Apocalypse Now
This edition has both movies spanning two discs, but they will be shipped together and treated as only one title on your ZipList.
The Complete Dossier: Includes both the original 1979 theatrical version (153 mins) and the extended 2001 Redux Version (202 mins) of the Oscar-Winning Vietnam War Masterpiece
This two-disc Special Collector's Edition also includes over two hours of bonus materials from filmmaker Francis Coppola and his American Zoetrope vault.
Member Reviews
Coppola's best - Nikki
I think this is Coppola's best film. Yes, even better than the Godfathers. And I think it's the best film about the Vietnam War, aptly capturing its inherent insanity. The performance are amazing, too: Martin Sheen, Lawrence Fishburn, Marlon Brando.One of the best movies of the 70s - Superdave
In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, a guy goes upriver in Africa to find a white jungle trader, now sick. The corruption caused by illness parallels the corruption of the man's soul. It's a rumination on the nature of evil in men. But the movie doesn't really follow the plot of the book. The movie's other major conceptual influence was Dante. Vietnam is presented in the movie like Dante's conception of Hell, and the illustrations of Hieronymous Bosch who created several famous paintings of Dante's vision. Nightmarish images of waste and the futility of life and wages of sin.
Images like that damaged helicopter hanging out of jungle tree are designed to resonate with the work of Dante and Bosch. It's not just a wrecked helo, it's an image of human failure and corruption. Anyway, Dante's work is episodic, as the narrator tours one area of Hell, then another with little or no connecting narrative thread. The movie is rather this way too. Then when the movie makes it to Marlon Brando's camp, it comes sharply back to Conrad's book, as Brando is Kurtz, Vietnam equivalent to the Brit trader in Heart of Darkness. Brando forces Willard to confront his ambivalence about the war. Is Kurtz himself evil, or just more in tune with an evil enterprise than they are?It's a story about war
as a human activity, in which war takes on all aspects of the human experience. Exhilarating, horrifying, nightmarish, grotesque, elusive, unfair and above all illogical. Kilgore and Kurtz are clearly insane, but did the war make them that way or select them because they were that way? Willard is presented as the only rational man in an irrational situation and his inability to make sense of the experience is a key how the viewer should respond.
The original theatrical version had a couple of scenes missing - studio wanted them cut because the movie was running long. With them restored, the movie does run long, but holds together better narratively and thematically.Well done - FieroGT
This is the vietnam war movie. You cannot compare anything to seeing the redux version. Yes it is a tad long but you don't find it dragging and Coppala's vision of just how insane that war is comes through crystal clear. It is a brilliant piece of work and the acting it top notch. I saw this in the theatre when it came out and bought the video and had to see the redux version and the best way is at home on a real good home theatre system I enjoyed it emmensly.
Member Reviews
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Coppola's best - Nikki
I think this is Coppola's best film. Yes, even better than the Godfathers. And I think it's the best film about the Vietnam War, aptly capturing its inherent insanity. The performance are amazing, too: Martin Sheen, Lawrence Fishburn, Marlon Brando.One of the best movies of the 70s - Superdave
In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, a guy goes upriver in Africa to find a white jungle trader, now sick. The corruption caused by illness parallels the corruption of the man's soul. It's a rumination on the nature of evil in men. But the movie doesn't really ...Well done - FieroGT
This is the vietnam war movie. You cannot compare anything to seeing the redux version. Yes it is a tad long but you don't find it dragging and Coppala's vision of just how insane that war is comes through crystal clear. It is a brilliant piece of work and ...