Aug. 9th: APOCALYPSE NOW (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

NOTE: This film will be shown in the high-definition Blu-ray format.



During the Vietnam War, a soldier is given a top secret mission to follow a river into the Cambodian jungle and assassinate a U.S. colonel who is believed to have gone insane.



In the mid-1970's, Francis Ford Coppola was riding a wave of financial and critical success after his two Godfather films, and used his new-found clout to begin production on an idea that had bounced around his social circle of filmmakers since the late 60's: an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness, with the action transposed from the African Congo at the turn of the century to present-day Southeast Asia. Written by friend John Milius, the project was originally slated to be directed by George Lucas, who left after securing funding for his first Star Wars film.



Coppola assembled a powerhouse cast including Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall (from both Godfather films), Dennis Hopper, Laurence Fishburne (then only 18 years-old), Harrison Ford, and the towering presence of Marlon Brando, who earned $3.5 million for a relatively small amount of work, and who showed up to the set unprepared and overweight.



The production would turn out to be one of the most notorious in film history, weathering such obstacles as a typhoon which destroyed most of the sets, a lead actor's heart attack, theft, and a director who hadn't quite worked out how he was going to end the film. After a year of shooting, the post-production process would take almost another two years, with a groundbreaking sound design team led by Walter Murch creating a dizzying atmosphere of music and sound effects (including now-iconic scenes set to "The End" by The Doors). Vietnam veteran and author Michael Herr was brought in to write narration covering the entire film for Sheen's character.



The film appeared in an unfinished version at the Cannes Film Festival in 1979, and wound up sharing the prestigious Palme d'Or prize for Best Film. It was an international box office success and would win other awards including Oscars for its cinematography (the first of third for Vittorio Storaro) and sound, and Golden Globes for Coppola's direction, Duvall's performance, and the original score.



Apocalypse Now is regarded as one of the greatest war films ever made, and in a 2002 poll of international critics was chosen as the best film of the past 25 years. A documentary about the making of the film, Hearts of Darkness, was released in 1991 to much acclaim.



Running time is approx. 2.5 hours.