http://www.nola.com/movies/
October 19, 2010
As I see it, there are two kinds of people in the world: There are those who recognize Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 war drama "Apocalypse Now" as a masterpiece of American cinema, and there are those whose opinions I don't quite trust.For both types, I would recommend "Apocalypse Now: Full Disclosure Edition, " a three-disc Blu-ray set that is expected to land on store shelves Tuesday, loaded down with extras that cover everything you could possibly want to know about the making of the film -- and then some.
This isn't the first time Coppola's film has been released on home video. It's the first time, however, that it's been released in high-definition. And, frankly, that alone makes it worth the collection's $59.99 list price. (For the budget-conscious connoisseur, a scaled-down, two-disc Blu-ray version, for $39.95, also lands Tuesday.)
When I popped in my review copy, it was a case of not knowing where to start and -- once I did -- not knowing how to stop.
In addition to the original 1979 theatrical version, both sets also come with the lesser, but still interesting, 2001 recut, "Apocalypse Now Redux." Another reason to upgrade to the pricier "Full Disclosure" edition: It also includes the full-length 1991 documentary "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, " chronicling the making of the famously troubled production.
(A sign of the thoroughness of this release: Even "Hearts of Darkness" has a commentary track from Coppola. I didn't listen to it -- there was just too much here to consume in one sitting -- but I can't wait until I can.)
All the expected elements are here (fresh interviews, new featurettes), as well as a few shrug-worthy ones (a 48-page booklet and featurettes repurposed from earlier releases). Then there are the unexpected gems, such as a full-length 2001 Coppola interview with film critic Roger Ebert, and a 1938 radio reading of the inspiration for the film, Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness, " by Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre (both irresistible).
For real film geeks, there's the added bonus of having "Apocalypse Now" released for the first time in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio. If you know what that means, chances are you're excited. If you don't, suffice to say that this will be the first time since the film's theatrical release 31 years ago that you'll be able to see it as Coppola intended.In this age of hyperbole and gross overstatements from DVD marketers, this really, truly is the definitive "Apocalypse Now" release. And until they figure out a way for us to smell the morning napalm along with Robert Duvall, I can't imagine that will change any time soon.
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APOCALYPSE NOW: FULL DISCLOSURE EDITION
4 stars, out of 4
Snapshot: The first-ever Blu-ray release of Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 Vietnam War masterpiece, packaged with the 2001 "Apocalypse Now Redux" recut, and the 1991 full-length, behind-the-scenes documentary "Hearts of Darkness."
What works: Everything. The stunning high-def images will get the true film buff almost as excited as the wealth of bonus features.
What doesn't: Nothing of note.
Starring: Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Laurence Fishburne, Frederic Forrest, Albert Hall, Sam Bottoms, Dennis Hopper, Harrison Ford. Director: Coppola. Rating: R, for disturbing violent images, language, sexual content and some drug use. Bonus features: Too numerous to list, from commentary tracks to interviews to featurettes repurposed from earlier home-video releases.
A Second Look: 'Apocalypse Now'
The war movie arrives on Blu-ray, flaws and all, in the original and longer versions as well as a behind-the-scenes documentary and other featurettes.
By Dennis Lim, Special to the Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/
October 17, 2010
An art movie made on a blockbuster scale, Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" is a cult film for the ages, an imperfect classic whose force and stature have only grown with time. Released in summer 1979, having premiered a few months earlier in an unfinished version at the Cannes Film Festival, it was a monumental work of momentous import: Hollywood's much-trumpeted attempt to close the book on the national nightmare of the Vietnam War and in retrospect, a tombstone that marked the end of American cinema's 1970s golden age.
"Apocalypse Now" arrives in the Blu-ray, high-definition DVD format this week in fittingly expansive two-disc and three-disc editions. Both include the 153-minute 1979 cut and "Apocalypse Now Redux," the 2001 re-edit that added about 50 minutes to the running time, and the film is being presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio for the first time on home video. There are also hours' worth of supplemental material, a mix of previously available featurettes and new interviews with Coppola and others, and the three-disc "Full Disclosure" version also includes "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse," Eleanor Coppola's valuable behind-the-scenes documentary.The epic back story has long been inseparable from the film itself. The project originated, all the way back in 1970, with a simple concept — Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" in a Vietnam War context — and a John Milius script that George Lucas was to direct; by the mid '70s, Coppola had rewritten the screenplay and Lucas had his sights set on " Star Wars." Once production was finally underway in the Philippines, Coppola fired the original lead, Harvey Keitel. His replacement, Martin Sheen, suffered a heart attack. Marlon Brando showed up out of shape. A typhoon destroyed the set. Amid a steady drip of negative publicity — reports of ballooning costs, rumors of rampant excess — Coppola insisted on finding the story as he went, dragging a huge production and a fatigued cast and crew with him.
The drawn-out process meant that "Apocalypse Now," touted as the first major Vietnam War movie, was beaten to theaters by such films as "The Deer Hunter" and "Coming Home." If Coppola's phantasmagoric reverie has aged better than the Vietnam chronicles of the period, that is in large part because it was not really about Vietnam. As history, "Apocalypse Now" could be accused of any number of omissions. As a literary adaptation, it is not particularly imaginative, and as a metaphysical rumination on good and evil, it is not especially profound.
But where it excels is as a sensory experience, from editor Walter Murch's detailed sound work to the cinematography of Vittorio Storaro, which conjures an incandescent delirium of orange flames and yellow napalm clouds against an emerald jungle. But more than a druggy fever dream, "Apocalypse Now" is also a visceral evocation of the confusion and madness of war — albeit one that is unafraid to take a flamboyant aesthetic approach, as is evident right from its immortal opening shot, the jungle inferno scored to the Doors.
The most common complaints about "Apocalypse Now" have to do with the ending. Charged with finding — and killing — Brando's gone-native renegade Col. Kurtz, Sheen's Capt. Willard murmurs, early on, "I really didn't know what I'd do when I found him." Nor does the film, really. Brando's Kurtz all but sinks the temple-of-doom finale in a swamp of philosophical musings and poetic citations.
The problem remains in "Redux," which Coppola considers the definitive cut. The longer version has its fans, and there is a sense in which more is more: "Redux" does, after all, prolong the ritualistic trance that is Willard's journey upriver and the film's reason for being. The main addition is a long sequence at a French plantation that allows for an opiated love scene and the blunt observation that the Americans were fighting for "the biggest nothing in all of history." But some of the original's effective absurdist interludes — the encounter with the surf-obsessed Robert Duvall and the Playboy playmates' U.S.O. tour — are pointlessly distended.
Still this is a film so potent it can survive just about anything, even the needless meddling of its creator. It has always worn its flaws and incongruities well, from the atonal ending to the almost film noir-ish narration (written by war correspondent Michael Herr). Put another way: "Apocalypse Now" would likely feel off-kilter and misshapen in any form, but it would remain a masterpiece all the same.
calendar@latimes.coM
Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times
Francis Ford Coppola's vision of 'Apocalypse'
The psychedelic 1979 war movie returns in a three-disc edition with improved aspect ratio and voluminous background material. It is, the director says, 'a strange, surreal movie.'
By Geoff Boucher, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/
October 17, 2010
What's it like for Francis Ford Coppola to go back into the jungle?"In some ways," the 71-year-old filmmaker said with a warm laugh, "it feels like we never left."
This week, a massive three-disc edition of "Apocalypse Now" arrives on Blu-ray with more than nine hours of bonus features and, more than simple cinematic celebration, Coppola's intense participation in the project was a mission of legacy repair on several fronts.
For "Apocalypse Now: Full Disclosure Edition," Coppola not only went back to dig out photos and documents from the production of the 1979 fever-dream film, he also sat down with star Martin Sheen and screenwriter John Milius and interviewed them about their signature contributions to the Vietnam War epic. Coppola's clear goal — especially in case of Milius — was to share a spotlight that is often aimed only at the director.
"I hoped for people to learn more about John Milius and his true place in all of this," Coppola said by phone last week. "The big moments of dialogue in 'Apocalypse Now,' those lines people still remember, all those were hatched in the mind of John Milius long before I got hold of the script. … I wanted to give him his day in court, give him his due."
The new edition also delivers a widescreen version of the film on home video that Coppola says should quiet the howls of protest from "the aficionados and the purists" about the screen aspect ratio of past releases. The filmmaker directly supervised the transfers for the edition, and with pride he predicted a long life for this burnished version of his dark classic.
"This movie is the one that people want when they test out their new Blu-ray and home theaters, and this is the version they're going to want; it's technically perfect."
Coppola, of course, didn't have anything close to that kind of clarity during the making of the movie. The film was notorious even before its release for the assorted on-set calamities and excess of every sort that resulted in a mountain of material — "a million feet of film," famously — and predictions of total creative derailment for a movie that starred Sheen, Marlon Brando, Laurence Fishburne and Robert Duvall.
Coppola had sunk much of his own personal wealth into the movie, and his spasms of anxiety are clear in "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse," the documentary assembled from behind-the-scenes footage shot by his wife, Eleanor Coppola, during some of the darkest days of the production."What you see is a director who believes he is going to lose everything," Coppola said. "I was looking to my wife for encouragement, and her reaction was, 'Let's get the camera.'"
The documentary, represented in the new package with audio commentary by the Coppolas, was originally intended for a one-time airing on Showtime but ended up reaching theaters in 1991. It's taken on a life of its own, and Coppola concedes there are scenes in it that he still finds himself regretting or explaining, such as the point where he responds to rumors that Sheen's heart attack during filming was a fatal one.
"In the movie you see me say, 'Martin Sheen isn't dead unless I say he's dead,' and that sounds pretty bad, especially if you don't know the context of the moment," the filmmaker said. "And maybe it still doesn't sound so good...."
Coppola said he set out to make a movie like "The Longest Day" or "The Guns of Navarone," but in the end he delivered "a strange, surreal movie that was like our involvement as a country in the Vietnam War — there was over-wattage, too much of being in a situation, a sort of madness with equipment and technology and confusion in an age of psychedelia."
At the time, the director was uncertain what he had achieved, but the strange central quest of the movie — a mission by Sheen's commando character to assassinate the off-the-grid colonel played by Brando — became a pivot point in American cinema.
"After 'Apocalypse,' you couldn't make a movie like 'Longest Day' anymore, it would have felt hopelessly dated," the director said. "I didn't know that when I was in the middle of it. I had no idea. I couldn't see then what we all see now."
geoff.boucher@latimes.com
Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times
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