I haven't watched the Redux cut since I was about 16 and it was the first version I saw. I just remember it being so painfully long and slow I don't think I finished it. It was only when I watched the theatrical cut I started to appreciate the film. I'm sure I'd appreciate Redux a lot more now, but generally I'm against extended or director's cuts of classics. The extra footage was usually left on the cutting room floor for a good reason, and it's probably been restored entirely to make fanboys fork out for another copy. Flawed films benefit from alternative cuts, not classics.
itsamemario
You mean you haven't seen the bunny sex scene?
The whole concert is so out of place in the original, I think. Just seems like a random "here are some girls"-scene, but the second scene gives it a bit of context and ties it together better imo.
I also like the argument with the french plantation owners, but I can see how others find it boring as . I guess "There are two of you, don't you see" can be a little too deep for someone who's mainly in it for the explosions. Not trying to imply that you are, of course :P
And the eerie love theme doesn't exactly help the scene progress either. But works well to paint an aural picture of opioids.
SYSTEM-J
The concert scene makes perfect sense. The playbunny sex scene is a very harrowing critique of pornography and the objectification of women, and even as a 16 year old I found it extremely disturbing, but it's distinctly tangential from the subtextual thrust of the film.
Lews
I watch the helicopter scene probably once a month, it's just so brilliant. Really need to dig out my DVD and watch the whole thing again, soon, though.
SYSTEM-J
I'm not going! I'm not going! I'm not going!
WittyHandle
quote:
Originally posted by Unique2701
Anyone seen this movie?
I couldn't get past this part.
Paradox Lost
quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Apocalypse Now is not just the best film ever made, it's so much better than anything else I don't know why people bother having their own opinions.
Better than Robocop?
In any event, I attribute so much of what's memorable about Apocalypse Now not simply to its (impressively sized) collection of poignant dialog and satirical sequences, but to how nearly every scene carries this unnerving, ominous inflection to it, and leaves you with an unsettling impression of what you just witnessed (even when you can't point the finger to anything in particular).
Something about the way the following scene transitions out of r&r to the tune of 'Satisfaction' and into the narrator's take on Kurtz's dossier at 1:33 'really puts the hook in me:'
SYSTEM-J
quote:
Originally posted by Paradox Lost
Better than Robocop?
I love Robocop and it's one of my all-time favourites, but Apocalypse Now is four times the piece of cinema Robocop is.
Paradox Lost
quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
I love Robocop and it's one of my all-time favourites, but Apocalypse Now is four times the piece of cinema Robocop is.
I don't know man, I read your review of Robocop, and walked away with the impression that you find it better than everything for all values of 'better.'
SYSTEM-J
I could very easily write an entire book on Apocalypse Now.
Paradox Lost
quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
I could very easily write an entire book on Apocalypse Now.
Well, I'm going to have to take issue with the section that addresses the Playboy Bunny concert, and how it concerns matters of pornography and the objectification of women. I don't see that as the basis for its inclusion in the film, but rather is intended to emphasize and reinforce the theme of depravity as inspired by being forced to endure prolonged periods of armed conflict. I don't see, for example, the point in which the soldiers storm the stage as being too dissimilar in spirit from a scene later in the film, where we witness soldiers abandoning their posts, charging Willard's boat, and frantically pleading- suitcase in hand- to be taken along with them.
It may be expressed with misogynistic overtones in mind, but I think this is entirely incidental to the underlying notion of fleeing the madness of fighting an endless battle in an unfamiliar and unforgiving place, and into something- anything- that looks and feels like home. To that point, I think it's entirely consistent with the film's subtextual thrust, as you put it.
EDIT: I do admit that the scene as presented in its original entirety might create some problems for my analysis.
itsamemario
quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
I love Robocop and it's one of my all-time favourites, but Apocalypse Now is four times the piece of cinema Robocop is.
Could you agree that the terms movie and film could be used respectively about said masterpieces, as to differentiate what they were trying to accomplish, not minding the origins of the words movie and film?
