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Apocalypse Now (Theatrical Cut) - 9/10
I'd seen Redux...and hated it. This however is a film the deserves the reputation. That said its hard to write a review for it since ive seen a version of it. No clue why edited the film again to make that truly terrible Redux version but...they did. Ive spent decades thinking that it was me and i just didnt click with the film. Nope. Its that cut.
I dont think, even with this superior version, in the final analysis that this is the definitive Vietnam picture. I think that's Full Metal Jacket. I say that having not seen Platoon though (I did purchase Platoon and ill be watching it in the next week or so. I want to give some air between these two.)
Watching this film i was thinking on the American War Film Oeuvre in a broad sense while watching this though. The WW2 pictures of the 40s-60s were hero flicks. Good vs bad. Essentially cowboy films.
Juxtapose them with Nam films. There's no hero.no morality. This is the American psyche struggling to admit something. Something darker than the films even allow for. The films want to have a post moralist tilt. I find that dishonest on some level. We were the villain.
The nam films never go that far of course. They cant. The customers fought there, their loved ones died there. There isnt an audience for that film...if the filmmaker even allows themselves to consider the thought let alone accept it.
But it is there underneath it all. Struggle its way to the surface of their minds. These films trend dark, this one literally devolves into a horror picture at the top of the third act. Theyre dark reflections we're struggling to cope with.
Id like to see an honest film on the modern wars. I envision an impressionist film showing them as procedural and disassociated. Wars conducted with automaton like actions. Lifeless and sterile. Gone is the passionate sound track of nam. The roaring heroism of ww2. A transactional presentation. Like a bloody walgreens receipt.
In any event this film definitely has a role in the great American film catalog without question. Im glad i finally gave it a go. After seeing Redux and now seeing this isa great testament, retroactively, to how paramount editors truly are.
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