Apocalypse Now

Apocalypse Now

The movie is directed by Frank Coppola

The establishing shot of the movie is awesome. It starts with the sound of a helicopter, the strumming of a guitar comes in, a jungle appears, a helicopter passes by and the jungle blows up in flames. The establishing shot is very impactful.

He uses a lot of blending and that’s how he introduces his main character. The introduction is also in a vague way because thought he show a face, the eyes, the movement of the eyes keeps the audience focused on the eyes, as destruction goes around.

The scene where Willard is given his mission also must be discussed General R. Corman - Colonel Lucas - Jerry -. At the table where the mission is discussed. No one is eating, except for the civilian, Jerry(Also this is the only time they show someone eating in the movieand that to a civian) . While General R.Corman and Colonel Lucas is placed in front of Willard, Jerry is at the side. This is simply because Coppola does not want to integrate this mysterious civilian/CIA into the conversation, to keep him out.

The shots uses in the movie are amazing. We see the helicopter shots when Captain Willard meets Kilgore and the audience gets a peek into the war. Throughout the movie we see Captain Willard plays a very passive role in the movie and through that we the truths and lies of the Vietnam War. To establish the massiveness of the attack we see the usage of extreme wide shot from various angles, but mainly high angles. The best scene in this attack is one of the jet fighters where again we see use of high angle shot, and a combination of intense music that heightens up the audience.

After this we see a variety of things that contributes to the awesomeness of this movie. As the they go more into the jungle and the river they go more into the heart of darkness. The river plays a big motif in the movie, signifying the drift deeper into madness.

The boat is also a motif. After the encounter with the tiger, Willard says, “Never get outa of the boat”. The boat signifies a safe haven for the soldiers as they drift deeper down the river. Whenever they were attacked or when they reach Kurtz’s terrority the boat as acted as a safe haven.

Dead bodies are also a motif. As they came closer into the Kurtz’s territory the number of dead bodies keeps increasing. Also as they come closer they first encounter a variety of destroyed helicopter, and when they finally reached they encounter destroyed a jet engine, and jet engine have been portrayed as a sort of ultimate weapon. A pan shot occurs there moving upwards of the engine and then dives into the water and comes out again towards the boat.

The introduction of Kurtz has been slow and pacey. Coppola has made use of the travelling time on the river, Willard gives keeps giving us a narration on the Kurtz achievement. When Willard finally meets Kurtz, Coppola plays with the lighting and teases the audience who are anxious to see Kurtz. We parts of Kurtz face, but never his whole face and when this is done, Kurtz withdraws his face into the darkness and one could almost see his left eye glinting. The character shown by Kurtz is quiet surprising compared to the impression from Willard’s narration of him and the journalist depiction.

Kurtz voice is soft and not a strong one, he is cracking up.

There are few aspects of the last scene that must be discussed. Coppola does the comparison of killing of Kurtz and the bull very well. While the killing of the bull is very violent, Coppola portrays the killing of the Kurtz in an almost beautiful manner. Willard when he is at the door step after killing Kurtz, a medium close up shot, Willard takes a step back, his face goes into the darkness. This is almost as if Coppola is teasing is before the next few seconds, because the next few seconds when Willard is walking and everyone is bowing to him it almost seemed like Willard was taking the place of Kurtz.

The movie is an awesome one.