Member review

Apocalypse Now is a 1979 film directed by Francis Ford Coppola a man previously known for being so good at film making that he was in competition for the Best Picture Oscar against himself in 1974 when both his films The Godfather: Part II and The Conversation were in the running for best picture. Apocalypse Now uses the backdrop of the Vietnam war to tell a story of the human spirit and how war can effect and change people, in this sense it is a very anti-war film in a similar sense to Full Metal Jacket or Platoon. This film is loosely based off the book Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, which was adapted to be set during the Vietnam war.

One of the standout features of this film is its outstanding cinematography by Vittorio Storaro who also did the cinematography for Dick Tracy and The Last Emperor among others, the creative use of colour and light makes almost every shot memorable and poster worthy. As well as light and colour this film also puts its huge budget to use in all of its scenes, making every shot filled with life and energy. Another amazing feature of this film is its score by Carmine Coppola which is used to great extent to enhance and emphasise tension or add tension in scenes where there may be an underlying threat. This film's script is a very ambitious and extravagant one, who's clear lesson is the futility, uselessness and absurdity of war. An example of this is how the further up the river they travel the more outlandish the events are and the more people act without the same sense of morals they showed previously.

The majority of technical flaws in this film are simple continuity errors some of which could be interpreted as showing how there isn't a clear sense of what is real or not and what is right and what is wrong.

I would recommend this film to anyone even remotely interested in films and would class it as an essential and important film due to its message of the futility of war and how the loss is always greater than the benefit.

10/10