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Apocalypse now redux vs final cut4/29/2023 These were elements excised not because of artistic but due to commercial or political constraints, and their inclusion makes the film more whole. Lawrence of Arabia 's restoration cut, for example, is definitive, with scenes that had to be dubbed by surviving actors decades after providing positive context to the film. Revisionism on this magnitude isn't new – there's talk of Stanley Kubrick going into booths to snip release prints of segments he didn't like from his films – but the cynical may think this is mere repackaging of something that already had its kick at the can. Everything else added has been bonus, and while for fans of the film these are welcome asides and expansions, for first time viewers the original version is ideally the journey to first take. Yet what we broadly think of as the original cut remains the most effective telling of the story, with the right amount of excess and precision that makes its 153 minutes practically fly by. The 70mm roadshow version eschewed credits (you were handed a printed document with the info), the Cannes cut was tweaked after the fact, and the 35mm theatrical version incorporated the explosions of the Kurtz compound that were shot but never intended to be seen, mostly a way for production to demolish their standing set. There never really was a definitive original cut of the 1979 film. 18 years after that Redux, and 40 years to the day after the film's original theatrical premiere (following its "work in progress" screening at Cannes the previous May) we are treated to IMAX presentations of what's promised to be the "Final Cut" of this extraordinary work. Regardless of whether you responded or not to the additions, it was an opportunity to see a cleaned up version of the film in a proper theatrical context, complete with the pioneering quintaphonic soundtrack where the sounds of the helicopters circle the theatre as The Doors' somber song "The End" begins the adventure. In 2001, Coppola, along with longtime collaborator Walter Murch, revisited these sequences and added 49 minutes to the original running time, resulting in an almost three and a half hour long epic that played for a brief time theatrically. We first got a taste there that there was even more of this story of madness and mayhem, not simply deleted scenes but entire Odyssean journeys yet to be seen along the trip up river. There a turbulent family resists all changes to their lifestyle despite their inevitable downfall. Part of the joy of that doc was seeing some of the sequences that the 1979 cut excised, including an extended section that takes place at a French Plantation past the Do Long Bridge. All of this is told in Hearts of Darkness, the treasure of non-fiction filmmaking that's just as rightfully celebrated as the film it documents. The film's shooting schedule doubled in scope, and the director had to balance his days with the needs of a tyrannical Philippine leader's ongoing conflict with communist guerillas. He fired his star Harvey Keitel after a few days of shooting (Steve McQueen and Al Pacino had turned down the role prior to production), replacing him with Martin Sheen, who would eventually have a heart attack midway through the filming. Similarly, there's no better cinematic representation of these birds than Apocalypse Now, a film that barely stays in flight, whipping and spinning around, yet managing, implausibly, to be one of the greatest artistic achievements of all time.ĭirector Francis Ford Coppola famously argued that his troubled production wasn't a movie it wasn't something about Vietnam, it was the war, with all its excesses and idiocies and triumphs and catastrophes. There is no war more associated with the helicopter than Vietnam, and no better metaphor for America's involvement than the technical might of the whirlybird that embodies all the achievements and progress and horrors of "modern" civilization, a fragile dominance that rests on thin, spinning blades. you'd see them every week with their giant, dragonfly glass bubbles flying over the canyons of California meant to evoke the Korean conflict. I liked shows like Airwolf about a fancy flying machine, or even the forgotten Clint Eastwood film Firefox, and on M.A.S.H. The fundamentally feel out of context when you see them in the sky, and with the smallest interference to their aerodynamic components, catastrophe strikes. Helicopters seem so implausible, like they shouldn't work, some sort of mechanical beast that defied nature's rules. There was no real reason why, save for the fact that they seemed more magical than planes. As a kid, I was obsessed with helicopters.
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