Higham, Charles. “Coppola’s Vietnam Movie is a Battle Royal.” New York Times 15 May 1977: 77

            This article chronicles the now infamous production of Apocalypse Now before the film’s release, as well as the emotional, spiritual, and physical toll the movie took on the cast and crew; especially Francis Ford Coppola.  From describing the problems with the weather, to issues with casting and the health of the actors, Higham vividly shows how the trials of the production of the highly over budget film show up in the film itself.

            The author notes that one of the primary problems that plagued Apocalypse Now was the debate over what kind of film it was going to be.  The clash between John Milius’ original script about a film version of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness did not have the strong liberal statement that Francis Ford Coppola wanted to make when he signed on to do Apocalypse Now instead of George Lucas.  After a long debate, Milius and Coppola agreed to make no clear political statement with the film (although many people have interpreted one to exist) and instead to focus on the corruption of power inherent in mankind, much like Coppola’s exploits with the Al Pacino character Michael Corleone in The Godfather films.

            Higham gives the reader a rather off the wall statement by screenwriter John Milius, who defends the real life version of his Colonel Kurtz (Colonel Robert B. Rheault) by claiming that his brutal style of fighting the war was what America needed in Vietnam.  Milius blamed America for being too soft, and that we lost the war not due to our actions in Southeast Asia, but due to the lack of support among the American people.  Milius goes on to claim that the character of Kurtz is not supposed to represent good or evil, and that he and Coppola eventually decided not to make Apocalypse Now a pacifist film.  Higham’s article shows how John Milius’ own support for the Vietnam War shows up in the film, and how his struggles with Coppola’s view of what the movie should be shaped the eventual print of the film.

Braudy, Leo. “The Sacraments of Genre: Coppola, DePalma, Scorsese.” Film Quarterly 39:3 (1986) 17-28

This article provides an analysis of three of the influential Italian-American directors of 1970’s; Francis Ford Coppola, Brian DePalma, and Martin Scorsese.  Though now considered the aging younger generation of Italian neo-realists by the author, Braudy contends that Coppola, DePalma, and Scorsese go against the older style of neo-realism that was most notably prevalent in the works of Rossellini, DeSica, Antonioni, and Fellini.  All of these filmmakers did not stray from aspects of everyday reality; that is, did not center their films on mostly symbolic or thematic subject matter, leaving little room for interpretation.  The author contends that the new wave of directors employs the stylized traditions of artifice and symbolism that the neo-realists rebelled against.  Braudy is of the opinion that despite the trend to classify Coppola, DePalma, and Scorsese as neo-realists due to their Italian heritage, their styles in filmmaking (with few exceptions) employ the very techniques that the neo-realists rebelled against in the post-war era.

            In Francis Ford Coppola’s films, the author points to The Godfather’s operatic tones and underlying themes to validate his opinion.  He goes on to argue that the differences between the older and younger generation of Italian filmmakers exist due to what he calls the “Catholic way of observing the physical world” that the younger generation had in America.  This included the importance of ritual narratives, the significance of ritual objects, and the conferral of ritual status.  The assassination/christening scene in The Godfather is probably Coppola’s most visible use of these rituals.  Braudy’s mention of Apocalypse Now exists largely as an example of Coppola’s failure to successfully employ these techniques and make a clear statement.  He claims that this particular attempt to squeeze meaning and overriding themes out of every story in Apocalypse Now failed, as not clear message ever emerges for the viewer.

McInerney, Peter. “Apocalypse Then: Hollywood Looks Back at Vietnam.” Film Quarterly 33:2 (1979) 21-32

            In this article, McInerney announces the birth of a new genre of film that emerged in the late 1970’s through the early 1980’s; the Vietnam film.  He cites eight films that came out during this period of time that created the library of the Vietnam films, as these films collectively document the troubled American experience that was the Vietnam Conflict, as well as the cultural crisis that went along with the war.  These eight films were Heroes, The Boys in Company C, Rolling Thunder, Coming Home, Who’ll Stop the Rain, Go Tell the Spartans, The Deer Hunter, and Apocalypse Now.  The author struggles to find the reasons for the sudden emergence of Vietnam films in the two years (1978 – 1979) given the noticeable absence of Vietnam films up to that point.  It took six years after the American withdraw from Saigon for any major film to deal directly with the Vietnam War, and when these films did emerge, they did so with a great abundance of major movies in only two years.  He claims that this cushion was a necessary waiting period that allowed feelings of guilt, loss, and defeat to subside among American movie audiences.  When films dealing specifically with Vietnam did emerge, they strayed from the traditional Hollywood role of cooperating with the American government and making patriotic war films and instead made often intensely anti-war films, films that portrayed the darker side of the Vietnam War and war in general as opposed to simply casting American war efforts in a positive light.  McInerney claims that Apocalypse Now, like The Deer Hunter, accurately portrays the American perception of the American experience of the war, while staying true to the themes of inherent human darkness that Conrad used in his novella.  Apocalypse Now portrays the war as a moral dilemma, and shows that the savagery of war is not limited to the enemy or a simple sense of evilness, but is instead something that lives in all of mankind.  This notion was finally dealt with in 1979 with Coppola’s Apocalypse Now.

Razack, Sherene. “Those Who ‘Witness the Evil’.”  Hypatia 18:1 (2003) 204-211

            This article focuses on contemporary world issues and the West’s moral responsibility to sustain the fight against what Razack defines as “evil” in the rest of the world.  Referencing the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the U.S. involvement in Somalia in 1993, the author makes the argument that though the western “peacekeeping” troops that witness these African atrocities feel the pain for the people that suffer and die under this evil, a giant cultural and social disconnect exists between the two sides that forces Westerners to ignore the evils of the murderers and chalk it up to the evils of the land itself.  By condemning Africa as a land so inherently evil that it fosters death and destruction and leaves outside influences helpless, Westerners justify their own sense of morality by taking a bystander approach to genocide, disease, and famine in a vastly racially, socially, and culturally different land. 

            Razack specifically points to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness in order to convey this sense of western disconnect to the people of the Dark Continent, as the main character Marlowe [sic] refers to the natives as “lusty-eyed devils”.  Razack contends that this form of dehumanization and disconnection was not only used recently in Africa, but was also a large part of the Vietnam War, conceptualized in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now.  The author contends that Americans attributed the American brutality toward the people of Southeast Asia to the brutal landscape itself.  The perceived evilness of the land and the people gave Westerners the opportunity to find the evil and darkness in themselves, a theme played out extensively in Apocalypse Now.

Burke, Anthony. “Violence and Reason on the Shoals of Vietnam.” Postmodern Culture: 9:3 (1999)

            Anthony Burke uses this essay to argue that Apocalypse Now, along with Stanley Karnow’s Vietnam, A History (a companion to the PBS television series), Neil Sheehan’s A Bright Shining Lie, and Robert McNamara's In Retrospect serve as texts that reveal key themes about literature in the post-Vietnam era in the United States and reflect the dramatic changes in the attitudes toward U.S. foreign policy and a national identity.  He claims that these texts open up questions about a deeper set of problems within the new American self-identity as it relates to the rest of the world.

            Burke cites other sources in saying that this phenomenon of the American self-identity crisis is destabilized because of our historical experience of imperialism.  When that understanding of the world that is supported by imperialism is brought down, as it was after the Vietnam experience, Americans fall into this “crisis of modernism,” in which the reality of the modern world that we have constructed ultimately flips on us and cultures once felt to be inferior now become something that must be taken seriously.

            Burke argues that this theme is directed played out in Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, and that the film stands as a symbol for a major cultural event not only in America, but the whole of western civilization.  Vietnam was a great blow to American arrogance, and Apocalypse Now reflected the new self-identity of Americans in the new sense of modernity.  Burke points specifically to the General’s warning to Willard in the beginning of the film, as the General states that the war has a tendency to sometimes let the evil within men triumph over the good.  The author contends that this reflected the feelings of many westerners in the post-Vietnam era, as a new self-identity was required due to the Vietnam experience.

Greene, Naomi. “Coppola, Cimino: The Operatics of History.” Film Quarterly 38:2

            (1984): 28-37

            In this article from Film Quarterly, Greene contends that directors Francis Ford Coppola and Michael Cimino have created a new form of cinematic melodrama with their films The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, The Deerhunter [sic], and Heaven’s Gate.  This new model, she contends, relies heavily on the old European model while reflecting on the social/political context of the world in the wake of the Vietnam/Watergate era.  In this sense, the spectacle that made the core of these films was interwoven in a new, creative fashion around the political and social issues of the period, using new elements to convey the melodrama to the new audiences. 

            In Greene’s new concept of the modern melodrama as created by Coppola and Cimino, the core elements of old French Revolution melodrama remain consistent; the heightened theatricality, characters larger and greater than life, powerful emotions and extreme actions, and great contrasts on the moral level (extreme good and evil personified by characters and the setting, a theme very prevalent in Apocalypse Now.)  In addition to the old elements of melodrama that remain consistent, Greene suggests that the music of the films now provide the defining element of this new type of film; the music and the spectacle adding up to cinematic melodrama.  In analyzing Coppola, Greene uses the example of Lt. Colonel Kilgore’s massive helicopter spectacle (accompanied by classic Wagner) in order to show how this formula of music plus spectacle equals the new melodrama in Apocalypse Now.

Kinder, Marsha. “The Power of Adaptation in Apocalypse Now.” Film Quarterly 33:2

            (1979): 12-20

            In “The Power of Adaptation in Apocalypse Now,” Marsha Kinder evaluates Francis Ford Coppola’s success in adapting Apocalypse Now from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, a challenge in which he had already succeeded with The Godfather films.  Kinder has mixed feelings on whether or not the director succeeds in truthfully and accurately adapting the details and basic message and themes of Heart of Darkness.  She feels that Coppola’s personal struggle with the making of the film (which was well publicized) and his attempts to personalize the film itself get in the way of what should be the underlying themes, messages, and context of the movie.  However, Kinder does claim that Coppola succeeds in conveying the notion that the Vietnam War (adapted from Conrad’s deep African colonial system) should be seen as an internal and external nightmare.

            The author goes on to say that Coppola manages to portray the horror of the Vietnam War to an appropriate level, a level that Americans demanded to be shown to them.  Coppola effectively accomplishes creating a balance between evoking the horror and evils of the American Vietnam experience by changing the setting, while maintaining the internal struggle through darkness experienced by the two main characters, Willard and Kurtz.  However, the complex internal nature of Kurtz’s (Marlon Brando) horror fails to come across to audiences, and it is in this area that the author claims Francis Ford Coppola fails with Apocalypse Now.  It is with this essential character that Kinder asserts Coppola fails to sufficiently adapt the true soul of Heart of Darkness; the character Kurtz, whose dive into madness is so essential to the story and message, is lost in the Brando portrayal.  The author contends that the film loses a significant amount of influence by failing to convey that the Kurtz’s downfall is directly due to his isolation and subsequent obsession with power.

Pulleine, Tim. “Shooting Coppola's ‘idiodyssey’.” Manchester Guardian Weekly 15

            Dec. 1991: C25

            This article provides a writer’s look into the documentary film Hearts of Darkness, shot by Francis Ford Coppola’s wife Eleanor during the filming of Apocalypse Now in the Philippines in the late 1970’s.  Pulleine contends that (much to the admission of the director) that the filming of Apocalypse Now in many ways mirrored the film itself; a crazy, dangerous setting filled with problems that witnessed a major journey by those involved through their own personal understanding of humanity and the psychedelic horrors of war. 

            The term ‘idiodyssey’ was one that Coppola himself created to describe the epic-like and tumultuous sixteen month shoot for the film; one that experienced typhoons, script re-writes, actor heart attacks and creative differences, and a major spiritual experience by all those involved in transplanting Conrad’s Heart of Darkness novella to the screen.  Pulleine points out that the documentary does provide interesting details about the troubled production, much of it reflecting the crazy, uncontrollable, and unpredictable mood of the film itself.  From Harvey Keitel being fired early during production, to Martin Sheen acting out a scene drunk and later having a heart attack, to Marlon Brando showing up overweight and refusing direction, to Dennis Hopper arguing consistently against certain aspects of his dialogue, the problems Coppola experienced during the filming are evident in his telling of Willard’s journey to find Kurtz.  In his conclusion, the author contends that the craziness of the filming can be witnessed firsthand by simply viewing the film itself.

Hoffman, Adina. “Apocalypse Again.” Jerusalem Post 9 Nov. 2001: 15B

This insightful article by Adina Hoffman provides an analytical review and foreign perspective of Apocalypse Now through the release of the re-edited version of the film, Apocalypse Now Redux.  Set against the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, Hoffman argues that the re-release of Apocalypse Now with fifty-three additional minutes of footage offers the world a chance to investigate once again the intentions of Coppola’s nightmarish film.  Hoffman refers to an interview with Francis Ford Coppola during the filming of Apocalypse Now in which he stated that “[M]y film is not a movie. My film is not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam. It's what it was really like - it was crazy. And the way we made it was very much like the way the Americans were in Vietnam. We were in the jungle, there were too many of us, we had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane”.  Going off of this confession that the film itself cannot be interpreted with any certainty (as the director himself can’t find a complete message) the author sees the additional footage in the redux version much like the rest of the film; messy and somewhat confusing, but simultaneously intriguing for new audiences.

            The newly inserted scene at the plantation seems to be Hoffman’s main critique, as she notes that Coppola himself withdrew the scene because of its poor acting and slow pace.  Drawing on this mythical, fog-bound scene, Hoffman claims that the addition of this scene can be seen as a symbol for the whole movie itself: confusing and controversial, while creating an new dark and captivating form of artistic expression in one of the craziest settings in the history of modern filmmaking.

Norris, Margot. “Modernism and Vietnam: Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now.”            MFS Modern Fiction Studies 44:3 (1998): 730 - 766

            Margot Norris fully examines and reviews Coppola’s extraordinary film in this article.  She attempts to voice Francis Ford Coppola’s critique on the Vietnam War not only through the dialogue inspired by Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, but also through the undermining themes and images of the film itself.  Even though most people contend that Apocalypse Now is a loose interpretation of Heart of Darkness, Norris claims that some of the seemingly random and meaningless scenes in Apocalypse Now actually mirror themes and passages from Conrad’s novella.  She dives deep into the psychedelic and dark imagery of Apocalypse Now and analyzes not only the changes made by Coppola and screenwriter John Milius, but also the true meaning of scenes and images that can be directly traced to Heart of Darkness.

            One of the main differences Norris finds between the source novella Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now can be found in the character changes and the implications meant by these changes. The change in setting also stands as one of the most glaring differences.  Norris contends that changing Marlow (a company man) to Willard (a military man), the accountant (a flamboyant ridiculous symbol of colonialism) to Lt. Colonel Kilgore (a ridiculous man of carnage), and the setting of colonial Africa to war torn Vietnam and Cambodia was meant by Coppola to comment mainly on the darkness and evils of man’s violence, exemplified by the Vietnam War.

Norris, Margot. “Modernism and Vietnam: Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now.”  MFS Modern Fiction Studies 44:3 (1998): 730 - 766

            Margot Norris fully examines and reviews Coppola’s extraordinary film in this article.  She attempts to voice Francis Ford Coppola’s critique on the Vietnam War not only through the dialogue inspired by Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, but also through the undermining themes and images of the film itself.  Even though most people contend that Apocalypse Now is a loose interpretation of Heart of Darkness, Norris claims that some of the seemingly random and meaningless scenes in Apocalypse Now actually mirror themes and passages from Conrad’s novella.  She dives deep into the psychedelic and dark imagery of Apocalypse Now and analyzes not only the changes made by Coppola and screenwriter John Milius, but also the true meaning of scenes and images that can be directly traced to Heart of Darkness.

            One of the main differences Norris finds between the source novella Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now can be found in the character changes and the implications meant by these changes. The change in setting also stands as one of the most glaring differences.  Norris contends that changing Marlow (a company man) to Willard (a military man), the accountant (a flamboyant ridiculous symbol of colonialism) to Lt. Colonel Kilgore (a ridiculous man of carnage), and the setting of colonial Africa to war torn Vietnam and Cambodia was meant by Coppola to comment mainly on the darkness and evils of man’s violence, exemplified by the Vietnam War.