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We love to think and rap about our love of cinema. We are ideaphiles, storyphiles, and cinephiles. Our aim is to share those loves, and understand their value and importance in our lives, with each other, and everyone who listens.
-Philing
003 Apocalypse Now
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In this episode we discuss the first fifteen minutes of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now.
Welcome to Filing, where we love to think and rap about our love of cinema. This is not to be confused with filling, as some have pronounced it. This is the Filing Cast. That said, we will be filling your minds with sounds and ideas inspired by things we file, or rather, things we love. I'm Sean Patrick, and I'll be joined by Brandon Mitchell. We are ideophiles, storyphiles, and cinephiles. Our aim is to share those loves and understand their value and importance in our lives with each other and everyone who listens. Our discussion might be a broad and detailed spoiler, so if you haven't seen this episode's movie, stop this cast right now, go watch it, and then return to filing to hear our thoughts and feelings. Please note there is some occasional static and unintended noise during this episode. It is quiet, occasional, and barely noticeable. I don't even know why I brought it up. We meandered a little bit in this episode, so we summoned the spirit of Walter Murch. Walter Merch was the editor and sound designer of Apocalypse Now, so with Mr. Merch in mind, we edited this episode quite a bit for clarity. But if you find we're still meandering and not entertaining you enough, then turn your listen into a themed reaction game. This week, every time you hear one of us say something idiotic, do 10 jumping jacks as fast as you dare. You might get an amazing high-intensity workout. This episode is part two of the After the Life inspiration series, which is a collection of movie reviews intended to inspire the production of an original movie titled The After the Life, The Movie. The After the Life The Movie is currently being produced and will screen at an event called The Fest 2026 on July 18th. Go to thefest2026.com for details about the event. In this episode, we discuss the movie Apocalypse Now. Apocalypse Now is an American movie that was co-written, directed, and produced by Francis Ford Coppola. The theme, or broadest meaning of Apocalypse Now, is the horror of war. The plot theme or central conflict of the movie is perhaps best described by a character in the movie, a U.S. Army general, played by the actor G. D. Spradlin. He describes the central conflict as the rational versus the irrational, good versus evil, or the better angels of our nature versus the dark side. The movie was written amid the backdrop of the Vietnam War. In 1968, over 16,500 U.S. soldiers, 27,915 South Vietnamese soldiers, and tens of thousands of North Vietnamese soldiers and Vietnamese citizens were killed. In 1969, the writer John Milius completed the first draft of a screenplay titled The Psychedelic Soldier. Before the last U.S. combat troops left Vietnam in 1973, Milius changed the title to Apocalypse Now. The new title was a sarcastic spin on the hippie slogan of the time, Nirvana Now. The United States officially ended direct military involvement in Vietnam in 1975, and in 1976, the production of Apocalypse Now began. Production ended in May of 1977, and then in 1979, 10 years after the screenplay's first draft was completed, the movie Apocalypse Now was released to audiences. The movie was originally 2 hours and 33 minutes long. It was re-released in 2001 at a length of 3 hours and 17 minutes, and again in 2019 at 3 hours and 1 minute. But we're only going to talk about the first 15 minutes. We're calling this type of talk the first 15-minute exercise. And the goal of this exercise is to identify a single plot point called the inciting incident, or the first cause of action. This incident or action incites or causes all subsequent action in the story's plot. This is our first time recording this type of conversation, so, like the boat in Apocalypse Now drifting through the foggy twists and turns of the fictional Noon River, we may lose our direction. Perhaps that's to be expected when contemplating the darker realms of human nature. But we mostly discuss whatever we see in here, like or dislike, about the first 15 minutes of Apocalypse Now. So please do not flee. Enjoy episode three.
SPEAKER_04We were talking a lot about um the acts, act one, act two, act three of a movie. If, you know, unless there's more than that, because some experimental movies and stuff will mess around with multiple acts or one act or whatever. But typically it's a three-act structure that we're dealing with. And I think it's not easy to differentiate what they are a lot of times. So um part of this exercise is to see within the first 15 minutes of a movie, are you getting to the second act by that point, or is is it can we differentiate what it means by being the first act? And I think Apocalypse Now is an interesting one because that inciting incident happens within the first 15 minutes of this movie.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think it does. The main character played by Martin Sheen, Captain Willard, receives orders from his higher-ups to go on a mission. And he is looking for a mission and he accepts the mission and then he embarks upon the mission. Right. And so he cho ultimately choosing to go on that mission. Um, and that is I think the inciting incident. I think it's pretty simple. It happens within the first 18 minutes of the movie. Okay.
SPEAKER_04I want to note too, um, when uh as we're doing this first 15-minute exercise, that we're not strict about the 15 minutes. That's a good point. It's not like we set a timer and when 15 minutes hits, we stop it. It's whatever that scene is, you let it continue so it's not a strict 15-minute rule. So that's why I guess with this one being in the first 18 minutes, that's how long that scene plays out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You want to get into this first 15 minutes? Go through that. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, because I think um the movie really, I agree that it really gets into that and lays that the that theme out um super clearly in the first 15 minutes, and it does it in a lot of different ways. What's also uh kind of strange about it is, you know, because you were saying about the horrors of war. Um it basically starts and a lot of that damage has already occurred before this plot even starts rolling out. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00The story starts in the middle of the war and in the middle, or perhaps even at the tail end of a particular character's experience of the war.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean, because it's it starts with the kind of it's almost half like a dream sequence. Yep. The first, I don't know, five minutes or so. Um starting with the sounds of the helicopters, they're kind of warped a little bit or slowed down, maybe. Um, and it's slow motion of the jungle, and then all this yellow smoke starts showing up in the frame and kind of real quick.
SPEAKER_00I don't know if that's smoke or if that's like chop, uh like the result of like helicopter chop picking up sand off the beach.
SPEAKER_04Okay, yeah, because I was thinking the a thought that went through my head is Agent Orange, you know. Um it just for some reason made me think of that, and because the coloring of it is yellow, a little orange-ish, and maybe also no knowing that then there's gonna be this napalm explosion just blowing up the entire forest. And so at because the first shot of the forest is pretty pristine until it's like cut off by helicopters in the floor foreground going past, then that yeah, that dust or whatever starts coming up. It's just the coloring of it looks not earthly, you know, so it it has some sort of a little bit of danger, you know, because it's like if you're walking around and that dust was out there, you wouldn't want to be breathing that in just by the look of it, and so it doesn't even it doesn't look as like dirt, it looks like something else, like more chemical, you know. Yeah, but but then like the whole forest blows up. Then you go into this dream sequence where his uh Martin Sheen's face shows up upside down, so it's like that's him, like he's a guy in this world and he's upside down, you know. And then it's kind of fading in and out of images from the war, maybe helicopters, but also his ceiling fan is up there.
SPEAKER_00Well, before well, before that, um so when the when Captor Captain Willard's face comes in upside down, you then get that uh low-angle ceiling fan shot, which is in the industry, I believe that's called a nadir shot.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_00N a D I R, which is a reverse overhead shot. So it's a shot from the floor with the camera pointing up toward the ceiling.
SPEAKER_05Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00And then the background changes. And then instead of panning right, the background image pans left. And then you're during all this, do you see Captain Willard's face upside down on the left side of the frame? And then on the right side of the frame fades in the face of a statue that I never noticed before in the opening sequence. I did not notice it until I w watched that opening sequence several times in the last week.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And that face is a motif that returns at the end of the movie. And in the beginning, the faces are separate, and at the end, after Captain Willard kills Colonel Kurtz, they're superimposed halfway over top of one another. Oh wow. So Captain Willard's eye matches the eye in the statue. Nice. And the and the statue is some sort of monument in this Cambodian jungle culture, perhaps some sort of deity or the representation of some sort of deity that's worshipped or that represents something to this primitive culture, that to me ultimately symbolizes the wild or like the savage nature of the wild, as killing can do. And so this I find it interesting at the end of the movie that those two that their faces are superimposed only halfway over top of one another. But that's something about the end of the movie. Back to the beginning of the movie. No, that's cool though.
SPEAKER_04I I like that because um it also could be the stone statue is a more permanent thing, and may in in the beginning they're separate, but it's like when they're combined together, maybe that means he is permanently, in a way, stuck in that environment. Cause I think the I think the nature of how war sinks into you and you can't let go of it uh is in the first 15 minutes because he has voiceover where he's talking about you know, almost well, he definitely wants a mission. I think it it wraps up in a way where he's you know says something like, After I've been on this mission, I wouldn't want to go back. But in the beginning, he's he's done missions, they've kind of fucked him up because he doesn't know where he is some of the times. He wakes up and has to realize that he's in Saigon. And he said sometimes when he's home, he wishes he was in the jungle, and vice versa, and all that stuff. So it's definitely all mixed up about all that stuff. But I don't know. I just thought about that when you're bringing those two images and saying they combine together at the end, it's almost like that's the he's now a statue in a sense. Like he he'll never get out of that jungle now that he's been through all of this stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's definitely representative of a conflict between two things. And that exact line that you're referring to in that first scene is Will from Willard is um I'm reading from the transcript of the screenplay. He says, When I was home after my first tour, it was worse. I'd wake up and there'd be nothing. I hardly said a word to my wife until I said yes to a divorce. When I was here, I wanted to be there. When I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the jungle. I'm here a week now, waiting for a mission. Getting softer. Every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker, and every minute Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger. Yeah. But I still, you know, so I think it probably speaks to what you're talking about. That internal conflict of that character, not knowing where he wants to be, you know, wanting to be in one more than one place, and not wanting to be in any of them. But also representative of that conflict between a civilized culture resolving conflict by means of uncivilized methods. And struggling with that and grappling with that that that inner conflict of being civilized and being savage. Because I think that face statue ultimately represents that like a savage, more primitive wild culture which is closer to death, and so the stakes are higher. You know, they don't have advanced technology to protect them from the dangers of nature. They're in nature. They could be strolling around along a trail and get attacked by a tiger and it's done. And a tiger doesn't care. And so, in order to live amongst the tigers, you have to become a tiger, which is what Colonel Kurtz does within the broader context of or maybe uh less broader context of just operating a war. So fascinating motif that one can study and contemplate and can come to a variety of different conclusions. Um so in that opening scene, you know, after that face statue fades out, um there's a whole bunch of superimposed images cross-dissolving, and I don't think I'd ever seen a sequence like that before. Seeing it in Apocalypse now. And I'm not sure I've seen anything since. Yeah. It was edited by Walter Murch. And he was the primary editor. There were some other editors as well. Um little fun fact Walter Murch was the first person ever to receive a credit as sound designer in a movie. And he it was for Apocalypse now.
SPEAKER_04Well, so he edited the movie but also did sound design.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, there's an interesting there's interesting sound design in that opening sequence too. Yeah. Like at one point, I think it's during that sequence or during the line that I just read jungle sounds fade in. And he's kind of squatting in his room, kind of like looking around and kind of teetering on his on the balls of his feet, looking around, and you can hear all kinds of animal noises and bird noises, and perhaps lizard noises in the background while he's saying all of that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and then he does um some like naked Tai Chi stuff, which made me think about the introduction of the bad guy in Die Hard 2, does pretty much the same thing.
SPEAKER_07So that's hilarious, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And Martin Sheen actually punches a mirror.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00They they talk about the scene in the documentary Hearts of Darkness, and Martin Sheen got really, really drunk during that scene.
SPEAKER_04Oh, for real?
SPEAKER_00For real. He got really, really drunk in that scene. And he was having a hard time just standing on his feet, and he lost perspective. He didn't know how close he was to that mirror. And Coppola was giving him direction the whole time, and then he just punched it and then gashed up his thumb, and they wanted to stop the production. Martin Sheen made the choice to continue the scene. And so they continued it. And then the scene is gets cut together the way it does, of him dealing with this bloodied hand, he wipes it all over his face, it's all over the sheets, it's everywhere. It's pretty perfect, pretty perfect. But again, the result of an intuitive process. It wasn't planned at all. But you can't imagine that scene without all that blood. One interesting note from that opening scene. So Martin Sheen's character is naked in the scene. And you know, goes through this mental breakdown. And during the end of the scene, he's naked, bloodied, he's sitting on the floor, and he's facing the camera. And his genitals are exposed. And he makes the choice to cover them with a sheet. And I thought that that was really interesting. It bothers me. Um, I mean, I think, you know, mainly because the character in the movie is alone in a hotel room. But, you know, Martin Sheen actor is in a room full of production crew members.
SPEAKER_07Right.
SPEAKER_00You know, it's hard to believe the character would cover himself in that moment, but not hard to believe the actor would not cover himself, although his genitals are in not in the frame. Um, but he would have no way of knowing that. Um and it's the only part of the introduction that takes me out of the movie. Well, that's cool.
SPEAKER_04I've never I've never checked that out. I'll definitely look at that the next time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really brief because the movie is so good. So as soon, because it's like, you know, that scene in Sheen's performance is so powerful, so much more powerful than that little moment. And the scene right after that shortly fades to black and quickly cuts the next scene with a really cool establishing shot of two soldiers walking up a staircase, and Captain Woodward's voiceover comes back in, and he describes the soldiers coming to him with a mission. And that low, deep voice is comes in and he's like, brought it up to me like room service. You know, so there's so it immediately keeps the movie immediately keeps moving and is immediately intriguing and continues to be intriguing that it's that one little quote unquote mistake in the movie that at least brought me out of the movie. Yeah. I don't even I don't ever remember it. Because it's so edited so well. And it's and everything about it, even two soldiers walking up the stairs and listening to a voiceover of Martin Sheen's character is so intriguing. So I thought that was noteworthy in the introduction.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, one detail I like during that too, there's a s there's a shot where I think it gets to it first where there's a weird um shadow of the ceiling fan that almost looks like an effect. Uh I you know it's because it's it's almost like slow strobe. Um that it happens for a few seconds and then it fades to an way overhead shot where the shadows of the ceiling fan are going around the room and he's sitting on the floor eating. And um, I kind of like that. I mean, just the effect of that was cool, but I like the detail of him uh eating like out of bowls on the floor where it's um like uh it just I think to me has a little uh impact of how he's uh adapting to a different culture. Like he's been there so long, like he eats like you know, like when you see in movies and stuff, people in Asian cultures eating, they sit on the floor and eat out of bowls and stuff like that, and he's uh eating the same way. So I don't know. It's just like a little detail that Yeah, that is interesting.
SPEAKER_00When I saw that, I had the impression that he's squatting in the bush like Charlie, trying to regain his strength before he goes back to the jungle.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And he's eating like them too, although he probably wouldn't have bowls out in the jungle. Yeah. You know. Um I don't know about that, I don't know about that ceiling fan shot because I think there's only two ceiling fan shots.
SPEAKER_04And they're gonna be a little bit more than shadows of of the fan going around. So when when it's that when it's that overhead shot and he's on the floor, there's huge like fan blade shadows going around the room. But they like it's like in the whatever shot is before that, it has that, probably has that shot superimposed over it. And so, but all that's coming across is the fact that it's like a sh a shadow, so it has like a little strobe effect, and then it fades into that shot of him overhead, and then you see what why that strobe effect is happening is because these big black shadows are circling the entire room.
SPEAKER_00I totally missed that. I'm gonna have to watch that whole sequence again looking for that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, there's so much, it's like every time you watch it, there's so much. Like, I the the last two times I watched it, it was pr very different. Um, so you know, like so getting into the next part, because this is where I really found the differences, is uh especially once they get to the scene with where he's getting the mission delivered to him. But before we get there, then we have those two guys coming up to just bring him, and he's super hungover. And that the part about that, I think, the or one of the interesting parts about that is just how he's a what is he, uh captain or he's a captain. Captain. So they're coming to pick this guy up for a mission, he's so hungover they they have a term for it where he's they say something like, We got a dead one, or something like that. Which means, I guess, oh, we're picking this guy up, he's been off duty for a week and he's trashed. We there's a protocol for this because we do this all the time. And I think that's kind of interesting.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04That there's these these guys.
SPEAKER_00I like it, I like it when Captain Willard is he's listening to them and they're like, um, Captain, we have orders from uh Latrang to come and get you. And he's like, Okay, what are the charges? Right. Thinking he's being arrested for something. Exactly. It's so perfectly revealing of his state of mind and what he thinks of himself and what he's done.
SPEAKER_04Right, exactly. Yeah, yeah, but no, it that doesn't matter. We just got another another job for you to do. You know. It's very well written.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, and so then the next scene, yeah, he goes uh into a trailer, there's a colonel, uh, there's or there's a colonel, there's a general, and then there's this other guy.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Some sort of civilian. Um perhaps with the you know, you don't know, with Department of Defense.
SPEAKER_01That's what I wrote down.
SPEAKER_04I was like, who are these three guys? You know, which like, yeah, the colonel, you get that, or I mean, like, the what is it, the general, you get that. Then the colonel who gives me some questions, just because it's Harrison Ford, presumably around the same age as Martin Sheen, if not younger, you know, on the I don't know. Um, yeah, but so that's interesting to me. Just, I don't know, for some reason. But then, yeah, then there's this third guy who is not in uniform, doesn't he has a tie on, but it's not tied, and he seems like he's important, but I'm like, who is this guy? Yeah, he doesn't say anything. Ultimately, no, he says the main thing. Yeah, yeah, at the end of the scene. So I'm like, who even is this guy? Yeah, you know, is he like CIA or something like that? Exactly.
SPEAKER_00It's really it's really an intriguing way to uh present a scene and then allow it to unfold because he's there all the time.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And Harrison Ford does most of the talking at the beginning, and then the general at some point takes over.
SPEAKER_04And they do a little test at first, they do a little test on him to see if he will reveal any anything about what he's done. Any information about past missions, and it seems like he knows the deal. Maybe they get trained, you know, because if they get captured, they have to keep all that shit. So it's sort of like a a little test. It should be easy, but you still have to do it, you know. And so he passes that test. He says, I don't know what you're talking about, and if I did, I wouldn't say anything. And so then they go, Okay, let's uh sit down to eat then.
SPEAKER_00Sir, I am unaware of any such activity or operation, nor would I be disposed to discuss an operation if it did in fact exist. Right.
SPEAKER_04It's so specific, you know, it's like scripted for sure. Yeah, you know, but they have to they have to make sure he is has the state of mind that he can remember the script, you know. And and then once he does, he's like, okay, we got a bunch of food here. Let's sit down and eat this and try to break the tension a little bit.
SPEAKER_00The general's so funny because he just comes in and he's like, let's have a bit of lunch.
SPEAKER_01I thought that would be I thought that would be nice.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and then he has this uh he he does the courtesy of we're gonna pass this around, but just to save time, why don't we pass it both ways? Is that cool? You know, so it's like so courteous. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then he then he's joking, he's like, if you eat these shrimps, you you won't have to do anything else to prove your courage to me. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And then and then they start laying the stuff out. And here's what I noticed more this time than ever before is there is this is where the general lays out the whole theme of the movie straight up. You know, saying when he's talking about Kurtz, and uh I don't know if you have the the script or whatever, but he's he's I'm looking right at it. He's laying all this stuff out about him being insane or something like that, and trying to get this buy-in. But he it it's the way it's written, I should have I should have written all this down, but the way it's written, it's really like laying it out that there's a conflict. This is what the conflict of the whole movie is gonna be ultimately about. And it's Martin Sheen just looking straight at the camera. So it's it's him looking at the camera.
SPEAKER_00Right. And so you're saying Martin Sheen is looking directly at the end.
SPEAKER_04He's looking right at us, and we're hearing this guy saying this stuff, so it it's double talking right to us because we're at the movie theater or in our house listening to it, so that stuff is coming to us, but it's also going to this character. But the fact that you're showing the character who's hearing it looking right at us, it just makes you internalize it. And it's like, this is what you should be thinking about and dealing with this whole movie, and it's almost saying, Are you gonna do that if you agree? Come on this journey and let's see what we're all made of, you know? Yeah, it's so it's like really cool, and I never noticed that before of the intentional looking directly at the camera stuff that's happening in that scene. It's awesome.
SPEAKER_00Would you would you consider that a breaking of the fourth wall?
SPEAKER_04Uh I don't think so. Um because it's not it's not. I think the traditional breaking of the fourth wall is being self-aware that it's a movie, and it's breaking that um artifice of we're on this side of the screen, the movie's happening on this other side of the screen. The knowingly breaking the fourth wall is kind of saying from the movie, being like, hey guys in the theater, we know this is a movie type of thing. And it's not it's not consciously doing that. This is like a it's just like a mental trick to bring people's brains into it a little bit more. The uh looking directly at camera.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, because it's already established that the general is sitting directly across from Captain Willard. Yeah. So him looking at the camera is it's almost like a POV shot of the general.
SPEAKER_04Right, but it doesn't function that way to me at all. It's Sheen looking right at us, but with the with the audio that we're hearing, it's it may it turns it into we're being spoken to. You know, and it's because it's it's uh yeah, I again I should have I did a bad job. I should have written all of this stuff down, or at least got some uh I just kind of got sucked into it. So I didn't take the notes down. But yeah, he just he kind of lays lays it out on I mean because he it even is like I can read it. I can read it because he talks he talks a little bit about becoming a god or something like that, and yeah, may like almost questioning to himself like I guess that would be enticing to a person if they got that amount of power or something like that, you know?
SPEAKER_00And yeah, that the general, yeah. So the general's whole purpose in this scene is to not lay is to participate in introducing the orders to Captain Willard, but he doesn't provide the context of the orders. Context of the orders is provided by the colonel, like the subordinate. The general participates in the introduction of the orders by providing moral context and like philosophical context for that scene, and then what you're saying ultimately the whole movie. You know, he says Well, you see, Willard, in this war things get confused out there. Power, ideals, the old military and practical military necessity. But out there with these natives, it must be a temption temptation to be God. Because the rational and the irrational between good and evil. And good does not always triumph. Sometimes the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. Every man has got a breaking point. You have and I have them. Walter Kurtz has reached his. And very obviously he has gone insane. So that kind of speaks to that conflict that gets touched on in these in the dream sequence introduction, the very first scene. Yeah. Where Martin Sheen is conflicted about being here or there, you know, being in the bush, getting stronger or being here and getting weaker. You know, there's a conflict within him to be there, to be stronger, to directly grapple with what the general's talking about. You know, for whatever reason. I'm not sure it's really I clearly identified why Captain Willard wants these types of missions. It's it it's just presented as he wants them and he's struggling. You know, his the angels of his better nature are struggling, just as the angels of Colonel Kurtz's better nature is gone. Yeah, it's a great delivery and it's a great it's a great context set of the moral conflict and the moral choice that Captain Willard has to make. You know, is he going to be like Colonel Kurtz? Is he going to go in that direction and l lose the better angels of his own nature? Or is he going to prevent that? It's almost presented as if if you kill this guy, that's a good thing because he's completely insane and evil and has no redeeming value. So we have to eliminate him. If you do that, that's a good thing. That means that you are preventing that because ultimately you don't want to be that, but you have to murder him in order to do that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so it um he wants missions. He wants missions. I'm trying to go back to you you you were mentioned about how it's not really clear why he wants these missions and stuff like that. But I think he he wants missions, um, but this one is different. Because this is one of their own, basically.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And he does say once he after this mission, he'll never want another one. Right. He wants this to be his final mission. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04It's a be careful what you wish for type of thing in that in the beginning sense. But it's also, you know, I watched it a couple times, and the evidence that they give for him having to buy in that Colonel Kurtz is insane is a pretty short audio clip. And it's, you know, it's like, I if that was me, I don't know if I would buy in to obviously he's insane if he's just going. I had this dream about the snail going on razor. That's my dream, that's my nightmare. And then you go, check that out. We gotta kill this dude. I mean, I know they got intel that he wants to kill, like well, he went rogue.
SPEAKER_00He went rogue and he killed some uh what I think they describe as South Vietnamese army officers who he thought were working with the North Vietnamese, and so he on his own made the decision to have them killed. Right, right, right. Without with a without order. So he's he's operating entirely on his own without any, you know, whatever they say, guidance.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm sure it's legit. I'm just saying. And it's a long, it's a long movie, so you gotta get that buy-in quick so we can get out there.
SPEAKER_00It is a bar, it is a bizarre thing to contemplate a snail crawling on the edge of a straight razor. Yeah. And he describes it as crawling, slithering along the edge of a straight razor and surviving.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And you know, and that's kind of like they kind of every all the information they lay out about Colonel Carrotz, it's like it is like on the edge of right and wrong, you know, and they're ultimately. Making the choice that, like, he stepped over the edge. And it's like if you step over the edge, you risk survival. But this is weird because it's a snail on the edge, slithering straight on the edge. It should just sl the edge should just slice the snail in half. But for whatever reason, it survives. So the snail is on either side. Right. And you could possibly make the argument that Colonel Kurtz is on either side. You know, he's been employed by the United States government to conduct war, and he's just not participating in the way he was ordered to participate. He's making his own decisions outside of the hierarchy of decision makers and control. So um I think that's a I think that's a theme in a lot of Coppola's movies. It's there in The Godfather, for sure.
SPEAKER_07Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00You know, when Mark Michael Corleone ultimately justifies participating in his father's business to Kay, his love interest, he explains to her that her father, his father is no different from any other powerful man who has responsibilities to others. You know? Ergo, according to Michael Corleone, it's okay to put a gun to somebody's head and demand that they sign the contract by assuring them either your signature or your brains will be on this contract. You know, in an effort to get a deal done. So it's definitely something that it's definitely a conflict that Coppola grapples with in a lot of his movies. And the interesting thing about Apocalypse now is it's so subtle. Everything. Everything is so subtle. It doesn't really beat you over the head. It seems like even the general is struggling to articulate it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. You know, because it's no, the general looks like he's actively contemplating if what he's saying is true or something like that. Like he seems like he's wrestling with what he's talking about while he's talking.
SPEAKER_00So I yeah, it's yeah, and part of that context of his grapple, he's he's grappling with the old morality. It must be a temptation to be God. The old morality is religious morality, it's also a current morality because it's employed by billions of people, even in the 70s, even during the Vietnam War. In that traditional morality, at least the Catholic tradition rooted in the Old Testament. We have the Ten Commandments, thou shalt not kill. And then in the New Testament, you have Jesus Christ saying, turn the other cheek. You know, if somebody physically assaults you. Apply that to the context of war, everything you're doing is wrong. Everything you're doing is immoral. And so the moral conflict is laid bare, but there is a root of the conflict in religious morals. But they don't beat you over the head with that. You know, they just kind of ask the question. And then just grapple with it. And that's ultimately what the movie is. It's just a grappling with the idea of killing. Taking life. And that being horror. The taking of life is horror.
SPEAKER_04So right on.
SPEAKER_01Any final thoughts?
SPEAKER_04So yeah, yeah. So that's that's basically the 15 minutes because they offer him the mission or whatever, and he accepts and then we're off. So and that's where I'm thinking that's generally what a first act would be getting to know who what characters you're gonna deal with, and then presenting a choice, and then once the decision is made on that choice, then you're off done on to act two. Is that what you feel like?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I I Yeah, you I look at it. You're off to act two, or as um Aristotle would say, the complication. Okay. And then or the middle of the movie or story, where it just gets more and more complicated. Right. And the tension builds until you get to the next point. Yeah. The next plot point. Which we will not discuss today, perhaps on a future episode. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04We'll do 15 minutes at a time. It'll take us four weeks.
SPEAKER_00Well, 15 minutes at a time of Apocalypse now. I think that movie's two hours and 45 minutes. That would take us. Redux, baby. 345. That'll take four months.
SPEAKER_01All right. So do you have any final thoughts?
SPEAKER_04No, I think we covered covered everything. Um, oh, uh, this is dumb to bring this up. I I think I always have like some random other thought to just throw in at the very end to just blow up the transitions. Yeah. But um one one other thing I I took note of in that scene is when Harrison Ford, I think, lays out uh about taking out Colonel Kurtz. Yeah. I think that's where where he says it. But he he clears his throat twice in the saying of this line. And I just wrote that down to take note of it. I haven't really unpacked all that might be gone on there, but it's I I would assume it's super intentional. You know, so I didn't know if you noticed that or had any thoughts about that.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah. I haven't thought too deeply about that, but it it typically that might be considered like a nervous tick.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so he is, I think, either approaching the moment or has started expressing the actual order, which is to terminate the colonel's command. And then Captain Willard turns then to the general for clarification and goes, terminate the colonel. Because he just said Harrison Ford just says terminate the colonel's command. And he's like, terminate the colonel. And then that civilian who's in the room who hasn't said anything up to this point, says the one and only line in this scene, and the final line, which is not the final line, but the most impactful line of the whole scene, which is terminate with extreme prejudice.
SPEAKER_04And offers him a cigarette.
SPEAKER_00Offers him a cigarette, and then he stuck, which he takes, and he starts and then the civilian lights it for him, and he's just taking this in, and then in the background you can hear Harrison Ford's character saying that standard scripted language was like saying, like, there, you know, can't talk about this mission. Yeah, you know, you are not, this is not an official mission, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, basically talking about the top secret nature of the mission.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So that cough was cool. The one thing I did notice about Harrison Ford also was when the general starts pun kind of pontificating and contemplating the deeper philosophical implications of Colonel Kurtz's behavior and presenting the moral conflict of the movie. Harrison Ford's character does this eye movement, kind of like back and forth from like from Captain Willard to the general, going like almost as if, like, what the fuck are we talking about? Like, oh, like, well, we're going there. I thought I was just delivering these orders. So there's like definitely this nervous quality to the Harrison Ford character that comes out. And he's the he's under orders too, and he's the one primarily voicing the orders. Right. Yeah. You know, so it's like to some degree, it's like he's on the hook as the guy going, like, you just you presented these orders. You know, the rest of the guys have kind of like plausible deniability to some degree. You know, definitely the general does, because he never orders him to terminate anyone. You know, it's just the colonel and this, you know, civilian. Whoever that guy is. Yeah. So I'm glad you brought that up because I love that reaction from Harrison Ford's character. Do you remember what I'm talking about where he kind of has to be a little bit more than a reaction where he kind of looks back and forth real quick? I think it's hilarious. It's so well well done.
SPEAKER_04So yeah. So, but that's you start noticing. I mean, once you start watching the first 15 minutes over and over, you just you can't help but start noticing every detail, I think. Each each time you watch it, because you you internalize all the stuff that you've seen the first time, and then you're on the lookout for new stuff because you already know the other stuff that you know, and then you just keep building on that, and then just all these all these details show up.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that's one of the interesting things that I may have already known, but I kind of learned talking about it in this episode, having you having brought up the shadow of the fan in the wide shot, wide overhead shot looking down at Colonel Kurtz. I don't recall seeing that. So again, the first seven and a half minutes of the movie is so busy with so many layers of superimposed images, it's easy to miss something. There's also voiceover and the epic musical track, the end from the doors is playing, and their sound design coming in. There's a lot going on, so it's easy to miss things. So um I gotta say, too, that just when I thought, go ahead.
SPEAKER_04Oh, just the the superimpositions and all of that stuff really hits hard for me because the time period that this was made, all of those ideas have to be so meticulously thought out ahead of time. Yeah. And the way that they would achieve them through like doubling film strips on top of each other and then reshooting that, or however they would do that stuff back in the day. It's so amazing to me. Where now you can just shoot a bunch of stuff and put it in the computer and just like put it together, change opacities, and just look at it and move shit around and all this stuff. It's like it's it's the craft of coming up with those ideas back in those days is so different to me than seeing it done nowadays. And that and that's maybe why you don't see it that much anymore.
SPEAKER_00I think a lot of those principles still hold. There are still things that you have to do in order to pull off a superimposed sequence like that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I discovered that making my first short film in film school because I had a similar um, well, we made that movie. Um, we had a similar introduction to that movie, but I shot and edited that movie. And what I learned was you need to be very particular about what is in the shot, because certain shots will have varying degrees of detail and texture, and those are all those are, and if so, if there's something that you want to stand out, it really has to be superimposed against a background that does not have a lot of detail. And so one thing that I noticed after breaking down the shot list of the introduction is that close-up upside down overhead shot of Martin Sheen's face, that shot comes back at the later in the sequence when the dream sequence is over. And you actually see the right side of the frame, because his face is in the left side of the frame. But in the superimposed introduction, they so let me figure out the best way to explain this. So without all the superimposed images, and you just have the overshot of his face, that's on the left side of the screen. On the right side is a shadow of his face, and you can see the light on the right side of the image that makes up the contours of his face. But they use that exact same shot in the superimposed section, and they bring that face statue in the right side of the frame. And when they do that, the in the entire right side of the frame is black. Now, I don't know if they created some sort of mat in post-production to create that side of the frame to be all black, or if they just flagged the shot to get rid of the shadow of his face on the right side of the frame. But they did something to create a solid color of black on the right side of the frame so that they could superimpose an image with a lot of detail. And so that's one of those principles. If you're layering like a detailed shot, a shot with a lot of detail and nuance to the image, you want to, as best you can superimpose that over a background that is a solid color. Because that'll help details pop. So whether or not you're doing that in film or whether you're doing that in the digital era, that's a principle that you may or you may need to apply depending upon you know the nature of the sequence. So I thought that was interesting.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um anything else important to know about this?
SPEAKER_04About this movie? Nah. I think we covered, I mean, we broke down 15 minutes over the course of an hour, so I think that's all all you really are paying all your money for. But um, no, I think uh just in the future, I think we'll be continuing to do this every once in a while, right? Just going I don't know if we'll maybe we've already done a couple other movies like um what do we do? Breakfast of Tiffany's Badlands, Amelie, uh Amongst of The Abyss. Yeah. Yeah. So um Yeah, so I think we'll just continue to do that every once in a while. Because it's cool, it's fun.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and it's important. So it's important to uh exemplify what you mean by an inciting incident so that you solidify it in your brain what that is in an effort to watch and critique storylines. Because often errors and stories are errors in the plot, plot holes, they call them. Or if you're trying to write a screenplay, you know, identifying and exemplifying those examples will reinforce it in your mind. And if you're just a cinephile, well, it may help you understand more why you love the movies that you love.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_00All right. I am officially a copalophile. I think I probably always have been, but I've never explicitly stated that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Gotta see Megalopolis. I think it's gotta see megalopolis. I think it's out or something now. I can't. I I he's always doing stuff with it. Um I think late the latest thing is it's a graphic novel now. So I mean he's he's just gonna keep cranking the handle on this and and whatever comes out, he's gonna keep rolling with it until he makes makes his money back, probably. Which he'll do, I think.
SPEAKER_00But I can't wait to see it. Time will tell. Yeah. If there's one thing to be said about Coppola, he is focused on doing it, doing whatever he's doing the way he wants to do it. That's right. And that is that is to be commended and respected. Yeah. He is a true tour and uh independent thinker and filmmaker. So that's why I love the guy. So I believe that was a wrap. Yeah. Is that a wrap?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, man, pencil me in as a Copa Lephile.
SPEAKER_00All right. Well, all you need is a streaming service to watch this movie. All you need is a DVD or Blu-ray and a DVD player, Blu-ray player. Yep. And all you need is love. So go file it.