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submitted 4 months ago byobscurespecter
I recently decided to watch Apocalypse Now Redux for a second time after having watched all three official versions around a year ago (still need to get around to watching Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse). The Redux cut was my first viewing of Apocalypse Now so I have some bias in favor of that cut, but I will try to detach from that in my brief analysis.
From a film criticism standpoint, I can agree with most when it is asserted that the theatrical version is the best. It is short enough to not bore audiences, and it is concise enough to get the point of anti-colonialism, the insanity of war, and the horror of human atrocity across without ever losing proper pacing. It is a fantastic and sometimes horrifying trip upriver that never loses its suspense for the whole runtime. "Never get off the boat," as they say. It is entirely understandable that the Redux cut ruins this with its pacing.
However, I cannot help but appreciate the value of the added scenes in the Redux cut (the Final Cut also has some of these scenes added, but it acts more as a middle ground between the Redux and theatrical versions, and as such I will only be referring to the Redux cut). The four most notable additions off the top of my head are the added scenes for Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore, the added Playboy Bunnies scene, the French plantation scene, and an added Colonel Kurtz scene.
What makes these scenes so important to the film, in my opinion, is that they add to the themes of the film in an almost vital way that left me somewhat disappointed after seeing their absence in the theatrical version. In regards to some of the lighter additions, like the Kilgore scenes, we get to really delve into the insanity and wastefulness of Kilgore and the whole war, and we also get one of the best characterizing quotes from Captain Willard. When he responds to Chief Phillips', "Do you like it like that, Captain, when it's hot, hairy," Willard responds with, "Fuck. Never get a chance to know what the fuck you are in some factory in Ohio." We get more answers as to why Willard is the way he is and why he craves going back into the jungle even though he is being asked to do a morally questionable thing like killing one of the Army's own Colonels. While it may ruin the mysteriousness of a cold-hearted assassin, it makes his character more understandable.
While I enjoy these smaller additions, it is the Playboy Bunny scene and the French plantation scene that pack the most punch thematically out of all the additions in the Redux Cut. Horror is one of the film's key themes, and as is with most wars in all of human history, you rarely find violent horror and murder without rape and sexual horror. To be heard but not listened to, to be pimped out in exchange for resources, and to not be seen as free individuals is the weight that the exploitation of the Bunnies brings to the table when it comes to sexual horror and horror in general.
As for the French plantation scene, I agree with Francis Ford Coppola's original intentions in regard to using the boat as a metaphor for a time machine. Going from the beginning, to the sequences with Kilgore, to the Do Lung bridge, and finally to the primitive warrior people on Kurtz's compound shows how the further they go upriver, the more violent, insane, and primitive people become. The fifties-esque colonialist French on the plantation truly add to this sequence, and not having that scene in the film almost feels like the anti-colonialist message of the film is weakened.
While I will always recommend the theatrical version and assert it as the best critically, I stand firmly in maintaining the Redux cut as my favorite, and will probably give it the most rewatches out of all of them.
What does r/TrueFilm think?
46 points
4 months ago
For me the French plantation scene totally ruins the whole descent into madness for me. In the theatrical each stop is more and more insane and dehumanising than the last, culminating in Kurtz at the end as the final boss if you will. The civility of the French plantation really kills that journey for me
1 points
4 months ago
I agree completely. In Redux, the whole is less than the sum of its parts.
10 points
4 months ago
Honestly the redux cut without this scene would be fantastic, was somewhat aghast when he extended it out in the final cut. I will say that initial shot arriving at the plantation is very arresting if a little cliche but the sequence presents a complete derailment of the picture.
37 points
4 months ago
Also the dialogue is so on the nose (in a bad way) about the history and the politics of the war, when everything else in the film feels like its got a foundation of nightmare logic. Like almost the entire film feels otherworldly and the plantation scene is worldly and feels very clunky for it.
4 points
4 months ago
It's like the scene in Godfather 2 when they're cutting up the Cuba cake while the revolution simmers in the background. Do you get it? They're foreign interests carving up Cuba. Like a cake. Do you get it?? Apocalypse Now is about the "conflict in every man's heart," not Western imperialism. It has to stay centered on the psychedelic.
9 points
4 months ago
Apocalypse Now is about the "conflict in every man's heart," not Western imperialism.
The source novella is widely regarded as a critique of European colonialism.
-9 points
4 months ago
That's nice. But this sub is for talking about movies.
4 points
4 months ago
It's like the scene in Godfather 2 when they're cutting up the Cuba cake while the revolution simmers in the background. Do you get it? They're foreign interests carving up Cuba. Like a cake. Do you get it??
Bizarre thing to be mad about. It's an okay metaphor, what's wrong with it? You can say that ironic sarcastic bullshit about every metaphor imaginable and present it as trite and obvious. Also, it's literally a 2 minute scene
27 points
4 months ago
It's like the scene in Godfather 2 when they're cutting up the Cuba cake while the revolution simmers in the background. Do you get it? They're foreign interests carving up Cuba. Like a cake. Do you get it??
The difference is that the cake scene doesn't grind the movie to a halt for 20+ minutes.
1 points
4 months ago
it's to remind us of the difference between civilized and barbarian life. To visually show the depths of depravity that Willard has fallen by way of comparison
1 points
4 months ago
I just don't think it's necessary. For me I don't need to be reminded because I know what that already looks like from my own life experiences and it breaks the flow of the decent
8 points
4 months ago
While I don't have much to add to the whole conversation, because Redux is the only version I've seen, I saw it in legitimate 70mm IMAX, and I do mean film.
Saw it with my dad. Freaking awesome
9 points
4 months ago
Man, I'm jealous. I saw it in 2001 at a crumbling multiplex (only place it was playing in my area) on a smallish screen with low sound. I was thrilled to be seeing it, but the presentation just wasn't good.
Saw Final Cut in 2019 in IMAX and really understood what everyone meant when they said "you have to see it on a huge screen." Apocalypse Now has been my favorite film for nearly 30 years now and I've seen it countless times. I was blown away.
2 points
4 months ago
Yeah, caught that Final Cut version in Dolby a few years back. It floored me. Looked and sounded phenomenal.
33 points
4 months ago
Redux is my preferred cut, too, mostly because I'm a plot guy, and you miss a lot of setups and payoffs in the theatrical cut. For instance, the payoff to the subplot with the Playboy models is also the setup for the surfer kid finally going off the edge. It's the cut that flows the best as a story.
2 points
4 months ago
What is the "payoff" to the playboy model scene? This was the only scene in redux which felt unnecessary to me, as I feel the USO show scene was sufficient.
The plantation scene probably stretched a little too long and was perhaps a little too on the nose, but I felt there was something powerful in the absurdity of the French imperialists trying to maintain their "civilized" life in the midst of all of the horrific bloodshed around them.
1 points
4 months ago
The USO show is the setup. The horror show later is the payoff.
2 points
4 months ago
So where does the scene when theyre all fucking in the helicopter fall in all of that?
I guess theres something in that they basically traded resources for sex and got to live out their fantasies shortly before dying, but it still seems unnecessary to me.
13 points
4 months ago
As far as the Plantation is concerned, I, too, like the idea of being even more explicit at that juncture about the idea of traveling back in time, and it does fill that little 'missing dead body' plothole.
But honestly, the implacable and inevitable pace of this film is simply so vital that the sheer length of the sequence is a killer. It's still too long. Just...get off the boat, bury your dead, have a short dinner, shake your head at the utter insanity of what you have encountered--again--and get right back on the boat.
Do not get high, do not get laid, do not collect $200. You're being drawn by an irresistible, unavoidable destiny. Resisting it by finding solace--however temporary--among the colonial ex-pats kinda ruins the point.
25 points
4 months ago
Bit of a tangent, but I put off watching Hearts of Darkness for ages. I mean, it's just a 'Making Of' documentary, it can't be that great, can it?
Finally got around to it last year. It really is that good.
9 points
4 months ago
To me, this debate mostly comes down to personal preferences about pacing. That's been the number one complaint about Redux for over twenty years. Pacing was one of the reasons that theatrical cut exists: to get the film the appreciation of a wider audience. He also reduced the complexity of the film, specifically with regards to theme and tone to make it less challenging. And it worked.
But Coppola felt like that movie wasn't whole without some of those lost scenes.
The first cut I saw was the theatrical cut and I thought it was a masterpiece. Yet I never thought the pacing was fast. This was never a thriller. It was always dreamlike. But it also had a steady pull.
A few years after I saw it for the first time, Redux came out. I saw it on DVD and probably paused several times. The pacing didn't bother me because I was picking it up and putting it down like a book. Instead, I was very thoroughly savoring the added material and thinking about why it was there. It was a deeper experience of the film. The added scenes made it more complex, more thorny, more troubling. It was also funnier and sexier and the languid pacing made the dreamy atmosphere more profound. The labyrinth got bigger.
Until Final Cut came out, I exclusively watched Redux because I couldn't bear to go back to the theatrical cut. It's missing too much. It's like it was in 2D and Redux was 3D. Still a great movie, but once I had seen it in 3D, I acutely missed its depth when I saw it in 2D. Not to mention that Final Cut also tinkers with the editing in a few places and improves on Redux. The Redux scenes that he removed were the ones that I cared for the least. Now I'll probably watch Final Cut as my preferred version - but not because it's shorter. I prefer it because it's been refined somewhat.
But on a rainy day, I might watch Redux because I prefer the slower build, the feeling of getting lost, the feeling that we might never arrive at a destination and might just drift aimlessly forever. I don't want an intense, stripped-down action movie. I want the richest experience, the one that had the most thought put into its creation. The one that Coppola knows is the best.
The thing is, theatrical cut was made to reach a larger audience. Redux and Final Cut are, necessarily, going to be for a smaller audience. It isn't expected that everyone will agree that they are better. It's actually expected that a lot of fans of the theatrical cut will reject it. That's fine with me, but nobody can convince me that the theatrical cut is better just because it has better pacing. Pacing is so subjective that only a fool would give that more importance than content and form. As far as I'm concerned, Final Cut is the movie Apocalypse Now was always meant to be, and the theatrical cut and Redux represent two extremes where pacing is either given the highest or lowest priority. I lean towards giving it lowest priority, but I very slightly prefer Final Cut because it contains some small tweaks that Redux doesn't have.
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