Cinema Canada (Aug 1979)

use of quintaphonic sound, bullets and jets criss-cross the hall, with muffled conversations placed in the aural middle-ground, dialogue in front, screams in the back and choppers overhead (the whomph-whomph of Hueys is one sound that, once you’ve heard it, you never forget), all backed by Carmine Coppola’s eerie synthetic music. Through this sound, the audience is involved on all levels of confusion and tension. with the war that’s unfolding in front of them. Again, more points are scored in favor of the film’s thematics. Coppola captures the beauty of savagery down to its smallest details; whether it’s a Loach spitting down death in bright streamers, the fire-flare of a chopper-mounted Minigun or the awesome presence of a Phantom jet wasted in the Mekong, the camera picks out their undisputed beauty. Not merely pretty pictures but a gut-level seductiveness. In one of the most telling scenes, two grunts are set upon and given the scare of their lives by a tiger, and it is with this tiger that Coppola’s motif can best be illustrated. Aside from having the grunts scared out of their flak jackets not by a V.C. attack which we expect — but by one of nature’s own, the tiger underlines the duality examined by the film; for all its beauty and grace, the animal lives only to kill and procreate in the most efficient manner possible. It is that dialectic that Coppola forces us to confront and, in the last part of the film when Willard comes up against Kurtz — the very human face of moral terror, the myths of horror vs. beauty/good vs. evil come to a head in a haunted dialogue that leaves its eventual resolution up to the audience. In the final analysis, no film has exhibited as much tactility and presence as this one, and none have, in the big league that Coppola operates in, gambled, in its unique and unconven WESTERN CANADA’S FULL SERVICE LAB. 100% CANADIAN 35mm and 16mm Eastman Colour Negative and Positive, B. & W. Negative and Positive. 16mm Ektachrome ECO, EF and VNF., 35mm and 16mm C.R.I. % Ultrasonic Cleaning %v Clean Air Benches 5, Permafilm Treatment yx Reduction Printing x. Bell & Howell Colour Additive Printers. — DAILY / NIGHTLY SERVICE — * Twelve Channel 35mm and 16mm Rock & Roll mixing, daily transfers, interlock screening, RCA 35mm and 16mm ee tracks, wy hiheke ine ervice Ltd. 916 Davie Street ° Vancouver,B.C. V6Z 1B8 Phone: (604) 688-7757 — Telex: 04-507757 Pc cleaned LOLs DoE OO ed a Lee CINC A 16/Cinema Canada tional way, so much. From its strong thematic base, to its visual and aural accomplishments, to its exhilarating performances and technological innovations, the sum of Apocalypse Now comes closest to a film-rendition of what Aldous Huxley has called “visionary experience” outrageous and improbable as that may sound. ‘“T wanted to kill Kurtz for America. | wanted America to look at the face of horror and to accept it, to sav, ‘Yes, it is my face’ and be exorcised. And only then could they go bevond to some new ways, to a new age. There has to be a new age; this is 1980 we're getting ready for, we have to put this stuff behind us and we have to go on to anew era. If we could give up fear and learn that we can live with each other, that we can enjoy each other, that our art, our ingenuity and our technology can make an incredible world, then I think that the future is going to be wonderful. For me, the guidelines of the future are intelligence, creativity and friendliness,” Francis Coppola ‘ ‘After the first tour, I'd have the goddamndest nightmares. You know, the works. Bloody stuff, bad fights, guvs dving, me dying... | thought thev were the worst,’ he said. ‘But I sort of miss them now.’ ” Michael Herr, Dispatches “Although I’ve made a film that is very frightening in some places, or is unpleasant, I left the decision unclear ~ whether Willard turns into a Kurtz or whether he goes back — because I would like my own life to demonstrate what that decision was,” Francis Coppola Coppola, and those of like mind, are implementing the inevitable changes that must come if film is to live up to its potential. Though some filmmakers may hate to admit it, film is more than late-night fodder for television and more than an entertaining little peep show off the midway. It holds the greatest potential of all media — since it incorporates all media — to put at the disposal of human consciousness a level of experience unparalleled by other art forms. Apocalypse Now only serves to demonstrate that film, in the near future more than ever, can communicate faithfully, creatively and forcefully man’s wildest imaginings and his bravest thoughts. Complacency breeds mediocrity and despite all the epithets to which he has been subjected Coppola has never been described as complacent. Though he is not alone in this, Coppola, because of his high profile, stands as one.of the brightest examples of what filmmakers can accomplish, be the resources small or plentiful. You might not want to go as far as Coppola in saying that ‘“‘art is the answer to all the world’s problems and it is the highest potential endeavor that we can give ourselves to,” but the challenge is nevertheless there to be met. Suffice to end now with the realization that filmmakers, and those who go to films, are now entering a new sphere of communications. What has come before has served filmmakers well but the future promises much, much more and with it comes a responsibility that the film community, for the most part, has previously felt itself immune to. O