Apocalypse Now

How this film uses it

As Willard travels upriver, the trappings of civilization fall away bit by bit. Each stop takes him further from the sane world: the Playboy helicopter, the Do Lung Bridge, the French plantation. By the time he reaches Kurtz's compound, he is fully ready to understand what he finds there.

Where to see it

The Do Lung Bridge sequence. It is the last outpost of military command, and nobody is in charge or knows why they are defending it.

How this film uses it

Vittorio Storaro shoots Vietnam as a burning world with colors pushed too far, beautiful and monstrous at the same time. The napalm strikes at dawn are framed as carefully as a landscape painting. I feel like the horror is made beautiful on purpose. You get drawn in the same way the soldiers do, and that makes you part of it.

Where to see it

The Ride of the Valkyries helicopter attack. You get napalm and Wagner at dawn.

How this film uses it

Walter Murch's sound design and the Doors' 'The End' are woven into the film alongside Carmine Coppola's score, as if they were all one piece of music. You can never cleanly sort what you hear into 'music' and 'sound'. The noise of Vietnam is the music.

Where to see it

The opening sequence. Helicopter blades and 'The End' blend with the images into one single statement.

How this film uses it

For most of the film, people describe Kurtz, quote him and fear him before he ever appears. By the time Willard reaches the compound, Kurtz is a legend the film cannot fully live up to, and it deliberately doesn't try. Brando plays him as a man who falls short of the myth, because the myth was always bigger than any man.

Where to see it

Kurtz's first appearance. He comes out of the shadows, and he already falls short of the legend built up before him.