Apocalypse Now Redux
Encyclopedia
Apocalypse Now Redux is a 2001 extended version of the epic war film Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American war film set during the Vietnam War, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The central character is US Army special operations officer Captain Benjamin L. Willard , of MACV-SOG, an assassin sent to kill the renegade and presumed insane Special Forces...

, which was originally released in 1979. Unlike other new cuts of the film, Redux is usually considered by fans and critics, as well as director Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...

 a completely new movie altogether.

The movie adds 49 minutes of all-new material, and represents a significant re-edit of the original Apocalypse Now. The movie came into production when Coppola concluded that his original cut was tame by today's standards. Coppola, along with editor/long-time collaborator Walter Murch
Walter Murch
Walter Scott Murch is an American film editor and sound designer.-Early life:Murch was born in New York City, New York, the son of Katharine and Canadian-born Walter Tandy Murch , a painter. He went to The Collegiate School, a private preparatory school in Manhattan, from 1949 to 1961...

, then added several scenes that enhanced the surrealism in the original story.

The extended version of the film was distributed by Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...

 in the US and Miramax Films
Miramax Films
Miramax Films is an American entertainment company known for distributing independent and foreign films. For its first 14 years the company was privately owned by its founders, Bob and Harvey Weinstein...

 overseas, whilst the original cut was distributed by United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....

.

New scenes/alterations

The movie contains several newly added sequences and alterations to the original film:
  • The longest addition to the film is a sequence that takes place after Clean's death. The crew find themselves in a French
    France
    The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

     plantation in Cambodia. Willard tells the head of the plantation (Christian Marquand
    Christian Marquand
    Christian Marquand was a French director, actor and screenwriter working in French cinema. A native of Marseille, he was born to a Spanish father and an Arabic mother his sister was film director Nadine Trintignant, and he can be seen as a heartthrob in French movies of the 1950s.His first film...

    ) that they lost one of their men. He tells Willard that they will bury him (to pay respects to the fallen of their allies). What later follows is a solemn funeral for Clean. Following the recital of a poem by one of the French children (played by Roman Coppola
    Roman Coppola
    Roman Coppola is an American film director and music video director.-Early life:Coppola was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, the son of set decorator/artist Eleanor Coppola and Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola was born in the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine while his father was in Paris...

     and watched by older brother Gian-Carlo
    Gian-Carlo Coppola
    -Early life:Coppola was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of set decorator/artist Eleanor Coppola and famed film director Francis Ford Coppola...

    ), the crew then has dinner with the new arrivals. Willard, sitting with the family, asks when they are going back to France. The family soon go into a long and lengthy argument over the First Indochina War
    First Indochina War
    The First Indochina War was fought in French Indochina from December 19, 1946, until August 1, 1954, between the French Union's French Far East...

     and the Vietnam War
    Vietnam War
    The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

    . There is a dispute over "traitors at home" (e.g., the famous Henri Martin Affair
    Henri Martin Affair
    The Henri Martin Affair was a political-military scandal that happened under the French Fourth Republic during the First Indochina War. It lasted from March 1950 to September 1953....

    ) and most of the family leaves in anger. After they all leave, one, Roxanne (the only one not in the conversation, played by Aurore Clément
    Aurore Clément
    Aurore Clément is a French actress. She has performed in a number of motion pictures in both the French language and the English language as well as in television films and miniseries.-Early life:...

    ), apologizes for her family's behavior. She and Willard later talk, smoke opium
    Opium
    Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...

    , and she later explains the conflicts her deceased husband had faced with himself during the Indochina War. After she undresses and approaches Willard, she tells him, "There are two of you, can't you see? One that kills, and one that loves." We later see the crew back on the river continuing the mission.
  • In the original film, the PBR Street Gang crew members relax and play around, listening to the Rolling Stones
    The Rolling Stones
    The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...

    ' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
    (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
    " Satisfaction" is a song by the English rock band The Rolling Stones, released in 1965. It was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and produced by Andrew Loog Oldham. Richards's throwaway three-note guitar riff — intended to be replaced by horns — opens and drives the song...

    " while Willard first looks at the dossier. The scene plays right before the crew members meet Kilgore. In the Redux version, the scene is moved to later in the film, and Willard is shown reading the dossier without the surrounding activity and music.
  • In the original version, Willard first meets Kilgore when asking a fellow officer who simply replies, "He's over there, you can't miss him". In the Redux, the officer now says "There's the Colonel coming down". We later learn that Kilgore is arriving (via helicopter) to the scene. When he arrives, he tells an officer riding with him, "Lieutenant, bomb back that tree line 'bout a hundred yards, give us some room to breathe". He later asks another for his "Death Cards" (which he uses in the original version).
  • During the raid, Kilgore looks over some of the wounded and dead. He then walks away, simply replying "Damn".
  • After Kilgore has ordered an air strike, a Vietnamese mother, with her wounded child in hand, runs to Kilgore. Kilgore immediately takes the child and tells his men to rush the child to a hospital (mother as well) on his chopper.
  • After the helicopter carrying the wounded child leaves, Kilgore hands Lance a new pair of shorts to go surfing in (Note: Throughout the original cut, Lance is wearing them, but it is never explained how he got them).
  • After giving the famous "Napalm" speech, Kilgore soon learns that the napalm has changed the wind current, ruining the perfect waves. Willard immediately uses this as an excuse to leave. He and Lance run back to the boat. Before they leave, Willard steals Kilgore's surf board.
  • Before Willard and Chef go to search for mango
    Mango
    The mango is a fleshy stone fruit belonging to the genus Mangifera, consisting of numerous tropical fruiting trees in the flowering plant family Anacardiaceae. The mango is native to India from where it spread all over the world. It is also the most cultivated fruit of the tropical world. While...

    es, there's a scene where the crew is lying around in a river. Chef asks Chief if he can go get some mangoes and Willard goes with him. The Redux version contains a new scene before this, in which it is clear that the crew are hiding from Kilgore, who is trying to get back his surf board. A helicopter soon flies by, carrying a recording by Kilgore, asking Lance for the board back. Chief then changes the subject by asking how far they are going up the river. Willard says it's classified. Chief later asks Willard if he likes it like that, "hot and hairy" (to which Willard replies: "Fuck. You don't get a chance to know what the fuck you are in some factory in Ohio"). Chef later asks Chief if he can get some mangoes.
  • The day after the Playboy Playmates' USO show, we see the crewmembers talking about it. Chef is obsessed he was able to meet "Miss December". Clean then reminds Chef not to go crazy over his Playboy magazines, and proceeds to tell the story of an Army Sergeant
    Sergeant
    Sergeant is a rank used in some form by most militaries, police forces, and other uniformed organizations around the world. Its origins are the Latin serviens, "one who serves", through the French term Sergent....

     who was so obsessed with his Playboys, he killed an ARVN Lieutenant
    Lieutenant
    A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...

     who ruined his foldouts.
  • The "Satisfaction" scene comes immediately after the above scene. In the following scene, Willard reads a letter by Kurtz, criticizing the incompetent young soldiers sent to Vietnam, blaming them for their losing.
  • At one point during their travels, the crew stop at a destroyed Medevac
    MEDEVAC
    Medical evacuation, often termed Medevac or Medivac, is the timely and efficient movement and en route care provided by medical personnel to the wounded being evacuated from the battlefield or to injured patients being evacuated from the scene of an accident to receiving medical facilities using...

    . The area is completely wrecked, with no real commanding officer (much like the Do Lung Bridge sequence). Willard tries to find someone in charge, but later learns that the Playboy bunnies' helicopter has landed there. Willard then negotiates two barrels of fuel for an hour with the bunnies (along with the rest of the crew). Chef spends his time with his idol, Miss December (now Miss May), and Lance spends his time with the Playmate of the Year. Clean constantly interrupts, trying to get his turn. During one such interruption, a large cooler is upended, revealing the corpse of a soldier, which upsets the Playmate of the Year.
  • After the above scene, Chef learns that Clean is still a virgin. Chef then makes fun of him for it, only to be stopped by Chief. The exchange is only partially heard in the original cut.
  • After Chef's death, Willard is kept in a metal shipping container known as a "CONEX
    Conex
    Conex may refer to:*Conex box or intermodal container, a shipping storage container*Connectivity exchange, the exchange of information concerning routes to radio stations*Conex, a trade name for meta-aramid fiber...

    ". Kurtz later sits outside the doors and reads Willard several Time Magazine articles detailing America's success in the war.

Production

Coppola started production for the new cut with working-partner Kim Aubry. Coppola then tried to get Murch, who was reluctant at first. He thought it would be extremely difficult recutting a film which had taken two years to edit originally. He later changed his mind (after working on the reconstruction of Orson Welles' Touch of Evil
Touch of Evil
Touch of Evil is a 1958 American crime thriller film, written, directed by, and co-starring Orson Welles. The screenplay was loosely based on the novel Badge of Evil by Whit Masterson...

). Coppola and Murch then examined several of the rough prints and dailies for the film. It was decided early on the editing of the film would be like editing a new film altogether. One such example was the new French Plantation sequence. The scenes were greatly edited to fit into the movie originally, only to be cut out in the end. When working again on the film, instead of using the (heavily edited) version, Murch decided to work the scene all over again, editing it as if for the first time.

Much work was needed to be done to the new scenes. Due to the off-screen noises during the shoot, most of the dialogue was impossible to hear. During post-production of the film the actors were brought back to re-record their lines (known as ADR
Dubbing (filmmaking)
Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be...

 or dubbing). This was done for the scenes that made it into the original cut, but not for the deleted scenes. For the Redux version, Martin Sheen
Martin Sheen
Ramón Gerardo Antonio Estévez , better known by his stage name Martin Sheen, is an American film actor best known for his performances in the films Badlands and Apocalypse Now , and in the television series The West Wing from 1999 to 2006.He is considered one of the best actors never to be...

, Robert Duvall
Robert Duvall
Robert Selden Duvall is an American actor and director. He has won an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards and a BAFTA over the course of his career....

, Sam Bottoms
Sam Bottoms
Samuel John "Sam" Bottoms was an American actor and producer.-Personal life:Bottoms was born in Santa Barbara, California, the third son of James "Bud" Bottoms and Betty , both of whom survive him...

, Albert Hall, Frederic Forrest
Frederic Forrest
-Life:Forrest was born in Waxahachie, Texas, the son of Virginia Allie and Frederic Fenimore Forrest, a furniture store owner. He is known for his roles as Chef in Apocalypse Now, When The Legends Die, It Lives Again, the neo-Nazi surplus store owner in Falling Down, Right to Kill? and for playing...

, and Aurore Clement
Aurore Clément
Aurore Clément is a French actress. She has performed in a number of motion pictures in both the French language and the English language as well as in television films and miniseries.-Early life:...

 were brought back to record ADR for the new scenes.

New music was composed and recorded for the re-made movie. For example, it was thought no music had been composed for Willard and Roxanne's romantic interlude in the French Plantation scene. To make matters worse, composer Carmine Coppola
Carmine Coppola
Carmine Coppola was an American composer, flautist, editor, musical director, and songwriter. Coppola was a composer and conductor who contributed to many of the musical scores in The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Godfather Part III, and Apocalypse Now directed by his son Francis Ford...

 had died in 1991. However, the old recording and musical scores were checked and a track titled "Love Theme" was found; it turns out that during scoring, Francis Coppola had told his father (Carmine) to write a theme for the scene before it was ultimately deleted. For the remake, the track was recorded by a group of synthesists.

Vittorio Storaro also came back from Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 to head the development of a new color balance of the film and new scenes. When Redux was being released, Storaro learned that a Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...

 dye-transfer process
Dye-transfer process
-History:Technicolor introduced dye transfer in its Process 3, introduced in the feature film The Viking , which was produced by the Technicolor Corporation and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Techicolor's two previous systems were an additive color process and a poorly-received subtractive color...

 was being brought back. The dye-transfer is a three-strip process that makes the color highly saturated and has consistent black tone. Storaro wished to use this on Redux, but in order to do it, he needed to cut the original negative of Apocalypse Now, leaving Apocalypse Now Redux the only version available. Storaro decided to do it, when convinced by Coppola that this version would be the one that would be remembered.

Reaction

Apocalypse Now Redux originally premiered at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival
2001 Cannes Film Festival
The 2001 Cannes Film Festival started on May 14 and ran until May 25. The Palme d'Or went to the Italian film The Son's Room by Nanni Moretti.-Jury:* Liv Ullmann, President * Mimmo Calopresti * Charlotte Gainsbourg...

 in May. The screening marked the anniversary of the famous Apocalypse Now screening as a work in progress, where it ended up winning the Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...

. Coppola went to the festival, also with Murch, Storaro, production designer Dean Tavoularis, producer Kim Aubry and actors Sam Bottoms
Sam Bottoms
Samuel John "Sam" Bottoms was an American actor and producer.-Personal life:Bottoms was born in Santa Barbara, California, the third son of James "Bud" Bottoms and Betty , both of whom survive him...

 and Aurore Clement
Aurore Clément
Aurore Clément is a French actress. She has performed in a number of motion pictures in both the French language and the English language as well as in television films and miniseries.-Early life:...

. The film met with overall positive response.

When it was released, the response from the critics was largely positive, holding a 92% rating at rottentomatoes. Some critics thought highly of the additions, such as A.O. Scott of the New York Times, who wrote that it "grows richer and stranger with each viewing, and the restoration of scenes left in the cutting room two decades ago has only added to its sublimity."

Some critics, however, thought the new scenes slowed the pacing, were too lengthy (notably The French Plantation sequence), and added nothing overall to the film's impact. Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman is an American film critic for Entertainment Weekly, a position he has held since the magazine's launch in 1990. From 1981–89, he worked at the Boston Phoenix....

 wrote "Apocalypse Now Redux is the meandering, indulgent art project that [Francis Ford Coppola] was still enough of a craftsman, in 1979, to avoid." Despite this, other critics still gave it high ratings. Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

 wrote: "Longer or shorter, redux or not, Apocalypse Now is one of the central events of my life as a filmgoer."

The film was given a limited release on August 3, 2001 where it took $4,626,290 overall.

Soundtrack

A soundtrack for the movie was released on July 31, 2001 by Nonesuch
Nonesuch Records
Nonesuch Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed by Warner Bros. Records.-Company history:Nonesuch was founded in 1964 by Jac Holzman to produce "fine records at the same price as a trade paperback", which would be half the price of a normal LP...

. The soundtrack contains most of the original tracks (remastered), as well as some for the new scenes ("Clean's Funeral", "Love Theme"). The score was composed by Carmine Coppola
Carmine Coppola
Carmine Coppola was an American composer, flautist, editor, musical director, and songwriter. Coppola was a composer and conductor who contributed to many of the musical scores in The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Godfather Part III, and Apocalypse Now directed by his son Francis Ford...

 and Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...

 (with some tracks co-composed by Mickey Hart
Mickey Hart
Mickey Hart is an American percussionist and musicologist. He is best known as one of the two drummers of the rock band the Grateful Dead. He was a member of the Grateful Dead from September 1967 to February 1971, and from October 1974 to August 1995...

 and Richard Hansen). The first track is an abridged version of The Doors' 11 minute long epic, "The End".

Track listing

  1. The End
    The End (The Doors song)
    "The End" is a song by The Doors. Originally written by Jim Morrison as a song about breaking up with girlfriend Mary Werbelow, it evolved through months of performances at Los Angeles' Whisky a Go Go into a nearly 12-minute opus on their self-titled album. The band would perform the song to close...

     - The Doors
    The Doors
    The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...

  2. The Delta - Carmine Coppola
    Carmine Coppola
    Carmine Coppola was an American composer, flautist, editor, musical director, and songwriter. Coppola was a composer and conductor who contributed to many of the musical scores in The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Godfather Part III, and Apocalypse Now directed by his son Francis Ford...

    , Francis Ford Coppola
    Francis Ford Coppola
    Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...

  3. Dossier - Carmine Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola
  4. Orange Light - Carmine Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola
  5. Ride of the Valkyries
    Ride of the Valkyries
    The Ride of the Valkyries is the popular term for the beginning of Act III of Die Walküre, the second of the four operas by Richard Wagner that comprise Der Ring des Nibelungen. The main theme of the Ride, the leitmotif labelled Walkürenritt, was first written down by the composer on 23 July 1851...

     - Richard Wagner
    Richard Wagner
    Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

  6. Suzie Q - Dale Hawkins
    Dale Hawkins
    Delmar Allen "Dale" Hawkins was a pioneer American rock singer, songwriter, and rhythm guitarist who was often called the architect of swamp rock boogie...

     - (Performed by Flash Cadillac)
  7. Nung River - Carmine Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola, Mickey Hart
    Mickey Hart
    Mickey Hart is an American percussionist and musicologist. He is best known as one of the two drummers of the rock band the Grateful Dead. He was a member of the Grateful Dead from September 1967 to February 1971, and from October 1974 to August 1995...

  8. Do Lung - Carmine Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola, Richard Hansen
  9. Clean's Death - Carmine Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola, Mickey Hart
  10. Clean's Funeral - Carmine Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola
  11. Love Theme - Carmine Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola
  12. Chief's Death - Carmine Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola
  13. Voyage - Carmine Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola
  14. Chef's Head - Carmine Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola
  15. Kurtz' Chorale - Carmine Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola
  16. Finale - Carmine Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola
  17. "The Horror... The Horror" - Finale Quote of Marlon Brando
    Marlon Brando
    Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...

    's Character

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK