If war is hell, then this masterpiece by Francis Ford Coppola must be the closest thing to damnation that we can experience on earth. "Apocalypse Now" is a meditation on the horrors of war. It's a powerful and hypnotic journey to the darkness of the human heart. And it is not, by any means, entertainment. This is a movie I like to watch when today's movies start to feel too hyper and uninspired. Not that movies like "Blade 2", "The Usual Suspects", or even "Lord of the Rings" are bad. In fact, those are a few of my favorites. But when you compare anything that is playing in multiplexes today (or almost any movie for that matter) to "Apocalypse Now", they all just seem to be lacking something. It's hard to explain, but very easy to understand, once you see it.
Last year, I watched "Apocalypse Now Redux" during its theater run with two friends. That was a great day. I had seen the movie without the restored footage on VHS, which was definitely not the right way to experience it. And I recently bought "Redux" on DVD, and I am very very happy to add it to my collection. The Technicolor remastering is lush and beautiful. The jungles of Vietnam (actually the Philippines) come to life, as does every explosion, and every character (as you can see in the picture above). The insert for the DVD and the chapter menu indicate which scenes are not from the original theatrical version, which is very helpful because I can just skip those scenes if I feel the need to. The new scenes are very good, but some of them (for example, the French plantation scene) disturb the flow just enough that I would be inclined to skip them during certain viewings. But as I learned from Roger Ebert's review, Mr. Coppola describes the French as ghosts who seem to ask the Americans to heed their warning. That is brilliant imagery, and indicative of Coppola's genius. There isn't one moment in this film that doesn't feel inspired.
Roger Ebert summed up his review of this film with the words "now this is a movie." I'm sure that this is a commment most people would agree with. Well, my conclusion is similar. "Apocalypse Now" is, in my opinion, the epitome of great art.