Film Club 09

I thought the opening 15 minutes were superb, it really hooked me into the whole experience. After that my interest waned when they met the first group with the surfers, I think it might have been because I was always thinking "when were we going to see Kurtz" Each scene though was expertly done, and the darker and darker the bases got the atmosphere really did give a sense of dread. I kind of flitted in and out, which might have been because i watched it on a shitty divx file on my computer, rather then on the television with nothing else to distract me.

I particularly liked the last base they head to, it really does serve as an example of what war is like, there was no c.o. no command and no control. Also when they finally reach the camp holding Kurtz the atmosphere it generated was incredible. Visually this film is a cut above the majority that are out there.

I do think however that Full Metal Jacket is the better Vietnam film, it's less preachy while still making the same points about war.

Also, if there's any budding screenwriters around here, do you have anything to say about Robert McKee's argument about Apocalypse Now in his book 'Story'?

I think this is my 4th viewing of the original version (I've seen Redux twice) yet it still seems very fresh. I'm amazed at how well it's aged considering so many scenes have entered the worlds pop culture, it still manages to avoid any cliches and there really is no other war film quite like it. Personally I really like the ending, it leaves quite a lot to think about and interpret, I think that in killing Kurts Willard finishes his tranformation into the very thing that he set out to kill and that his journey through 'the horror' and the various things he reads about Kurtz make him become Kurtz sucessor. A real classic quite possibly Coppola best film.

Sickboy wrote:Indeed.

Vladimir Nabokov wrote:Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palette to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

As he notes a paragraph or two later, you can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.

Teeth-gnashingly good writing.

For what it's worth I think I must have had quite different experiences of watching Apocalypse Now to many others on the forum: in the same way that reading Ulysses without having read the Odyssey would make the former a different book, AN without having read Heart of Darkness would have been a different film - in that the experience of viewing the film becomes to some extent about recapturing the experience of reading the book, or perhaps more accurately about pondering the points of difference and similarity between the two.

I'll start rehashing Four Quartets material, poorly, if I keep on like this but the upshot is that the book is very much worth checking out if you were impressed by the film. It's only 120 pages or so - you'll do it in a weekend.

I started watching it last night but it was very late and I was knackered so I fell asleep about 15mins in :fp:

I loved what I saw though and will try to watch it properly tonight.

Not as amazing as I remember but still amazing none the less. It's such a unique take on the effects of war and there really is no other film like it. The cinematography is dazzling and I'm baffled why this hasn't been released on blu-ray yet. There isn't much more that hasn't been said. Kept me hooked throughout.

Now I'm off to watch the original The Taking of Pelham 123. Would've been my choice if picked this week.

Rog wrote:Now I'm off to watch the original The Taking of Pelham 123. Would've been my choice if picked this week.

I saw that for the first time a couple of weeks ago. It's brilliant!

going to watch this tonight (apocalypse now)

Ok, so this film is kinda beautiful. It is the least "war movie" like of any of the vietnam movies I've seen - it has a vivid dream-like quality to it. I have seen it it a couple of times, but not for many years, and had totally forgotten about, for example, the surfing!

I unfortunately fully remembered Dennis Hopper making an appearance as... an over the top Dennis Hopper. He really grated, as usual. For me, the movie is all about the journey, and not the destination. I'll be honest, I have never felt much about Brando's appearance, and I kind of didn't care by then what happened.

The turning point of the movie was probably when whats-his-face gets speared. After that I felt it got a bit too messy and random. Despite the strangeness of the rest of the movie, it always seemed to have a certain clarity that went out the window after they reached Kurtz's camp (I'm gonna go ahead and blame Dennis Hopper).

The music choices are incredible, and the Ride of the Valkyries scene is probably one of the greatest movie scenes ever filmed. Even the Doors at the end was really fitting (and another thing I'd forgotten).

Was Captain Kilgore a reference to Kurt Vonnegut? I hadn't read any of his books last time I saw it, but the whole surfing thing is the sort of unbelievable anecdote he comes out with in his books. It's funny and tragic at the same time.

Good movie, and a good first pick. I don't generally watch this kind of movie anymore, but am glad I did.

Hopefully watching this tonight!

Sorry!
:oops:

I knew my steelbook would turn up after I watched it :lol:

Right first of all I though the film was excellent even though I apparently saw the inferior version :lol:

. I did find the last part of the film a little underwhelming however partly because they had built up the Kurtz character almost too well. So well in fact, that whatever he turned out to be was always going to fail to live up to the myth. Dennis hopper doesn't help either. His first appearance as they arrive at Kurtz base totally destroys the impact of the scene IMO. I guess he wasn't that bad but he just overdoes it. As for the rest of the film it created a really errire atmosphere and deffo had a sense of chaos basically to say that they had no idea what they were doing in that war and had no control. For example, as someone said when they came across one of the later bases which had no CO and basically was in utter chaos. It was also good for showing how war changes people and drives them to insanity and in different ways too. So yeah it was good sorry if that post seems a bit all over the place. Oh and I’ve whittled my choice down to 2 so i'll have it up by this evening.

Tell us tomorrow 8-)

I won't be able to participate in the next one

- I'm off to Spain for a week

Thought I'd mention it before the film was decided so it didn't look like I just didn't fancy the movie choice :shifty:

Apocalypse Now is a 're-imagining' of Joseph Conrad's darkly beautiful, exquisitely written 'Heart of Darkness' (1902)

Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Joseph Conrad. Before its 1902 publication, it appeared as a three-part series (1899) in Blackwood's Magazine. It is widely regarded as a significant work of English literature and part of the Western canon.

The story details an incident when Marlow, an Englishman, took a foreign assignment as a ferry-boat captain, employed by a Belgian trading company. Although the river is never specifically named, readers may assume it is the Congo River, in the Congo Free State, a private colony of King Leopold II. Marlow is employed to transport ivory downriver; however, his more pressing assignment is to return Kurtz, another ivory trader, to civilization in a cover up. Kurtz has a reputation throughout the region.

This very symbolic story is actually a story within a story, or frame narrative. It follows Marlow as he recounts, from dusk through to late night, his adventure into the Congo to a group of men aboard a ship anchored in the Thames Estuary. It should be noted from a structuralist point of view that Marlow is also the name of a town situated on the Thames further upstream from London.

The most famous adaptation of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 movie Apocalypse Now, which transposes the context of the narrative from the Congo into Vietnam and Cambodia during the Vietnam War.

One could also cite Werner Herzog's Aguirre: Wrath of God, a film chronicalling a group of conquistadors' journey down the Amazon river attempting to find El Dorado, but only finding the silent, defensive malice of the amerindians and madness. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_Darkness

I really do recommend this novella to everyone who enjoyed Apocalypse Now. Such a dark, imaginative and almost poetic book.

I also recommend this fascinating, award-winning documentary:

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991) is an award-winning documentary about the making of the film Apocalypse Now.

The title is derived from the source material for Apocalypse Now, the Joseph Conrad novella Heart of Darkness. Using behind the scenes footage, and narrated by Eleanor Coppola, it chronicles how production problems including bad weather, actors' health and other issues delayed the film, increasing costs and nearly destroying the life and career of Francis Ford Coppola. In 1990, Eleanor Coppola turned her material over to two young filmmakers George Hickenlooper and Fax Bahr who then shot new interviews with the original cast and crew and intercut them with her existing material. After a year of editing, Hickenlooper, Bahr, and Coppola debuted their film at the Cannes International Film Festival to universal critical acclaim. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_of_ ... Apocalypse

IGM wrote:I won't be able to participate in the next one - I'm off to Spain for a week

Thought I'd mention it before the film was decided so it didn't look like I just didn't fancy the movie choice

Im off too, might increase the deadline to a week Tuesday

What have you decided Mr Plough?

My choice this week is Network because Charlie Brooker is always banging on about it and I haven't seen it yet, so this gives me the perfect opportunity to check it out.

Mr Plough wrote:My choice this week is Network because Charlie Brooker is always banging on about it and I haven't seen it yet, so this gives me the perfect opportunity to check it out.

Awesome choice!

As for Apocalypse Now:

I've never seen this film before, but with all the best film lists it's been on, it was one I'd always wanted to check out. It really impressed me too. The opening scene with Martin Sheen in his room, drunk and describing his inability to adjust to life upon returning home really helped set the tone of the film for me, and the entire journey up river was perfect in achieving what it set out to portray, which was a bleak, oppressive image of war, but not the kind of gung-ho, guts and glory portrayal you see so often, but one of utter desperation and hopelessness. The final bridge was an amazing scene. It felt like the film changed totally once they reached Kurtz's camp, and the whole war aspect was left aside, and replaced with a very personal struggle as Seen got to know the man he'd been sent to kill, and on top off all the questions he'd asked of the reports he read on the river, it seemed like a real struggle. A truly great film, but the sudden change in pace and theme seemed a little jarring. Given all the stories of the horrendous problems they had on set, however, it sounds like a miracle the film ever got made at all, so it can't really be faulted for that.

Network £3.99

Film Club 09

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