Apocalypse Now (
Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
Talk about setting a tone.
With Apocalypse Now, Coppola came out blazing.
A whooshing noise, heard but offscreen, is placed when a helicopter drifts into view, almost dreamlike in it's approach, heading towards a lush green jungle. The first chimes of 'The Doors' haunting and atmospheric 'The End' starts to chime, primary coloured smoke starts to fill the screen and that beautiful jungle explodes, a raging inferno engulfing the landscape.
Welcome to hell on earth. The madness and the poetic, the perverse and the divine, such an arresting display of visual and audio effects has hardly been bettered than this opening gambit. The face of Martin Sheen, Captain Willard, starts to fade into view, the sound of the helicopters rotor blades transform in to the sound of a ceiling fan and we find ourselves in a hotel room in Saigon.
The stories behind the film, the demise of Coppola and the craziness that engulfed the cast and crew can wait for another day, for now let's just soak up this brilliant scene. Enjoy.
'Shit, I'm still only in Saigon'
Originally posted on:
Film for the Soul