In April 1979, Coppola screened a "work in progress" for 900 people; it was not well received.[87] That year, he was invited to screen Apocalypse Now at the Cannes Film Festival.[93] United Artists was not keen on showing an unfinished version to so many members of the press. However, since his 1974 film The Conversation had won the Palme d'Or, Coppola agreed to screen Apocalypse Now with the festival only a month away.
The week before Cannes, Coppola arranged three sneak previews of a 139-minute cut in Westwood, Los Angeles on May 11[1][94] attended by 2,000 paying customers, some of whom lined up for over 6 hours.[95] Other cuts shown in 1979 ran 150 and 165 minutes.[1][48] The film was also shown at the White House for Jimmy Carter on May 10.[95][48] Coppola allowed critics to attend the L.A. screenings and believed they would honor an embargo not to review the work in progress.[48] On May 14, Rona Barrett previewed the film on television on Good Morning America and called it "a disappointing failure".[93][48] This prompted Variety to believe the embargo had been broken, and it published its review the following day, saying it was "worth the wait", calling it a "brilliant and bizarre film". They also noted that it was the first "70 mm presentation without credits",[88] for which Coppola had obtained permission from the various guilds (Screen Actors Guild, Directors Guild, and Writers Guild of America) and instead provided a printed program with credits.[48][95] The title appeared scrawled on a wall on a temple in the last third of the film.[95] Daily Variety reported that the first, 8:00 p.m. screening was received with "limited, if enthusiastic, applause".[95]
Cannes screening
The 1979 Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or was awarded to Apocalypse Now.At Cannes, Zoetrope technicians worked during the night before the screening to install additional speakers to achieve Murch's 5.1 soundtrack.[93] A three-hour version of Apocalypse Now was screened as a work in progress at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, May 19, 1979[1] and met with prolonged applause.[96] It was the first work in progress ever shown in competition at the festival.[95] At the subsequent press conference, Coppola criticized the media for releasing premature reviews[48] and for attacking him and the production during their problems filming in the Philippines. He said, "We had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane", and "My film is not about Vietnam, it is Vietnam".[96][97] His comments upset newspaper critic Rex Reed, who reportedly stormed out of the conference. Apocalypse Now won the Palme d'Or for best film, along with Volker Schlöndorff's The Tin Drum – a decision reportedly greeted with "some boos and jeers from the audience".[98]
Theatrical release
On August 15, 1979, Apocalypse Now was released in North America in only three theaters equipped to play the Dolby Stereo 70 mm prints with stereo surround sound:[99] the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles and the University Theatre in Toronto.[48] The film, without credits, ran 147 minutes and tickets were $5 (equivalent to a little over $21 now),[100] a new high for L.A.[48]
It ran exclusively in these three locations for four weeks before opening in an additional 12 theaters on October 3, 1979.[101] On October 10, 1979, the 35 mm version, with credits, was released in over 300 theaters.[48]
The film had a $9 million advertising campaign, bringing its total costs to $45 million.[48]
Alternative and varied endings
At the time of the film's release, discussion and rumors circulated about its supposed various endings. Coppola said the original ending was written in haste, where Kurtz convinced Willard to join him and together they repelled the air strike on the compound. Coppola said he never fully agreed with Kurtz and Willard dying in fatalistic explosive intensity, preferring to end the film in a more positive way.
When Coppola originally organized the ending, he considered two significant versions. One had Willard leading Lance by the hand as everyone in Kurtz's base threw down their weapons; Willard then piloted the PBR slowly away from Kurtz's compound, and this final shot was superimposed over the face of a stone idol, which then faded to black. The other version had the base spectacularly blown to bits in an air strike, killing everyone left within it.
The original 1979 70 mm exclusive theatrical release ended with Willard's boat, the stone statue, and the fade to black with no credits, save for '"Copyright 1979 Omni Zoetrope"' at its very end. This mirrored the lack of opening titles and supposedly stemmed from Coppola's original intention to "tour" the film as one would a play: The credits appeared on printed programs provided before the screening began.[4]
There have been, to date, many variations of the end credit sequence, beginning with the 35 mm general release, where Coppola elected to show the credits superimposed over shots of the jungle exploding into flames.[4][48] The explosions were from the detonations of the sets.[48] Rental prints circulated with this ending, and can be found in the hands of a few collectors. Some versions had the subtitle "A United Artists release", while others had "An Omni Zoetrope release". The network television version of the credits ended with "... from MGM/UA Entertainment Company" (as it made its network debut shortly after the merger of MGM and UA). Another variation of the end credits can be seen on both YouTube and as a supplement on the current Lionsgate Blu-ray.
When Coppola later heard that the audiences interpreted this as an air strike called by Willard, he pulled the film from its 35 mm run and added credits on a black screen.[48] The "air strike" footage continued to circulate in repertory theaters well into the 1980s, and was included in the 1980s LaserDisc release. In the DVD commentary, Coppola explains that the images of explosions were not intended as part of the story, but were simply a graphic background he had added for the credits.[102]
Coppola explained he had shot the explosion footage during demolition of the sets, whose destruction and removal were required by the Philippine government. He filmed the demolition with cameras fitted with different film stocks and lenses to capture the explosions at different speeds. He wanted to do something with the dramatic footage and decided to add them to the credits.[103]
Re-release
The film was re-released on August 28, 1987, in six cities, to capitalize on the success of Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, and other Vietnam War movies. New 70 mm prints were shown in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, St. Louis and Cincinnati—cities where the film had done well in 1979. It was given the same kind of release as the exclusive 1979 engagement, with no logo or credits, and audiences were given a printed program.[81]
Reception
Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Apocalypse Now holds an approval rating of 97% based on 96 reviews, with an average rating of 8.9/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Francis Ford Coppola's haunting, hallucinatory Vietnam War epic is cinema at its most audacious and visionary."[104] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 94 out of 100 based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[105]
Upon its release, Apocalypse Now received polarizing reviews.[106][107][108] In his original review, Roger Ebert wrote: "Apocalypse Now achieves greatness not by analyzing our 'experience in Vietnam', but by re-creating, in characters and images, something of that experience."[109] and named it "The best film of 1979".[110] Ebert concluded by writing: "What's great in the film, and what will make it live for many years and speak to many audiences, is what Coppola achieves on the levels Truffaut was discussing: the moments of agony and joy in making cinema. Some of those moments occur at the same time; remember again the helicopter assault and its unsettling juxtaposition of horror and exhilaration. Remember the weird beauty of the massed helicopters lifting above the trees in the long shot, and the insane power of Wagner's music, played loudly during the attack, and you feel what Coppola was getting at: Those moments as common in life as art, when the whole huge grand mystery of the world, so terrible, so beautiful, seems to hang in the balance." Ebert added Coppola's film to his list of The Great Movies, stating: "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."[111]
In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Charles Champlin wrote: 'as a noble use of the medium and as a tireless expression of national anguish, it towers over everything that has been attempted by an American filmmaker in a very long time.'[101] Other reviews were less positive; Frank Rich, writing for Time said: 'While much of the footage is breathtaking, Apocalypse Now is emotionally obtuse and intellectually empty.'[112] Vincent Canby argued: 'Mr. Coppola himself describes it as 'operatic', but ... Apocalypse Now is neither a tone poem nor an opera. It's an adventure yarn with delusions of grandeur, a movie that ends — in the all-too-familiar words of the poet Mr. Coppola drags in by the bootstraps — not with a bang, but a whimper.'[113]
Commentators have debated whether Apocalypse Now is an anti-war or pro-war film. Some evidence of the film's anti-war message includes the purposeless brutality of the war, the absence of military leadership, and the imagery of machinery destroying nature.[114] Advocates of a pro-war stance view these same elements as a glorification of war and the assertion of American supremacy. According to Frank Tomasulo, 'the US foisting its culture on Vietnam', including the destruction of a village so that soldiers could surf, affirms the film's pro-war message.[114] Anthony Swofford recounted how his marine platoon watched Apocalypse Now before being sent to Iraq in 1990 to get excited for war.[115] Nidesh Lawtoo illustrates the ambiguity of the film by focusing on the contradictory responses the movie in general – and the "Ride of the Valkyries" scene in particular – triggered in a university classroom.[116] Writing for The Nation, critic Robert Hatch felt the "moral indignation" behind Apocalypse Now was "lost in giantism", saying that the film presented the war as "one bloody huge circus" and that Coppola had "done no more than demonstrate the obvious — that in Vietnam we fought a bad war."[117] According to Coppola, the film may be considered anti-war, but is even more anti-lie: '... 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'.[118] In 2019, however, Coppola told Kevin Perry of The Guardian that he hesitated to call the film anti-war, stating "... an anti-war film, I always thought, should be like [Kon Ichikawa's 1956 post-second world war drama] The Burmese Harp – something filled with love and peace and tranquillity and happiness. It shouldn't have sequences of violence that inspire a lust for violence. Apocalypse Now has stirring scenes of helicopters attacking innocent people. That's not anti-war."[119]
In May 2011, a new restored digital print of Apocalypse Now was released in UK cinemas, distributed by Optimum Releasing. Total Film magazine gave the film a five-star review, stating: 'This is the original cut rather than the 2001 'Redux' (be gone, jarring French plantation interlude!), digitally restored to such heights you can, indeed, get a nose full of the napalm.'[120]
Box office
Apocalypse Now performed well at the box office when it opened on August 15, 1979.[96] It initially opened in three theaters in New York City, Toronto, and Hollywood, grossing $322,489 in its first five days. It has grossed over $80 million in the United States and Canada[121] with a worldwide total of over $100 million.[4][5]
Versions
Apocalypse Now Redux
In 2001, Coppola released Apocalypse Now Redux in cinemas and subsequently on DVD. This is an extended version that restores 49 minutes of scenes cut from the original film. Coppola has continued to circulate the original version as well: the two versions are packaged together in the Complete Dossier DVD, released on August 15, 2006, and in the Blu-ray edition released on October 19, 2010.
The longest section of added footage in the Redux version is the "French Plantation" sequence, a chapter involving the de Marais family's rubber plantation, a holdover from the colonization of French Indochina, featuring Coppola's two sons Gian-Carlo and Roman as children of the family. Around the dinner table, a young French child recites a poem by Charles Baudelaire entitled L'albatros. The French family patriarch is not satisfied with the child's recitation. The child is sent away. These scenes were removed from the 1979 cut, which premiered at Cannes. In behind-the-scenes footage in Hearts of Darkness, Coppola expresses his anger, on the set, at the technical limitations of the scenes, the result of shortage of money. At the time of the Redux version, it was possible to digitally enhance the footage to accomplish Coppola's vision. In the scenes, the French family patriarchs argue about the positive side of colonialism in Indochina and denounce the betrayal of the military men in the First Indochina War. Hubert de Marais argues that French politicians sacrificed entire battalions at Điện Biên Phủ, and tells Willard that the US created the Viet Cong (as the Viet Minh) to fend off Japanese invaders.
Other added material includes extra combat footage before Willard meets Kilgore, a scene in which Willard's team steals Kilgore's surfboard (which sheds some light on the hunt for the mangoes), a follow-up scene to the dance of the Playboy Playmates, in which Willard's team finds the Playmates stranded after their helicopter has run out of fuel (trading two barrels of fuel for two hours with the Bunnies), and a scene of Kurtz reading from a Time magazine article about the war, surrounded by Cambodian children.
A deleted scene titled "Monkey Sampan" shows Willard and the PBR crew suspiciously eyeing an approaching sampan juxtaposed to Montagnard villagers joyfully singing "Light My Fire" by The Doors. As the sampan gets closer, Willard realizes there are monkeys on it and no helmsman. Finally, just as the two boats pass, the wind turns the sail and exposes a naked dead Viet Cong (VC) nailed to the sail boom. His body is mutilated and looks as though the man had been flogged and castrated. The singing stops. As they pass on by, Chief notes out loud, "That's comin' from where we goin', Captain." The boat then slowly passes the giant tail of a shot down B-52 bomber as the noise of engines high in the sky is heard. Coppola said that he made up for cutting this scene by having the PBR pass under an aircraft tail in the final cut.
First Assembly
A 289-minute First Assembly circulates as a video bootleg, containing extra material not included in either the original theatrical release or the "redux" version.[122] This cut of the film does not feature Carmine Coppola's score, instead using several Doors tracks.[123]
Apocalypse Now Final Cut
In April 2019, Coppola showed Apocalypse Now Final Cut for the 40th anniversary screening at the Tribeca Film Festival.[124] This new version is Coppola's preferred version of the film and has a runtime of three hours and three minutes, with Coppola having cut 20 minutes of the added material from Redux; the scenes deleted include the second encounter with the Playmates, parts of the plantation sequence, and Kurtz's reading of Time magazine.[125] It is also the first time the film has been restored from the original camera negative at 4K; previous transfers were made from an interpositive.[126] It was released in autumn 2019, along with an extended cut of The Cotton Club.[127] It also had a release in select IMAX theaters on August 15 and 18, 2019, in a collaboration between IMAX and Lionsgate.[128]
