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‘Apocalypse Now’ is a 1979 film directed by American director Francis Coppola and adapted from Joseph Conrad's ‘Heart of Darkness’, but the background is set in Vietnam. During the Vietnam War, Special Forces Captain Benjamin L. Willard was ordered to go to Vietnam to sanction Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, who has lost control. Through his various experiences on the way, he profoundly exposed the deepest fear of human beings' destruction and reflected the primitive jungle culture and the war behavior of the US military, questioning whether the civilization progressed.
Director Coppola has created many special narrative techniques to tell stories through images. For example, a ceiling fan that rotated in the beginning, symbolizing helicopters and wars. In the following scene, the two armies of the United States and Vietnam confronted the bridge. Although the bridge was brightly lit, the US military was struggling because of the long-term sorrow, and the bridge was lonelier and more absurd in the night. It was like purgatory in the world, and the theme of the film was highlighted. In the end, the celebration of the carnival and slaughtering scene overlapped, bringing the atmosphere of a top. The director did not let the actors speak long but continuously used compositions, light and shadow, expressions, and sultry plots to tell the story. Even if there were no computer technology special effects 20 years ago, it still brought unprecedented feelings to the audience.
In the film, the director's grasp of light and color was very appealing, using a lot of light plus red, yellow, purple, and other colorful smoke and fireworks, making the bloody battlefield and mysterious jungle seemed like a dream. For example, when Willard met Kurtz in a dimly lit room, the position and intensity of the light were used to reveal the image of Kurtz's dark light on the screen, thus bringing out this complex character. Coppola has frequently shown different colors of smoke in the film, and also staggered two colors in the same scene or adjacent shots, such as the beach battlefield between the two armies and the school playground in the village. The red and the yellow smoke was added with blood and the arrogance of the US military. What impressed me the most is that the lavender smoke that slowly floated from the top of the jungle spread out in the blank space of the scene, adding a bit of glamour to the Kurtz kingdom, which is full of horror.
In terms of cinematography use, the director used camera angles and distances that looked down on the whole world. When Willard and his team took a boat to go down the Mekong River and searched for Colonel Kurtz, the camera followed the characters to the river. Coppola used the tracking shot to dynamically display the jungle scenery on both sides and the folk customs along the way. Additionally, he used the long shot to show the status of the five people on board. On the other hand, in the scene of Willard reading the Americans intercepted the letter that Kurtz wrote to his son, Coppola inserted a wide-angle to show the whole picture of the Mekong River, which alleviating the visual fatigue of the audience. Moreover, when the photojournalist went to visit Willard in jail, the director used an overhead shot to show the surroundings of the prison.
‘Apocalypse Now’ also showed the skill of the director Coppola in the editing, such as the use of paragraph conversion, montage, and dissolve to achieve a poetic feeling, giving people a sense of dislocation. At the beginning and end of the film, the montage and the dissolve technique were successfully applied. The graphic similarities of the blades of the helicopter and the fan blades of the indoor fan, the battlefield bombing, and Willard's expressionless symbolized the mental state of Willard and the depression of the reality. At the end of the film, the scene was repeatedly spliced together with Willard kills Kurtz and the sacred shots of people killing the cows. Coppola did a set of parallel clips with a powerful impact. The dark tone was full of mystery. The two fought like real fighters and danced like two desperate shadows on the cliff.
At the beginning of the film, The Doors' famous music ‘The End’ started to flow with the smog-filled the rows of trees, the fire raged in the jungle, and the inverted Willard's head was blurred in the picture, then the oppressive monologue of Willard was heard. Later in the magnificent symphony, the Ride of the Valkyries prelude, was matched with the bloody slaughter of the helicopter. The voice of the fighter jet was faintly transmitted, and the fire was shot with a fierce and savage flesh, which made the audience feel crazy and cruel. When Willard chose to slay Colonel Kurtz while people were at the carnival, the film was fast-paced in the silence of the festival, and when it was all over, the film suddenly disappeared from the music and cheers. Only Kurtz's 'fear' was echoing, only Willard was deeply into a painful expression, and the director treated this moment as the subjective shot of the killer. As the bystander woman hid her face without a sharp yell, the low-pitched music started to play, and the audience's emotions were soaked into the narrative of the film.
In short, ‘Apocalypse Now’ has a grand and real war scene that is not inferior to any current war film, but the director has not used the visual elements to impact the audience's eye. In the film and sound, Coppola hid war, violence, dead bodies, and blood from his superb skills. The only slight deficiency is that, unfortunately, the storyline of the protagonists after they met did not deliver better. Personally, the reason for killing Kurtz was slightly far-fetched. Despite this, I still feel that the last scene of the series, from the assassination to the end of the scene, is really very compelling but also makes me feel a strong impact in visual, auditory, and psychology.
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