Just finished watching "Apocalypse Now." Yet, again. My shirt is wet.

[DemoTex]

I have also read Conrad's Heart of Darkness (and other works) a "few" times (love Conrad .. he learned English at about age 23!). I follow the Heart of Darkness parallels somewhat, although I find them distractingly gratuitous (Brando's great Kurtz: .. we KNEW the etiology! .. "the horror, the horror"), or gratuitously distracting. Whatever.

Here is my question for Apocalypse Now junkies: What is the purpose of the USO Show scene mid-river? Since Apocalypse Now came out in 1979, I feel that it was another gratuitous detractor (although interesting .. especially the supply sergeant). A psychedelic detractor.

A/N is for film buffs, I guess. I like it OK. Some Viet Nam vets do too. The film is beautiful and the acting exquisite.

Apocalypse Now captures the insanity of Viet Nam in a Catch-22 way, without the laughs. But it never stands up to Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, or Hamburger Hill (my favorite). It still breaks me out in chills and sweats.

[ellisonz]

1. *spoiler*

If you watch the redux version i.e. the original unedited film they come across the bunnies up the river after their helicopter has crashed. They trade fuel for sex. The scene functions effectively to introduce the sexual element inherent in all occupations. In its stand alone OG version it functions to demonstrate the delusions of the military command in regards to morale and to show the "physio-sexual" isolation from "The World."

:dilemma:

[DemoTex]

3. The black "Bunny" copter?

Shit! Actually, I need to watch all the "extras" on the DVD sometimes.

[ellisonz]

8. They released the Redux version on its own a few years back.

It is much better than the original edition IMHO not because of that scene but because of a brilliant 40 minute long scene before the ending that I will not spoil. It's worth a trip to the local "video" store.

[mitchum]

2. I think it was used to point out how much of the war was normalized...

or attempted to be normalized- "just like back home" Also another cheap motivator for the young men who were dying in the war- sex and violence. I think that the USO scene works in the original cut of the movie, but when they meet back up with the girls in "Apocalypse Now Redux" it is just dumb and gratuitous.

[ellisonz]

9. Agreed.

[walldude]

4. Well, in the extended version there is a scene later

where the guys on the boat trade fuel for sex with the Playboy Bunnies manager, which helps make the other scene make more sense. I think the USO scene itself symbolized the difference between us and the Vietnamese. Willard has that little voice-over after the scene where he says this: "Charlie didn't get much USO. He was dug in too deep, or moving too fast. His idea of great R&R was cold rice and a little rat meat. He had only two ways home - death, or victory.". It kind of explained why we would never win that war. For me personally it gave me a better understanding of what it was like over there, the insanity, thus it made me care more about the characters. On top of all that, you never really saw how tough Willard was until grabbed that supply dude and laid him out, it's the first scene where you don't just hear about Willard being a bad ass but you actually see it.

for edited bad grammar...

[DemoTex]

6. Supply Dude

Every ex-mil type seeing A/N cheered when Willard decked the supply guy (but he was not a REMF!). Supply-guy's prices proved the danger up-river. Normally, supply guys were in the rear with the beer. But I ran into gougers during the hardships of Lam Son 719.

[mike_c]

5. I'm not sure there really is a narrative purpose to that scene...

...but that scene and the scene at the last bridge closely echo some of the stories Michael Herr wrote in Dispatches-- I suspect Cuppola was so struck by the weird imagery those stories invoked that he HAD to include them in Apocalypse Now.

[DemoTex]

7. Michael Herr narrated the film, "Apocalypse Now."

According to the credits. Good voice! Loved Dispatches!

[mitchum]

11. Those credits are confusing; Herr wrote the narration, but that's Sheen's voice...

doing the narration

[mitchum]

10. I have another question about the movie...

in the early scene where Sheen meets with the two officers played by GD Spradlin and Harrison Ford, the guy not in uniform who doesn't say anything is a CIA spook. That's what I've always assumed. Am I right?

[TahitiNut]

13. The "company" was all over the place.

We had spooks from everywhere ... even Korea. It makes little difference whether it was DIA or CIA in the movie ... the country was crawling with them. Clearly, they were found most often at the larger base camps and Saigon - where general staff hung out - as well as Vung Tau where both the US/ARVN and VC/NVA personnel R&R'd.

[mitchum]

14. Thanks!

[TahitiNut]

12. I thought the surrealistic/delusional "normalcy" juxtaposed against the insanity

... really captured the mental/emotional flavor of that Hell quite well. Apocalypse Now is the ONLY film to come close to show the psych ward tone of being there, imho. All the others I've seen just don't have the edge and that tone - and rely far too heavily on the action Jackson shit. In the other films, the viewer falls back on the ordinary understanding that "everything's OK" when recovering from from prolonged battle ... that sure, there are wounds to be healed and bodies to be buried but unless the bullets are flying it's like camping out or being in training. It's nonsense, of course. The only problem with Apocalypse Now is that it relies on events that're visually obvious as psycho ... when so much of the insanity is the disconnect that command and others have with the reality. So much of the 'regularization' of the daily routine seemed like grafting a human head on the body of a hyena. To survive mentally, we had to go just a little bit nuts (that's a hint) and find ways of laughing instead of crying and running screaming.

The juxtaposition of the USO show and the supply sergeant (and the surfing) against the 'strange land' context seemed to be excellent devices to show the insane incongruities.

I also appreciated the tone and flavor of the earth and vegetation and humidity they found ... it's about as close as I've seen in any of the movies.