John David Ebert Movie Review on Apocalypse Now Part 1 of 2

[AzaleaZoeliz]

One little nitpick about the use of Wagner. Ride of the Valkyries was also used in D.W. Griffith's epic Birth of a Nation when the Ku Klux Klan came riding to help North America from the aggressions of the black population (a very infamous sequence) and help unite the North and South under the final embrace of Christ. Coppola might also have been referencing this.

[TaffyRaphie]

This analysis would be more fitting for a Kubrick movie perhaps, but Coppola has a different style of film making, and it just doesn't seem to fit together like this.

[johndavidebert]

Deluxe Reissue,

You sound like a complete imbecile, so I'll take comfort in that. You obviously know nothing about mythology or film, so I'm sure your "paper" will be worthless, as such papers usually are. After all, look at the venue you're writing for: a college university paper? You've got to be kidding yourself, buddy.

When you've published a book on film, like I have, then there might be some substance in your claims. Until then, you're just a peon.

Good "luck."

[DeluxeReissue]

Holy shit - that was so fucking boring. Not the movie, but the wanky analysis. I'm currently working on an essay for University about the meaning of Apocalypse Now and trust me, it'll be a billion times better than your over analysis.

Honestly - this is the WORST MOVIE ANALYSIS ever. I've never heard anyone spout so much pointless crap. If Coppola really thought like this then Apocalypse Now would have been utterly unwatchable.

[dinbolleven]

This is not a review, this is an analysis. Smartass fail.... seriously.

[111vnderbnder111]

that movie was a mind f**k

[betwixtX]

I have been in such psyche state many times, but nobody has initated me for spiritual awakening I usually initate a hangover the next day instead. My slumbring spiritual powers need to be awakened to catalize a series of expansions xD

[CaptainAmerica322]

oh, and Kilgore isnt dressed as a cowboy, the stetson he wears is part of the uniform that is given exclusivley to cavalry forces, and he is air cav. but it is try, that is sort of ironic. GREAT review, such indepth meaning i never would have suspected.

[CaptainAmerica322]

good review, but "Death From Above" is a common slogan or motto or airborne forces, or air cavalry.

[Krowsnose]

very interesting interpretation.

however I doubt coppola recognized all the symbolic things you've mentioned. he had a good framework for how the movie should play out, mainly from heart of darkness, but if you listen to the documentaries he was stressed as shit throughout the whole project and felt like he was just throwing things together.

[avastyer]

For all those - especially obby86 - who think this analysis is rubbish: it's an interpretation of the film - not the final say on it or how you should look at it.

Yes, it's more easily seen as just a war movie or an interpretation of Conrad, but Ebert makes a convincing case for other ways of looking at it. It's subjective - that's what a work of art is.

You idiots, who claim to love this film so much you feel you have ownership over it - go away and watch your DVD in your little den.

[behayden99]

Kilgore was awesome, he wasn't DEATH, for god's sake! He was just an extremely gifted pilot and soldier!

[circle43cm]

Somehow I imagine this being narrated by a guy curled up in the fetal position at the bottom of a foxhole while the World is blowing up around him just as a squad of NVA is rushing over his position and killing the speaker as an afterthought as they continue to their target.

[duinnerfs]

This movie was just an attempt to modernize the story "Heart of Darkness" and put it in the backdrop of Viet Nam, an older agrarian society similar to the Congo river area...Your interpretations are interesting but you are thinking too deep

[ericuhlich]

During the film, the power is in the action, afterward, it is in the mind. This is a cool reading of the film. I didn't think though of the bridge relating to Sisyphus, but a kind of edge, an event horizon, and it's carnival, LSD trip environment perfectly showed that. It was the border between sanity and madness, or rather the new brain and old, in the mind and literally in the world.

[obby86]

Eberts neanderthalian thought process:

1:Greek word for apocalypse means 'to reveal'.

2:therefore, Apocalypse now must be a film revealatory in nature.

Good lord. I cannot believe this. Did you ever think that maybe Coppola used the word 'Apocalypse' in the title in order simply to convey a sense of the enormous destruction created by the war (as that is the modern connotation for the word)????

Why must you over analyse and make references to ancient mythology!!!

ARGGGGGGGGHHHHHH

[obby86]

(2/2)

Your main points seem to all stem from some tenuous association with mythology and milk it to death. Not only that, you do it with a staggering amount of certainty. How on earth could you be certain that Coppola intended to talk about Chakra yoga? Or about Shiva? What on earth.....

For a massive fan of this film I am distinctly dismayed that its power has been lost on some people desperately grasping to become members of the intelligensia.

Truly staggered after listening to this.

[obby86]

(1/2)

I sincerely hope that this is a very elaborate and well executed joke aimed towards meaningless over analysis.

Because that is exactly what this 'essay' is. Anyone can find endless similarities between a film and some ancient mythological story. All this is is tenuous inane drivel masked in an articulate narrative and a monotone voice in an attempt to give it critical credibility.

[Greekmustard666]

that was good