ambiguous end to "Apocalypse Now"

An AD generally takes care of the day to day stuff so the director can focus on the picture. The Assistant Director makes sure the location is secured, the actors are in place and all is well so the director can come in and not have to worry about anything other than making the movie.

Chad

 

I can confirm that the original ending was a fade out on the boat with Sheen on board and no credits. We were handed a booklet with credits in it in San Francisco. Awesome ending. When I saw it again taking a friend in 35mm, it had the credits sequence with explosions which implied that that Sheen's character decided to take out the compound. I believe Coppola in this case although the change altered the film. He did indeed have all those explosions and figured he would put it to use never realizing audiences would assume it was a "different" ending.

Coppola did an interview shortly after the widescreen release in the SF Chronicle as I recall where he commented on this fact so it isn't like Lucas' situation at all.

It was awesome to see it in 70mm and the lack of credits either at the end or the beginning created a unique, spooky feeling as if we had seen something happen rather than a film.

As to your point, I always assumed that the beginning was how Willard's previous mission ended and the death he visited upon them unnerved him and unhinged him even further.

 

I'd be very curious to learn when the modified credits were first spotted.

I'm referring to the third version of the film.

Ver 1 - with printed credits distributed via a booklet (first seen in the summer of 1979)

Ver 2 - with film credits placed on TOP of the explosion footage (first seen in the fall of 1979)

Ver 3 - similar to "Version 2" - but the film credits scroll over a black background.

Ver 4 - the now "official" ending -admittedly the most similar to what was presented in the earliest theaters to screen the film... with the explosion sequence moved to a video disc special feature - with Coppola talking over the footage (and no credits on top of the footage)



The key thing (in my mind) is is the length of time it took for Version 3 to appear. Does anyone remember seeing *that* version in a theater - circa Spring of 1980 ? Or did it take several years for that version to emerge when the film was transferred to video ?

And I don't doubt Coppola's sincerity... it's clear to me that he eventually made a final decision and stuck with it... but I think he made the mistake of not modifying other elements in the film (i.e., the "bomb them all" note)

I need to watch/listen to the the commentary track again to see what Coppola says (if anything) during these parts of the movie:

1.) When Willard gets the update from HQ about his mission
2.) When Willard instructs Chef how to call in an airstrike
3.) When Kurtz makes sure Chef can't call in an airstrike
4.) When HQ tries (in vain) to contact "PBR Street Gang" (with no one around to answer the radio)
5.) When Willard finds the note that says "bomb them all"

And was it clear at any point that HQ saw photos of the compound (presumably via intercepted mail from Colby to his family)?

In my mind, if the film was less mysterious and there was more clarity concerning exactly what did or didn't happen - or was supposed to happen (or did not happen), I don't think I would want to watch the movie as often as I have.

On a separate note, Coppola made it pretty clear on the recent Blu-Ray that his original reasons for removing the French Plantation scene were not related to the story... he just seemed pretty damn angry that his set designers spent a LOT of money on the scene - and it seemed to affect his ability to think about that sequence.... so he cut it, for reasons that were mostly personal to Coppola... he simply didn't want to get angry every time he saw all of that money that was spent !!!!

 

The first public screening was at NORRIS Auditorium at USC in March or April 1979. It was because they had the most sophisticated audio system available for the surround sound. Lots of students on mushrooms in the audience. It was a happening man.

 

I don't think it really matters. The film ends with Willard killing Kurtz and leaving with Lance. Whether or not the final explosion is an air strike blowing up Kurtz' compound isn't really important. I had heard at the time about the two endings. I saw it at the theater and thought "Oh, this is the version with the explosions" The meaning of the sequence doesn't detract or add to what came before. The way a story works is we follow characters and what happens to them and how their story ends. We have all the answers to that when Willard and Lance leave. They get away. The end. Whether the compound gets blown up or not....I really don't think it's important. Maybe as important as did Han or Gredo shoot first? Guess what, the answer to that one for me is also 'who gives a ****?" I honestly always thought it might have been the airstrike. Doesn't "Kurtz" leave the message "drop the bomb, exterminate them all?" I think if Coppola didn't think people would put the airstrike and that together in their heads, he's the one who screwed up. But I sure wouldn't have pulled the credits over an ending that could or couldn't have been and doesn't really make a huge difference either way.

That said, I think Apocalypse Now is the best war movie ever made. It's certainly my favorite. You can keep Rule of the Game, Path of Glory, Patton and Saving Private Ryan, Apocalypse best sums of war for me -- an insane undertaking by men.

 

The French plantation sequence is interesting but, IMHO, bogs down the film.

As far as time frame for the credits, the third sequence with a stark black background was done about two months after 35 it appeared as I recall although the precious version did continue to circulate slipping through the cracks.

 

I tried watching the original cut of the film and Redux on the same evening about a month back.

Actually I watched the original and then the Redux cut with Coppola's commentary track turned on for Redux.

I was wanting to see if there were separate commentary tracks for each cut of the film on the new Blu-Ray (which uses the branching feature to put "both" films on one disc). In short, there isn't. You get the same comments during the common scenes. I'm guessing Coppola watched the Redux cut of the film and recorded his comments once.

To my surprise, the actual differences between the two films was much less than I thought. I could probably name all of the differences.

Clearly, the French Plantation sequence was lengthy - and pulled the viewer - out of the jungle... which was apparently the point.

But since I had the commentary track on, I got to hear Francis whining again about how much money his set people had spent on that specific scene... this was after listening to him whine about the exact same thing in the "Hearts of Darkness" documentary.

What was odd is that the whine in the documentary was from a 1970's Francis, and the whine in the commentary track was from approximately 30 years later... and it was very clear that he seemed more concerned about what the scene COST (from a production standpoint) than what it did to add or subtract to the flow of the story.

I didn't think Francis seemed crazy during "Hearts of Darkness"... just extremely stressed out and under a LOT of pressure, largely because of the fact that he was using his personal funds (his "godfather money") to keep the production moving forward.

I think Coppola also made a comment about drugs somewhere... something about how he never personally took them...

So he might have had some stoned actors (Bottoms was pretty clear he was on drugs during the filming), and some stoned production staff, but I don't believe his problems were caused by drugs... The documentary talks about a LOT of things that were outside of his
control (e.g. the weather, the fact that the helicopter pilots were often called away to their day jobs during shooting, Brando's salary demands, etc.)

In retrospect, I'm absolutely amazed that there were no accidents on the set - similar to what happened with John Landis (who comes across as a real uncaring *-hole in the wikipedia accounts of that fiasco).


But it's clear his decision to cut the Plantation scene from the 0riginal movie was motivated by a personal agenda - and not by a conscious decision that the film flows better without it.

And if his words are to be believed, he also decided to INCLUDE the destruction of the compound in the first wide release print of the film because of a personal agenda ("I spent so much money, it made no sense to throw it away").

What I think I actually happened is this:

1.) He knew he wasn't going to be able to get away with the printed booklet thing on a wide scale.
2.) With this in mind, he always planned to have the credit sequence that many of us saw in generic cinema auditoriums in 1979.
There was never hope that he could get the manager of the local multiplex at the mall to print up booklets. The idea that he never planned to have credits, just doesn't hold water. He was required to include them and he would have invested some time and effort into what they looked like, even if he didn't WANT them.
3.) At some point, he decided that he liked the feel of the movie better when there were no distracting explosions, so he ordered a change
to the film.
4.) At this point, reality hit him in the head and someone told him what it would cost to recall all existing general release prints and replace them with a modified print... and he made a prudent financial decision to hold off on the change until the film was converted to video.
5.) The first time anyone saw the "credits over a black background" version of the film was probably when the film was first aired on HBO (or something similar).
6.) This became the standard "video" version (found on VHS, laserdisc, CED disc, etc.)

For those who saw the film in a theater and were provided with a booklet, did the film just suddenly stop ? Or did you hear the same music that is found on the version with the credits ? I'm guessing the film stopped or faded to black, and the theater then played the music (which is the last track on The Rhythm Devils album - entitled "Napalm for Breakfast").

I'm not sure it matters (from the audience's viewpoint) if the music was provided by the film reel itself, or if the theater was given some other way to play it (i.e. a tape).

I'm assuming that the booklets were distributed as you LEFT the auditorium... and that this process took several minutes to occur...

It would seem natural to have some sort of music playing as the people walked past the person(s) handing out the booklets.

 

Exactly my point.

He planted the seed, with several elements of foreshadowing that suggested the compound was not going to be left standing.

I'm ok with the sequence being removed from our VIEW... but the story still continues forward "in my mind" without it.

Once that footage was thrown "into the wild" , the image stayed, with those of us who saw it.

You can't un-ring a bell. LOL

 

I got thinking last night about how John Lennon could never really decide on the lyrics to "Revolution"

Some days he wanted to say "Count me out"... and apparently other days he wanted to say "Count me in".

I think the song even has a confusing moment where John double-tracked his voice and he says
BOTH (simultaneously?)

All of this coupled with the fact that we have a fast version of the song (on the 45), a slow version of
the song (on the album), and a "Yoko version" of the song (with no melody).

I see Coppola fighting a similar problem here... not really sure what he wants - we ended up somehow with both.

 

Compelling arguments from everyone. But if it were an airstrike, wouldn't we see people running for their lives? All we see is the buildings exploding. There aren't any characters.

Perhaps it is a very metafilmic moment, one which is reflecting the secret nature of the film's classified, off-the-record, this-never-happened, plausible-deniablility mission. The destruction of the set may be saying, "All evidence of our telling this classified story must be destroyed. We have told you this story, and now the story must be burned."

Just a theory.

...This post will self-destruct in 10 seconds.

 

The serene nature of the empty set is less apparent when there are words sitting on top of the images.

When I watched the youtube clip with the credits intact, I found myself reading them - and didn't think much about the imagery behind them.

I love your suggestion that its a "metafilmic moment"... complete with a Mission Impossible self-destructing tape - LOL

I never really could figure out how a cassette tape would turn to smoke - but it was always cool to see just before the title credits for that old television show - LOL


The one thing I'm convinced of is that if someone wanted the village destroyed, that someone was most likely the mysterious Civilian Jerry, not Willard... Willard accomplished HIS mission, Kurtz was no longer in charge. He wasn't there to clean up some bigger mess. Willard was there to do what he was told.

I noticed last night that General Corman actually suggested that Kurtz was about to be arrested (prior to the more detailed instructions provided by Colonel Lucas and Civilian Jerry). So even the general was somewhat delusional about what was taking place in that room.

The only person who seemed at peace with the moment was Civilian Jerry.... he seemed truly cold-hearted... you could move that man into a back room with Don Corleone, and he wouldn't miss a beat. Colonel Lucas wasn't happy, nor was General Corman... and Willard was smart enough to kiss the Corman's posterior ("yes sir, clearly sir, quite clearly insane sir...") so he could leave the room and go do his job.


Here's what I consider a plausible scenario that happened after Willard got back on the boat with Lance.

- Willard returns back to HQ. No one really cares about Lance, in part because Willard said he was drugged up and probably doesn't remember much. Lance, however, is given a dishonorable discharge from the military - and sent home. The official reason ?
A drug addiction.

- Willard has another meeting with Jerry the Civilian where he is required to debrief him and tell him where the Kurtz compound was.
Maybe not lat/long coordinates... but a reasonably precise number of clicks beyond the Do Lung bridge.

- Jerry asks Willard specifically about Colby - and shows him photos that were in Colby's letter home... Jerry doesn't specifically
ask about Dennis Hopper and Willard doesn't mention him.

- The photos sent by Colby are pretty disturbing... complete with heads all over the ground and people hanging from trees.
It doesn't help that Kurtz and Colby are in the photos... and perhaps some of them show Kurtz and/or Colby holding several human trophies.

- Jerry dismisses Willard without revealing his next step. Willard heads back to his hotel hell while he awaits his next mission.

- Meanwhile, back at the Kurtz compound, Colby is very aware of what the next step is, and decides that it's prudent to leave the
compound. He warns the natives that a huge firestorm will be arriving soon - and they trust him enough to leave before this happens.

- After several days of figuring out the logistics of how to arrange for a secret bombing run that is 75 clicks into Cambodia, Civilian Jerry sends a select squadron of bomber planes to wipe out the target that was verified via his post-mission debrief meeting with Willard.

-The air raid takes place several days later... but it's somewhat pointless... because every person who was there several days prior is now gone. Of course, the fly boys in the air don't notice or care. They hit their targets, as instructed.

-Kurtz is now gone, but his role as the crazy man in the jungle lives on... via his protege... Lieutenant Colby.

-Nothing is really different than it was before the movie began. War is futile. QED.



PS. I love that the name of Harrison Ford's character is Colonel LUCAS (a not so subtle tribute to the man who hired him to be in both Star Wars and American Grafitti)

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonel_Kurtz

I found this very interesting... along with similar wikipedia descriptions for two of the other characters (Willard and the photojournalist).

My suggestion that Jerry's main problem with Kurtz was PHOTOS is not too distant from what's mentioned in the link above..

My suggestion that the photos came from Colby, is wrong (or at least inconsistent with what ever material was used to write those wiki bios).

Apparently, bizarre photos were sent by KURTZ to (persons unknown)... possibly to Jerry as a thinly veiled threat that he could make life very difficult.


But apparently Dennis Hopper was killed by Colby in footage that was was filmed by Coppola and never used.

His trangression? Colby was upset that Dennis Hopper snapped a photo (or appeared to snap a photo) of Kurtz.

So, my suggestion that Colby went loony and sent some disturbing photos to his wife - is clearly wrong.

But, my idea that Colby ends up as the new Kurtz is a very real possibility.


Or maybe Colby would be worthless without intelligence information. He would never be able to figure out his next
target.

Or was Kurtz developing his own intelligence ? And Colby was now prepared to continue the legacy.

Or did the mysterious Colby character get killed at some point in footage that was never properly distributed ????

 

Willard killed Colby in a scene cut from the final film.

 

Interesting theory but I'm sticking with the simplest one, from the guy who made the movie. He filmed the explosion, it was too cool to not include somewhere so he stuck it over the end credits. When he realized people misinterpreted it, he took it out. I love that this is the type of complex film that can easily support various other ideas. I originally saw the "black" ending and it worked for me. If you buy that they were essentially going back in time as they headed down the river, by this point Willard and Lance were wandering completely out of any relevant frame of reference to modern day and just faded away in the mists of time. The End.

 

That this movie had multiple endings was one of the things that made it a bit of a laughing stock when it was released (it was a central gag in Ernie Fosselius's parody short Porklips Now, if you remember that). But 35 years on, any ambiguity in the plot or execution of Apocalypse Now seems absolutely fitting. The whole story, and the story of the Vietnam war itself, is about ambiguity -- moral, political, personal and otherwise. No easy answers, no easy way out. As wacky as I might some of the theories in this thread, it still stands that a great work of art is one that inspires its audience to think, to question, and to take those flights of fantasy. From that standpoint, Apocalypse Now passes all tests.

 

I took the "BOMB/KILL THEM ALL" note to be about Vietnam in general, not about the compound at all: Kurtz losing all patience trying to find a practical and ethical solution to the war, descending into savagery.

 

Was this shown in one of the "deleted scenes" featured on the old multi-disc "complete dossier" set ?

I remember watching those - but I wasn't able to "enjoy" them because deleted scene footage often looks raw (on purpose,
so people don't presumably create new cuts of a film).

I'm struggling to remember if Willard killed him on the way to kill Kurtz.

That would explain why the boys at HQ felt compelled to dispatch a courier to give Willard an update "en route" ... (Jerry: "Oh... btw, you now have two targets, not just one." )

It never really made sense (to me) how they could get mail to Willard in the middle of this mysterious journey... If that was so easy, why not simply have Willard's journey start at the spot where they sent the courier??? LOL

(at this point, we can queue up the discussion between Scotty Evil and Dr. Evil about how it's not too bright to leave the bad guys alone with the sharks with frickin' laser beams - versus - just shooting the enemy quickly)


Since the scene was deleted, everything is speculative, but I'm thinking one plausible reason Willard may have killed Colby was because he was worried that Colby would be acting as security. I'm guessing Willard killed Colby en route to kill Kurtz. That would have been part of the "infiltrate by whatever means necessary" part of his original order.

Colby plays major role in the story, but a very minor role in the film... I don't think Scott Glenn has even one line.

Kind of like Kevin Costner in The Big Chill.


Looks like I'm going to be digging through my "Full Disclosure" set tonight... which is fine, I still have plenty that I haven't even looked at yet.

 

Do you remember if you saw that ending in a theater ?

I'm real curious if the "black" ending ever showed up in a proper cinema.

 

I saw it in 84, stunning widescreen presentation. The credits rolled over the explosions. I thought then, and in my mind it's fixed now, that those explosions are the compound being razed.

 

I don't think so. I think that scene can only be found in the "work print" that's circulated for years and certainly can be found online with a little ingenuity. Something tells me you've got the spare four hours necessary to watch it.

 

No, I saw it on VHS first. I remember my friend, who did see it in a theater first, saying "Everything used to blow up at the end, what the heck?".

 

The first version I saw was on cable in the 80s, the ending featured the explosions, I always assumed the explosions were not related to any story element, just a cool compilation of shots under the credits.

 

I don't remember laughing at or about this movie. But it is a big world.

IMHO, it has always been a masterpiece (including the last bombing scene), unfortunately they just couldn't leave it alone and kept releasing several different versions and Coppola wouldn't shut up.

 

I somewhat agree but like other added scenes in Redux I like that it adds dimension to Willard's character. Stealing Kilgore's board and smoking opium with the french widow are things I'd never have expected the "original cut" version of him to do. And, of course, between the plantation and the added "bunnies at the supply depot" scene: BOOBS!


"Hey soldier, do you know who's in command here?"
"...Ain't you?"

 

This tends to support my notion that film prints were never actually recalled and/or replaced... despite the inference that Coppola wanted this to be done.

The reality of the situation seems to be very close to what happened with Richard Lester's "How I Won The War"... the 1966 film about World War II that had an actor named John Lennon. Lester had this idea about dead soldiers rising from the dead, with each one displayed as a DIFFERENT COLOR... which was something that was supposed to be handled via some post production (special effects) process.

The problem is Lester's idea about the colorized soldiers wasn't handled AS PER HIS INSTRUCTIONS and Lester wasn't aware of this until very late in the game... maybe even during the film's premiere. He went back and said that "all of the prints must be recalled and replaced" but the bean-counters intervened and said "No."

I don't believe "How I Won The War" was ever fixed to match Lester's original vision until it was prepared for release on laserdisc.

I also suspect that "Apocalypse Now" wasn't fixed as quickly as Coppola wants to think it was...

At best, I'm guessing someone lied to him and told him it was done, and Francis talked about it in interviews... but I just don't think it makes sense to assume that the beancounters were going to say "sure, we'll recall and replace..." simply because the director changed his mind AFTER the money was spent. In comparison, Lester never changed his mind - he simply wanted to correct a technical flaw.

I watched the Blu-Ray for the Redux version last night with Coppola's commentary turned on - hoping for some clues regarding the structure of the story... I got sleepy around when Willard stole Kilgore's surfboard and will have to continue at a later date.

One thing that struck me last night, however, listening to Coppola was how at some point he said he came to the realization that the movie he was making was not a "standard war film".... what he said he realized he was doing was creating very surreal imagery, more or less to create food for thought... as he was saying this, he pointed out "Yeah, as you can see, we were getting carried away with colored smokebombs at this point" (on the beach around when Kilgore was declaring "If I say it's safe to surf this beach, it's safe to surf this beach").. I looked at the colored smokebombs and immediately thought of Lester and his multi-colored dead soldiers that weren't implemented correctly in post production.

I suspect Coppola was familiar with Lester's film... and may have been trying to emulate it, somewhat... but the Lester movie sounds much better on paper than it does when viewed... even with a Beatle in it.