50 years ago, on the 21st of January, 1968, more than 100,000 North Vietnamese invaded the village of Khe Sanh and the 6,000 US marines stationed there (Schmitz & David). This highly-coordinated invasion caught the American forces, alongside their South Vietnamese allies, completely off guard, and marked the first flashpoint of what would later come to be known as the Tet Offensive. The initial losses were substantial, with the American forces suffering 274 total deaths, and having more than 2,500 wounded in action, but as the Tet Offensive continued, casualties among Americans and South Vietnamese numbered into the tens of thousands (Schmitz & David). Merely a year later in 1969, the bombastic writer-director John Milius was inspired by Michael Herr’s book detailing the battle, known as "The Battle for Khe Sanh" (Travers). This battle had been the bellwether for a change in public thought regarding Vietnam, as the deaths mounted, reports of human rights violations also circulated. This, coupled with general draft fatigue, lead to general opinion turning against the Vietnam War, with many asking why America seemed to be losing it, or indeed, why America was involved in the first place.
Combining the historical account documented in "The Battle for Khe Sanh" with Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novel “Heart of Darkness” and its anti-imperialist themes, Milius created a screenplay known as The Psychedelic Soldier at the encouragement of his associates George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola. 10 years later in August 15 1979, a mere 4 years after the close of the Vietnam war, the film would release nationwide titled Apocalypse Now, under the seasoned direction of Francis Ford Coppola, having been produced under Omni Zoetrope Studios and distributed by United Artists (Bahr and Fax). The film is famed for being a searing and critical look at the Vietnam war, among the first of its kind ever produced. Its story, from pre-production, casting, shooting and release, is a story that is a reflection of the war itself. A mire of confusion and madness, as Coppola put it, “We had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane… my film is not about Vietnam, it is Vietnam" (Travers).
The initial screenplay, The Psychedelic Soldier, was at first envisioned very differently than the Apocalypse Now that opened a decade later. Milius had first partnered with the then smalltime director George Lucas, and the two envisioned the story as a dark comedy shot in faux documentary style. There were even plans to shoot certain scenes on location in Vietnam. As Milius and Lucas put the finishing touches on the script, which had by then gone through five drafts and 10,000 pages, and a title change to Apocalypse Now, Lucas was suddenly swept away with another project. Lucas was now helming Star Wars, and would not be able to direct Apocalypse Now (Travers) Coppola desperately wanted to get the film made, and even offered the director’s seat to Milius, who declined so that he could work on other projects. Left with no other options, Coppola took it upon himself to direct Apocalypse Now.
Much of Milius’ The Psychedelic Soldier can clearly be seen in the finished product, in particular the gung-ho air colonel Kilgore, portrayed by Robert Duvall. However, Coppola also took the script in a more nuanced direction, steering it away from dark comedy, and more toward a philosophical look at the madness and failings of the American intervention in Vietnam. Indeed, under Coppola, Apocalypse Now was meant to answer the public’s lingering questions regarding the war, such as how the most powerful military on earth could be cowed by a barebones militia force. In Apocalypse Now, American soldiers are shown as disorganized, wild and not nearly as efficient as the Vietcong. The Americans clearly want to get home as soon as possible, trying to cling to the memories of home via USO playboy shows or surfing in an active battle zone. Meanwhile, as Captain Willard describes it, “[The Vietcong] had only two ways home: death, or victory” (Coppola). Therefore, the character of Kurtz, is meant to demonstrate the kind of mentality that the Americans would have to possess to have any hope of winning the war. That is, to abandon morality, and the traditional rules of engagement. Coppola’s Kurtz has seemingly broke from reality, run off into the jungle, and amassed a cult following of natives around his newfound abode within a remote, ruined temple. Kurtz symbolically cuts himself off from America, abandoning his promising military career, and family, so that he can make a new home for himself in the jungle. By doing this, he becomes just as fierce as the Vietcong, but at the price of his own sanity.
Naturally, this cynical explanation for America’s military defeat in Vietnam was not a particularly popular explanation for the mounting American losses that filled the news cycle, even as Milius worked on his script. Coppola, who had been the one to pay Milius for the script, would not begin principal photography on the film until 1976, a full seven years after the script had been completed. Filming took place primarily in the Philippines. The project secured a budget of $12 million in initial funding. Coppola initially planned for the film to star a power-trio of Steve McQueen, Gene Hackman, and Marlon Brando. Of those three, only Marlon Brando would have a role in the film as Kurtz, having been paid an incredible $3.5 million for a mere month long shoot (Bahr & Fax). As for the starring roll of Willard, Coppola had an extremely hard time finding an actor that wished to spend 17 weeks in the Philippines for shooting. Actors offered the role of Willard included such names as Robert Redford and Jack Nicholson. When they all refused, Coppola settled on Harvey Keitel. However, after reviewing the footage of Keitel as Willard, Coppola found that he did not match his own idea of Willard as a “passive observer.” Thus, Keitel was let go and Martin Sheen was brought in as his replacement.
The production of Apocalypse Now has rightly been described as hellish. After the fact, Coppola described it, The press were relentless in their attacks on the film as it went over budget and under scheduled. The press lambasted the film, calling it “Apocalypse Never” or “Apocalypse When?” in reference to the film’s constant setbacks (Bahr & Fax). These setbacks, such as a freak typhoon wiping out the entire Playboy Pen set on May 26, 1976. Other setbacks contributed to the initial 17 weeks of shooting was stretched out extensively, as the film was plagued with reshoots stretching into 1977. The film’s cast had their own share of problems, Martin Sheen’s alcoholism resulted in him suffering a heart attack which Coppola covered up as a heat stroke so he would not have the film pulled by the studio. Marlon Brando was also heavily overweight by the time he arrived to the set, forcing Coppola to conceal Brando’s weight by shooting him in darkness, concealing his body and giving the illusion of strength. Brando was also heavily invested in his character, and even went as far as making up his own lines. When Brando suddenly found that he had no intention of finishing the project, Coppola was forced to use Brando’s rambling, cutting down an eighteen minute speech into a two minute monologue towards the end of the film (Travers). All of this chaos culminated in Coppola himself having a seizure in the philippines. By this time the budget had swelled to $31.5 million dollars, and Coppola had been forced to invest much of his own money, even going as far as asking George Lucas for an investment after the success of Star Wars.
Finally, in 1979, a full decade from script to screens, Coppola’s “work in progress” debuted at Cannes in May 10 and nationwide in August 15 1979. The film received generally positive reviews, with several critics praising the sheer ambition of the film. However some, like Dale Pollock of “Variety” noted the incongruence between Milius’ initial version of Apocalypse Now and Coppola’s more literary version “It’s when the ghost of novelist Joseph Conrad enters the picture, and when Milius and Coppola in effect take a back seat to a literary homage, that “Apocalypse Now” runs aground. For the most part however, audiences were quite receptive to the movie, which seemed to be less of an anti-war movie, and moreso a movie about what war can do to the human psyche, as Coppola describes “[the film is about…] the fact that a culture can lie about what's really going on in warfare, that people are being brutalized, tortured, maimed, and killed, and somehow present this as moral is what horrifies me, and perpetuates the possibility of war” (Bahr and Fax). Thus the blame does not rest on the soldiers, but rather the institutions that deployed them without fully acknowledging the risks and sacrifices that would need to be made if victory were to be achieved. In Coppola’s eyes, the only way Vietnam could have been won is if Americans abandoned their morality and behaved more like Kurtz, willing to achieve victory even if it meant indiscriminate slaughter. In this way, the Apocalypse Now paints the Vietnam War is an allegory for the American soul, we lost because in the end, we could never totally abandon our idealism despite being necessary for victory. Many praised this viewpoint, Roger Ebert claimed that “Apocalypse Now is the best Vietnam film, one of the greatest of all films, because it pushes beyond the others, into the dark places of the soul. It is not about war so much as about how war reveals truths we would be happy never to discover.” Thus, Apocalypse Now stands as a testament to our past mistakes, and an artifact from a time in which the people of America began to question their government, and as Coppola would have it, to question the very nature of man.