scenes in the movie.

I've been to the Philippines. I will _never forget_ getting off of the plane in Manila! Stepping out through the door from the cool, dry air of the plane and into the *HOT, HEAVY AIR* in Manila was like *_walking into a wall!_* It was the most intense combination of hot and humid air I had _ever_ experienced!

I have been seeking this information 13:55 since 1979. Thank you. Randy Hansen guitar

Great doc my man!!! Love ur work😊

I always saw this scene as an allusion to the River Styx from Greek Mythology which once you've crossed you have entered hell. This also aligns with the characters on the boat only dying after this point of the film which is quite unusual for war films but makes sense symbolically.

Ok everyone. Drop the dose, wait 30 minutes, then press play

Alright I just got done binge watching all 17 of these and we're only at the bridge 😂 when is 18? These are fantastic. A whole new appreciation for a movie that's already one of the best of all time. Fantastic job really

This is a great scene, one of my favorite in a classic. Nice breakdown.

One of my all time favorites. Excellent movie.

The only unpretentious film essayist on RU-vid. Good stuff as always.

Best movie scene in history. The black guys should have become stars.

Great moves Tyler, keep up the leng work bossman.

Thank you for the background on the guitar solo!

My uncle that was in Nam said Apocalypse Now is the closest a movie has been to portraying how surreal the entire thing was.

Interestingly, there is a book called Dispatches by Rolling Stone writer Michael Herr, who spent months in the siege at Khe Sanh. Herr later acted as a consultant on Apocalypse Now & the bridge scene is actual based on what Herr witnessed; the Marines were stranded with no leadership. In the book he describes a black soldier using an M-79 tiger striped grenade launcher to take out the enemy without even aiming.

The bridge symbol was also used in The Good [ bad and ugly ], and of course Bridge over the River Kwai. Bridges provide two different borders. One: you go further up the river by boat, the river being your locus ( path ). And the bridge is the line to cross. Or, Two: you cross the bridge this time the bridge is the locus and the river is the boundary line to be crossed

I don't know where I read this, but supposedly their was a summary of WW2 vs. Vietnam that claimed that on average a WW2 combat vet spent appr. 2 months out of a year in actual battle, while the VN vet did the opposite and spent all BUT 2 months per year in combat situations. Might be an exaggeration, but personally I wouldn't be too surprised if this was close to being accurate for a lot of those guys. I joined up right after the war ended, at 17 yrs old, and met a number of guys on their way out of the military who had very obviously been deeply FU by their experiences "in country." Nothing much would shock me anymore about that war.

This series is so good.

As you're telling about lighting it up with one arc light per tower - the early B52 bombing in Nam had the code name "Arc light" (I think its even in the movie) - another similarity between the war and the production. Ha! Loving this!

Good shit Thanks

In a VHS version with Swedish subs I saw in the 90s, the line "I dropped it" got a rather literal treatment. Instead of translating it into something that means "I took it", the sub had him say more like "I lost it". One might speculate that the timid bookworm who did the subtitle work was blissfully uncorrupted by the dark knowledge of American drug slang. We laughed at it with great merriment, and honestly appreciated and enjoyed the delightfully absurd tone it brought to the scene. In the middle of this darkly foreboding and intense scene, somehow it gave the impression that Coppola found this to be an important bit of exposition...? =D

This guy is SO cool, he is the freezer!..... What a truly magnificent film!

The differences between the original, and redux, finally answered some nagging questions I had for years. For instance, what happened to clean after he died. We knew what happened to to Chief Phillips, but not Mr Clean. Buried with makeshift Military Honors. I liked knowing that.

What I love about this scene, is in comparison to Killgore's beach scene. We see what war's violence is like when Killgore is in charge of it, and it doesn't fit our idea of combat. Then we see what it's like without any leadership but death--literal night and day comparison. To me, Roach is the vet who is real, real good at one thing...that will never transfer to civilian life.

I love this scene, I love this film. My take away from do lung bridge is that it’s the perspective of lance on acid. Anyone who’s done acid before will know what I mean, the strobes and everything the circling lights

Great series analyzing a great movie

Great video!👍💥🙆‍♂️

good stuff. thx

I saw Randy Hanson this June at lake fair in Olympia Washington. What an amazing guitar player,

14:22’Yah, me too. Hands down , the best scene. This is the anti-war message right here. “Soldier, do you know who is in charge here?” “ Yah.”

Whose the commanding officer here? Aiiiiiintchew?!!😂