June 12, 2001

5:49 PM

Deleted scenes,they're not just for DVDs anymore. This summer, they're re-releasing Apocalypse Now with more footage to theaters. So, when the DVD comes out, will it have even MORE deleted scenes, or what?
posted by robbie01 (26 comments total)

I heard the plantation scene was going to be put back in. Im not sure if they will put in the alternative ending. There were alot of scenes cut from the 'willard bunker' part of the movie that could be stuck in. I think they will leave out the scene where 'Brando eats Laos- forced to give it back'
posted by clavdivs at 5:57 PM on June 12, 2001

ya, i know it was filmed in Philippines...best movie marcos did.
posted by clavdivs at 5:59 PM on June 12, 2001

i read a review of apocalypse now when it ran at cannes a while ago. most of the reviewers said the scenes that were added back in don't add anything to the plot or the movie and it's obvious why they weren't in there in the first place. in their opinions all it did was add time to the movie for scenes that didn't add anything to it. from hearing about what's in there i tend to agree. there are scenes of martin sheen's character and his girlfriend that is like 25min and adds more of a love story. i read about a few of the other scenes but can't remember them(yes, they were that interesting).
posted by suprfli at 7:16 PM on June 12, 2001

I forget. I know it's in the early drafts of the screenplay but it's been so long since I seen Apocalypse Now. Was this line in the version that hit the cinema? "I could never figure how they can teach boys how to bomb villages with napalm -- and not let them write the word 'fuck' on their airplanes." I know I heard it from somewhere. I've always loved that line.

This must be the version of the film that was debuted at the Cannes film festival last May. I'm glad they're gonna commercially release it. Almost an hour longer than the original, it weighs in at 197 minutes: that's three and a half hours long. Now out there somewhere is a five and a half hour long version that's been around for some time, which was released as a video bootleg. I've never personally seen it but God I'd love to get my hands on it. Some people believe the 5 1/2 hour long "unofficial workprint version" is just rumor and doesn't really exist.

George Lucas' "digital enhancement" to his epic space opera, Star Wars, was vanity tolerated by the devout and welcomed by the masses. Recent revisits to such horror sensations as Exorcist and Halloween were (IMNSHO) unpleasant and unnecessary. Lucas seems to have started a potential bandwagon where every director will now go back and try to outdo themselves. It's silly. Apocalypse Now however, WAS vanity. It WAS in many ways unpleasant and even unwelcomed, while simultaneously being VERY necessary: be it 1979 or 2001. It is painful to watch - perhaps the first to truly turn cringe into an artform above and beyond slapstick comedy or blue humor. Apocalypse Now made us cringe at the very act of being a human being. Breathing. Living. Dying. Existing. Just existing is a cringe in that movie.

By design, it is a flawless choice to revisit Apocalypse Now and expand upon it, and properly convey from start to finish what the director and screenwriter had in mind. This was already done in a way with Hearts of Darkness where we see the same film but from behind the camera. This is as natural a choice for Coppola as Michaelangelo painting the ceiling frescos of the Sistine Chapel, then returning in the autumn years of his life to finish the job with "the Last Judgement" on a blank wall. There are very few war movies I will sit through. I hate most war movies. Apocalypse Now is not a war movie that glamorizes war. It is not a war movie that beats the audience over the head with anti-war propaganda. The very fact it takes place during the Vietnam War is perhaps as irrelevant as a well-written science fiction tale being told on the moon. The genre of the film is but the backdrop; the real story is the people, what happens to them, how they react and interract with one another under extraordinary circumstances. It's about how the human body, mind and spirit persevere under stressful circumstances. It's about how people cope, and sometimes how they don't cope at all but instead go mad or turn primal. It's about honesty and faith and truth and deception and gullibility and courage and sanity and hope and despair and a thousand other things that make mankind simutaneously god-like and monsterous.

It doesn't need a facelift, but I for one welcome it. In fact it's about time the tale gets told the proper way, without fears of time constraints, budgets, or public opinion. A redux Mr. Coppola? Please. By all means. Still no matter how you slice it, know that Apocalypse Now is without question one of the greatest films of all time.
posted by ZachsMind at 7:27 PM on June 12, 2001

true. full metal jacket attempts to gleam these attributes in correlation with the war itself. AN was about an illegal excursion into cambodia to do another illegal act. the madness begins with "The end" dissolving into willard in his room. "saigon-shit". The PBR going down the delta before the real madness sets in is one of the most calm, yet foreboding shots in cinema. a few T.S eliot references are mentioned(Hollowmen quote, "mister kurtz, he dead") also the wasteland(bang not a whimper) i think brando was reading hollowmen in that scene---"head pieces stuffed with straw". this movie did Conrad justice. also the relation of cambodia political situation, 1977-79, and this movie seem...ominous
posted by clavdivs at 7:46 PM on June 12, 2001

Speaking of potential deleted scenes, and please forgive me a.) for the tangent, and b.) if I already missed a post on MetaFilter about it... but who else noticed the stray film crew member in Pearl Harbor that most surely will be edited out of the DVD release? Right as Cuba Gooding Jr. exits into the hallway, he stands still for a moment as he realizes it's his opportunity to shine (with the guns). As he's standing there, you can notice another hallway to the left, where some kind of crew member is there - it's not a camera or sound guy, I don't think, but some dude hanging out with some kind of equipment. I realize these accidents are common (boom mics hanging down, etc), but I was really surprised to see it in the media-hyped (and 100% historically accurate) Pearl Harbor. I know I'm not the only one who noticed it...anyone have a link to any discussion of it?
posted by Hankins at 8:15 PM on June 12, 2001

Uhm.. I don't recall any critics saying the movie Pearl Harbor is 100% historically accurate. Some television news programs have interviewed eighty year old men who said they were there and it's accurate, but ...well I would expect this from a Hollywood hype tripe trap designed to milk an important historical event for financial gain.

Back to Apocalypse Now, it's listed as one of the top ten Public Choice picks at AFI's website, and is number 28 on the list of AFI's greatest american movies. Also, there was some TV special on CBS tonight, listing the most heart-stopping movies. Not sure if or where Apocalypse Now places there.
posted by ZachsMind at 8:26 PM on June 12, 2001

100% historically accurate re: pearl harbor == sarcasm, i'd assume? I haven't seen it.

anyway, thanks for the lengthy and very thoughtful posts, guys. It's been ages since I saw apocalypse now, and I'm excited to see it again.
posted by chrisege at 8:45 PM on June 12, 2001

back to robbie01's original question, I am hoping for a 3 dvd set with the original version on one disc, redux on a second, and hearts of darkness (and/or any other special features) on a 3rd...sort of like the brazil criterion collection set.

P.S. anyone else notice that today it was announced that the godfather trilogy will (finally) be released on dvd in october?
posted by rorycberger at 12:12 AM on June 13, 2001

Apocalypse Now ranks thirty-eight presently at IMDb, but then it ranks Godfather as number one. I strongly disagree with that, not liking any film that glamorizes the Mob. And of course I'm aware I'm in the minority there. Such is life. I looked over my personal IMDb list* of the 950 movies I've actually seen (and can remember) and have Apocalypse Now listed as an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. So it's not in my personal top ten favorites, but it's definitely in the top 100 somewhere. My personal top ten at the time I made that list (a year or two ago) included:

Citizen Kane (1941)
Star Wars [original not digitally enhanced version] (1977)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Highlander (1986)
Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Excalibur (1981)
Always (1989)
"Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The" (1981) (mini)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Zapruder Film of Kennedy Assassination (1963)

...I think I was drunk at the time.. I should probably reconsider many of those choices. Ironically I have mostly 1980s movies in that list, but the AFI best list has none from that decade.

*what you will see at that link will vary from mine. Not aware of any way IMDb allows people to share their personal lists. Shame. I would be interested in seeing y'all's.
posted by ZachsMind at 12:22 AM on June 13, 2001

My favourit movie top three
1. Withnail and I
2. Fight Club
3. Apocalypse now
posted by kramer_101 at 4:25 AM on June 13, 2001

Blade Runner?
posted by davehat at 4:50 AM on June 13, 2001

I put Balde Runner just after "Warriors" but before "Le Haine"
posted by kramer_101 at 5:41 AM on June 13, 2001

what muppet thought to put white coloured subtitles on a b/w film - i cant speak french but i missed half the film
posted by monkeyJuice at 5:45 AM on June 13, 2001

opps that last post was regarding La haine! :-)
posted by monkeyJuice at 5:45 AM on June 13, 2001

I have a feeling this will ruin Apocalypse Now for me just like last autumn's Exorcist redux ruined that picture. The newly restored footage added nothing to the story, and in fact cheapened it. There's a good reason why most of that footage was left on the cutting room floor.

But I suppose it made buckets of money for somebody, and that's all that matters.
posted by ratbastard at 8:05 AM on June 13, 2001

I don't know about you, but I can't wait to see those 17 extra seconds that have been added to the re-release of Monty Python and the Holy Grail!
posted by mapalm at 8:24 AM on June 13, 2001

According to the Daily News, in New York, Francis Ford Coppola was seen toasting the Oct. 8 DVD release of the Godfather Trilogy.
posted by Cavatica at 8:24 AM on June 13, 2001

Back to Apocalypse Now ... Well, Film Threat has apparently seen that five-hour bootleg version, and liked it. Not so much the edited re-release, says the Guardian there, but Film Threat's review of Redux is very positive. I know I've seen a similarly admiring look at it, perhaps completely offline somewhere.
posted by dhartung at 9:54 AM on June 13, 2001

a few T.S eliot references are mentioned(Hollowmen quote, "mister kurtz, he dead") also the wasteland(bang not a whimper)

"Mistah Kurtz--he dead." is the epigraph to Eliot's "The Hollow Men" but it's actually from Conrad's "Heart of Darkness." (appropriately enough.) And "This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper. " is also from "The Hollow Men" not "The Waste Land." </pedantry>
posted by dnash at 10:24 AM on June 13, 2001

I kind of hope that one day they'll find the rest of The Draughtsman's Contract, current running time 103 minutes, original length about double that.

Also a 70mm restoration of Tati's Playtime would make my decade.

I'm not holding my breath, though.
posted by Grangousier at 11:52 AM on June 13, 2001

Oopsie - just checked the IMDB page for Playtime and it has been restored. So my decade made. I just have to see it now.
posted by Grangousier at 11:54 AM on June 13, 2001

Personally I'm waiting for the director's cut of Superman 3. Richard Pryor was screwed out of the Oscars for his brilliant work, hopefully the academy will see the special edition DVD and give him what's due.
posted by owillis at 11:58 AM on June 13, 2001

Charlie don't surf!
posted by ktheory at 12:19 PM on June 13, 2001

dnash wins the prize. i should be flogged with a rubber truncheon. i edited in the preview box, i had redacted that wasteland stupidity, but forget to re-preview it. It was wrong anywho. It was pure Hollowmen. I was (unclearly) thinking of the Ist section, "Living nor dead, and I knew nothing/ Looking into the heart of light, silence/ Oed' und leer das Meer" At one time i thought i saw hopper repeating these lines in one of his "Mmmmaanannn" harangues. Please accept my humble apologies.
posted by clavdivs at 12:23 PM on June 13, 2001

Now I have to actually buy a DVD player. I just read that the two disk DVD of Castaway is supposed to be the one to put all others to shame.

I'd like to see that just so I can scoff at it.
posted by ZachsMind at 6:01 AM on June 14, 2001