Harry here... this is the key thing I missed at Cannes this year that just chaps my hide. Both times it screened, I was 30 minutes away with 20 minutes to get there. SIGH. It's supposed to be magnificent, here's Capone...
Hey, Harry. Capone in Chicago here. Last night, I attended a benefit screening for the Chicago International Film Festival of APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX. No special guests, just a little food, a little wine, etc. They let the movie speak for itself...
The claims that 2000 was a horrible year for movies were greatly exaggerated. The claims that 2001 is a bad year for movies are completely true. We’re more than half way through the year, and I’ve only seen one or two performances that MIGHT quality for Oscar consideration, and no movies that do (maybe MEMENTO). But as bad a year as it has been for new movies, I’ve seen some of the best re-releases in 2001. In the last seven months, new prints (most with vastly improved sound) have come out for: MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL; QUADROPHENIA; ALL ABOUT EVE; FELLINI SATYRICON; THE BIG BLUE; and 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (which I’ve seen, but won’t be released in theatres until October if you're lucky). If you look back at the last 12 months, you could also throw THE EXORCIST and A HARD DAY’S NIGHT on the list. And very soon, a restored print of KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN will be hitting screens. But the mother of all restored, remastered and reconfigured masterpieces is about to hit theatres soon. APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX is a 3 hour 20 minute (about 50 minutes longer than the original release) cut of the war movie to end all war movies.
For someone like me, who considers the film one of the finest ever made and has studied each scene in detail, REDUX is something of a Holy Grail for film lovers (second only to the 5-hour-plus master cut that apparently has been circulating on video for years; someone please send me one!), not to mention the added bonus of being able to watch such a beautiful work on a big screen with fantastic sound. But to see all of the major players in restored footage, to hear new music, to find out that entire storylines were excised, sitting through this version of this film is one of the great moviegoing experiences I’ve ever had.
Is the restored footage crucial? Of course not In fact, some of it is downright tedious, especially the lengthiest of the cut footage involving a group of French plantation owners who have dinner with the soldiers and heatedly discuss Vietnamese politics. I wasn’t that impressed with the sequence at all, but during the course of it, we do learn what happens to the body of Mr. Clean (a 14-year-old Laurence Fishburne). But there are great scenes as well, including a very funny sequence involving the group stealing Lt. Kilgore’s (Robert Duvall) surfboard and him pursuing them in his helicopter. There’s also an extra sequence with Brando’s Col Kurtz reading Time magazine reports of the war to Capt. Willard (Martin Sheen), while surrounded by children. This is the only scene in the movie where you see Brando in the daylight, and you realize that, although he had put on significant weight before filming, he wasn’t nearly as bulbous as I’d originally thought. The much talked about sequence involving the crew stumbling across the stranded Playboy bunnies is just plain bizarre, but I didn’t mind it nearly as much as I thought I would. It’s actually sort of funny.
More important than the restored footage, however, is the original stuff projected on the wide screen. It was great to relive my favorite moments: Jim Morrison singing “This is the end...” as the film opens to slow-motion visions of napalm bombing; Martin Sheen’s mental breakdown dance where he cuts his hand while breaking a mirror; seeing a very young Harrison Ford play a character called “Lucas”; Sam Bottoms as surfer Lance Johnson go into a gradual drug-induced insanity; Duvall sucking in his gut as he speaks of the smell of napalm and victory; Fishburne’s funky chicken dance to the Rolling Stones “Satisfaction”; Dennis Hopper being so...Dennis Hopper; Brando’s head bobbing in and out of light when Sheen first encounters him (the anticipation factor of actually seeing his face always gets to me); and the marvelously editing Kurtz execution montage, again set to The Doors music. (I'm sure you all have your favorites.)
If you’ve seen it a dozen times before, see it again; you’ve never seen it like this. If you’ve never seen it, this is the time.
Capone
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