Sounds like you're writing a different book to me, viewed through a different interpretive lens. My reading of Apocalypse Now is perhaps coloured by the large amount of academic coverage I did of Heart Of Darkness while at university, but for me the core subtext of Apocalypse Now is that of moral hypocrisy in the how the US military fought that war, but that is metonymic for a larger criticism of US (and Western) society as a whole - themes readily extracted from Conrad's novella.

The initial playbunny scene seems fairly self-explanatory in its depiction of the US conducting a war much like a circus, and how Charlie got no such diversions or comforts because he was in the business of death or victory. This is a very central theme: Kurtz becomes a brilliantly efficient soldier because he adopts the focused, amoral efficiency of Charlie, but his actual commitment to fighting a war to win appalls his American superiors.

Now, the larger critique of the playbunnies is to show that the Americans are fighting the war inefficiently because they're supposedly too moral and civilised to go around hacking children's arms off, and yet the utter depravity and misogyny of pornography is a central part of American culture, and thus the notion of "civilisation" is one of complete hypocrisy. (Again, this constant ironic binary thematic interplay is something I read into the film because it's so central to Heart Of Darkness.) In this sense, having an extra playbunny scene furthering the point does continue the attack on American cultural hypocrisy, but I think it's tangential because it's less and less focalised through the conditions of the actual conflict, and is over-egging a fairly peripheral point. Redux, from memory, is flabby and inefficient because it keeps "getting off the boat" for these pit-stops that overstate secondary points rather than keeping the emphasis on Kurtz and Willard's steady proximal and mental conflation to him.

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I wouldn't presume to take issue with any analysis of either the film or book that chooses to emphasize moral hypocrisy as being the theme on which all other themes are built, particularly with someone who is clearly versed in both (I, however, have only my experiences with the film to go by, which is why I describe it in terms of 'scenes'). The most apparent feature of the Playboy Bunny concert is the crude and vulgar behavior of those watching it (particularly as it escalates), and I think it lends itself just as credibly to the theme of personal depravity and madness as produced by virtue of combat (which is certainly the dominant theme of numerous other sequences in the film), as it does to the theme of cultural depravity and hypocrisy.

Having read your response, I'd be inclined to believe that if my take possesses as much merit as I believe it does, it's still at best secondary to the central themes described above, but that would still prevent it from being regulated to domain of fleeting, distinctly tangential moments that fail to further the point in any non-expendable way.

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He traded sands for skins, skins for gold, gold for life. In the end, he traded life for sand. Afari, Tales

Haha you guys are overanalyzing it. It's just there so they could put tits in the trailer, duuuh.

quote:

Originally posted by Paradox Lost The most apparent feature of the Playboy Bunny concert is the crude and vulgar behavior of those watching it (particularly as it escalates), and I think it lends itself just as credibly to the theme of personal depravity and madness as produced by virtue of combat (which is certainly the dominant theme of numerous other sequences in the film)

I suppose my issue with this reading is that I don't see Apocalypse Now as being particularly concerned with combat at all (even the helicopter attack is more grand impotent farce than genuine military encounter) and the way the Playboy scene is introduced actually sets it up as showing how soft and far removed from the war most of the soldiers are. That bizarre flotilla they discover is rich with material comforts, from beer to expensive motorbikes, and is populated by pencil-pushers rather than front line soldiers. That, I think, is the central message of the scene, rather than a direct critique of pornography, and as I said it's more closely related to the conditions of the conflict than the second scene added in Redux: those USO shows actually happened and most US soldiers experienced them, whereas finding a downed chopper of Playboy bunnies is more or less fantasy.

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The movie just reinforced how much it must suck to fight in fundamentalist Islamic countries.

The R&R is pretty lacking.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J I suppose my issue with this reading is that I don't see Apocalypse Now as being particularly concerned with combat at all (even the helicopter attack is more grand impotent farce than genuine military encounter) and the way the Playboy scene is introduced actually sets it up as showing how soft and far removed from the war most of the soldiers are. That bizarre flotilla they discover is rich with material comforts, from beer to expensive motorbikes, and is populated by pencil-pushers rather than front line soldiers. That, I think, is the central message of the scene, rather than a direct critique of pornography, and as I said it's more closely related to the conditions of the conflict than the second scene added in Redux: those USO shows actually happened and most US soldiers experienced them, whereas finding a downed chopper of Playboy bunnies is more or less fantasy.

Wikipedia reminded me that there's actually a third scene, that's actually the second one, where Clean tells Chef the story of a sergeant who killed his lt for ruining his Playboy centerfolds.
I think maybe it's the fact that it' broken up into the three parts that makes it feel more cohesive, at least to me, and also not solely an attack on some subject, since it includes some pure story-driven segments.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J I suppose my issue with this reading is that I don't see Apocalypse Now as being particularly concerned with combat at all (even the helicopter attack is more grand impotent farce than genuine military encounter) and the way the Playboy scene is introduced actually sets it up as showing how soft and far removed from the war most of the soldiers are.

I took another, refreshed viewing of this scene the other night, and despite my best efforts, I couldn't find a single tormented face in the crowd. On the contrary, it was far more consistent with the pervading disinterest in matters of combat that you described than of having been traumatized by it, so I'll bite the bullet on this one and concede error in my interpretation.

That said, I wouldn't go so far as to suggest that the film takes virtually no interest in the aspect of combat and the psychological effects of prolonged exposure to it. The scene I described earlier in our exchange- where Willard's company approaches a bridge and is accosted by soldiers assigned with protecting it- is something I feel speaks to this theme. The point in the film where Chef suffers a nervous breakdown when fleeing from a charging tiger is another example. Yes, it was used more importantly and relevantly in the symbolic illustration of 'never get off the boat,' but his encounter with a tiger was the final in what was clearly a series of events that drove him to the point of hysterical lunacy.

It would actually seem rather disingenuous, if not outright impossible, to create a film that so personally documents the experiences of war (particularly the Vietnam war) without concerning itself with the deeply personal afflictions it can produce.

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Last edited by Paradox Lost on Apr-16-2013 at 12:50

quote:

Originally posted by Paradox Lost That said, I wouldn't go so far as to suggest that the film takes virtually no interest in the aspect of combat and the psychological effects of prolonged exposure to it.

Oh no, in a very central way it is concerned by exactly that, but I don't think in the way you have read it. Chef is not a soldier, he's not been in combat, he is not deranged from his over-exposure to it. He's a chef. He doesn't know why air cav sit on their helmets (he's never been in an aerial insertion), he spends the entire tiger scene talking about how he wanted to be a navy cook and hunting for mangoes. This is not a man who is combat ready, or even combat-deranged. He's a civilian who is way, way out of his depth and doesn't want to be there. The same is true of almost all the American characters - the entire crew of PBR Streetgang would rather take drugs, dance to the Rolling Stones and drum on the rails than do anything resembling soldiering. To look at them you wouldn't think they'd fired a weapon in their lives. The soldiers at the bridge are pleading to go with them because they don't want to fight, they don't want to be there. Even the air cav are only prepared to step away from their gigantic beach barbecue and wipe out an entire village if there's some good surfing to be had out of it.

The only American characters we see who have any real business in combat are Kurtz, Willard and the black soldier with a grenade launcher who has the uncanny ability to kill with deadly accuracy. All three respond in the same way to prolonged exposure to combat: not by outright derangement, but by adopting an unnerving, amoral calm. They have been shot by Kurtz's diamond bullet, they can see through the lies of morality and that, ultimately, destroys their humanity. "The man is clear in his mind, but his soul is mad". That's why Kurtz wants Willard to kill him, because he's tortured by the destruction of his own humanity, and at the very end, Willard is symbolically ready to assume Kurtz's place, because he is practically in the same mental and spiritual destination Kurtz arrived at. Of course, he rejects the power and madness offered to him and the film closes with a never-ending shot of Willard's haunted eyes as images of napalm, of ancient carvings and of the jungle bleed in and out of the fabric of the shot and of his consciousness: the horror.

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Last edited by SYSTEM-J on Apr-16-2013 at 22:57

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J That's why Kurtz wants Willard to kill him, because he's tortured by the destruction of his own humanity, and at the very end, Willard is symbolically ready to assume Kurtz's place,

Speaking of distinct tangents, I think a similar characterization surfaces in 'The Hitcher' several years later. Not sure if you've seen it, or given it more than a passing observation if you had, but John Ryder's character is someone who begins murderously stalking the protagonist in what evidently becomes a mission to impart his madness upon him, relinquishing his place for somebody else to assume. Incidentally, I get the impression that he's implied to be an accomplished war veteran (most likely Vietnam, given his age and the time period). I'm not saying the film is without some of the disposable shallowness associated with the genre, but it's certainly worth a critical eye. And the soundtrack is eerily delightful:

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He traded sands for skins, skins for gold, gold for life. In the end, he traded life for sand. Afari, Tales

Not to mention the ending of Conan The Barbarian is almost identical to the end of Apocalypse Now. A taste, perhaps, of how silly the latter would have been had Francis Ford Coppola not extensively rewritten John Milius' original script.

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