WEBVTT
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Welcome to Filing, where we love to think and rap about our love of cinema.
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This is not to be confused with filling, as some have pronounced it.
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This is the Filing Cast.
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That said, we will be filling your minds with sounds and ideas inspired by things we file, or rather, things we love.
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I'm Sean Patrick, and I'll be joined by Brandon Mitchell.
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We are ideophiles, storyphiles, and cinephiles.
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Our aim is to share those loves and understand their value and importance in our lives with each other and everyone who listens.
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Our discussion might be a broad and detailed spoiler, so if you haven't seen this episode's movie, stop this cast right now, go watch it, and then return to filing to hear our thoughts and feelings.
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Please note there is some occasional static and unintended noise during this episode.
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It is quiet, occasional, and barely noticeable.
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I don't even know why I brought it up.
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We meandered a little bit in this episode, so we summoned the spirit of Walter Murch.
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Walter Merch was the editor and sound designer of Apocalypse Now, so with Mr.
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Merch in mind, we edited this episode quite a bit for clarity.
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But if you find we're still meandering and not entertaining you enough, then turn your listen into a themed reaction game.
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This week, every time you hear one of us say something idiotic, do 10 jumping jacks as fast as you dare.
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You might get an amazing high-intensity workout.
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This episode is part two of the After the Life inspiration series, which is a collection of movie reviews intended to inspire the production of an original movie titled The After the Life, The Movie.
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The After the Life The Movie is currently being produced and will screen at an event called The Fest 2026 on July 18th.
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Go to thefest2026.com for details about the event.
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In this episode, we discuss the movie Apocalypse Now.
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Apocalypse Now is an American movie that was co-written, directed, and produced by Francis Ford Coppola.
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The theme, or broadest meaning of Apocalypse Now, is the horror of war.
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The plot theme or central conflict of the movie is perhaps best described by a character in the movie, a U.S.
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Army general, played by the actor G.
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D.
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Spradlin.
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He describes the central conflict as the rational versus the irrational, good versus evil, or the better angels of our nature versus the dark side.
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The movie was written amid the backdrop of the Vietnam War.
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In 1968, over 16,500 U.S.
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soldiers, 27,915 South Vietnamese soldiers, and tens of thousands of North Vietnamese soldiers and Vietnamese citizens were killed.
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In 1969, the writer John Milius completed the first draft of a screenplay titled The Psychedelic Soldier.
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Before the last U.S.
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combat troops left Vietnam in 1973, Milius changed the title to Apocalypse Now.
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The new title was a sarcastic spin on the hippie slogan of the time, Nirvana Now.
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The United States officially ended direct military involvement in Vietnam in 1975, and in 1976, the production of Apocalypse Now began.
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Production ended in May of 1977, and then in 1979, 10 years after the screenplay's first draft was completed, the movie Apocalypse Now was released to audiences.
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The movie was originally 2 hours and 33 minutes long.
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It was re-released in 2001 at a length of 3 hours and 17 minutes, and again in 2019 at 3 hours and 1 minute.
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But we're only going to talk about the first 15 minutes.
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We're calling this type of talk the first 15-minute exercise.
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And the goal of this exercise is to identify a single plot point called the inciting incident, or the first cause of action.
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This incident or action incites or causes all subsequent action in the story's plot.
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This is our first time recording this type of conversation, so, like the boat in Apocalypse Now drifting through the foggy twists and turns of the fictional Noon River, we may lose our direction.
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Perhaps that's to be expected when contemplating the darker realms of human nature.
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But we mostly discuss whatever we see in here, like or dislike, about the first 15 minutes of Apocalypse Now.
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So please do not flee.
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Enjoy episode three.
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We were talking a lot about um the acts, act one, act two, act three of a movie.
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If, you know, unless there's more than that, because some experimental movies and stuff will mess around with multiple acts or one act or whatever.
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But typically it's a three-act structure that we're dealing with.
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And I think it's not easy to differentiate what they are a lot of times.
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So um part of this exercise is to see within the first 15 minutes of a movie, are you getting to the second act by that point, or is is it can we differentiate what it means by being the first act?
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And I think Apocalypse Now is an interesting one because that inciting incident happens within the first 15 minutes of this movie.
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Yeah, I think it does.
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The main character played by Martin Sheen, Captain Willard, receives orders from his higher-ups to go on a mission.
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And he is looking for a mission and he accepts the mission and then he embarks upon the mission.
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Right.
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And so he cho ultimately choosing to go on that mission.
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Um, and that is I think the inciting incident.
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I think it's pretty simple.
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It happens within the first 18 minutes of the movie.
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Okay.
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I want to note too, um, when uh as we're doing this first 15-minute exercise, that we're not strict about the 15 minutes.
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That's a good point.
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It's not like we set a timer and when 15 minutes hits, we stop it.
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It's whatever that scene is, you let it continue so it's not a strict 15-minute rule.
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So that's why I guess with this one being in the first 18 minutes, that's how long that scene plays out.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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You want to get into this first 15 minutes?
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Go through that.
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Yeah.
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Cool.
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Yeah, because I think um the movie really, I agree that it really gets into that and lays that the that theme out um super clearly in the first 15 minutes, and it does it in a lot of different ways.
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What's also uh kind of strange about it is, you know, because you were saying about the horrors of war.
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Um it basically starts and a lot of that damage has already occurred before this plot even starts rolling out.
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You know what I mean?
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The story starts in the middle of the war and in the middle, or perhaps even at the tail end of a particular character's experience of the war.
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Yeah, I mean, because it's it starts with the kind of it's almost half like a dream sequence.
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Yep.
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The first, I don't know, five minutes or so.
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Um starting with the sounds of the helicopters, they're kind of warped a little bit or slowed down, maybe.
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Um, and it's slow motion of the jungle, and then all this yellow smoke starts showing up in the frame and kind of real quick.
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I don't know if that's smoke or if that's like chop, uh like the result of like helicopter chop picking up sand off the beach.
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Okay, yeah, because I was thinking the a thought that went through my head is Agent Orange, you know.
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Um it just for some reason made me think of that, and because the coloring of it is yellow, a little orange-ish, and maybe also no knowing that then there's gonna be this napalm explosion just blowing up the entire forest.
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And so at because the first shot of the forest is pretty pristine until it's like cut off by helicopters in the floor foreground going past, then that yeah, that dust or whatever starts coming up.
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It's just the coloring of it looks not earthly, you know, so it it has some sort of a little bit of danger, you know, because it's like if you're walking around and that dust was out there, you wouldn't want to be breathing that in just by the look of it, and so it doesn't even it doesn't look as like dirt, it looks like something else, like more chemical, you know.
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Yeah, but but then like the whole forest blows up.
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Then you go into this dream sequence where his uh Martin Sheen's face shows up upside down, so it's like that's him, like he's a guy in this world and he's upside down, you know.
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And then it's kind of fading in and out of images from the war, maybe helicopters, but also his ceiling fan is up there.
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Well, before well, before that, um so when the when Captor Captain Willard's face comes in upside down, you then get that uh low-angle ceiling fan shot, which is in the industry, I believe that's called a nadir shot.
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Okay.
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N a D I R, which is a reverse overhead shot.
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So it's a shot from the floor with the camera pointing up toward the ceiling.
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Uh-huh.
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And then the background changes.
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And then instead of panning right, the background image pans left.
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And then you're during all this, do you see Captain Willard's face upside down on the left side of the frame?
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And then on the right side of the frame fades in the face of a statue that I never noticed before in the opening sequence.
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I did not notice it until I w watched that opening sequence several times in the last week.
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Yeah.
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And that face is a motif that returns at the end of the movie.
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And in the beginning, the faces are separate, and at the end, after Captain Willard kills Colonel Kurtz, they're superimposed halfway over top of one another.
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Oh wow.
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So Captain Willard's eye matches the eye in the statue.
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Nice.
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And the and the statue is some sort of monument in this Cambodian jungle culture, perhaps some sort of deity or the representation of some sort of deity that's worshipped or that represents something to this primitive culture, that to me ultimately symbolizes the wild or like the savage nature of the wild, as killing can do.
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And so this I find it interesting at the end of the movie that those two that their faces are superimposed only halfway over top of one another.
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But that's something about the end of the movie.
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Back to the beginning of the movie.
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No, that's cool though.
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I I like that because um it also could be the stone statue is a more permanent thing, and may in in the beginning they're separate, but it's like when they're combined together, maybe that means he is permanently, in a way, stuck in that environment.
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Cause I think the I think the nature of how war sinks into you and you can't let go of it uh is in the first 15 minutes because he has voiceover where he's talking about you know, almost well, he definitely wants a mission.
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I think it it wraps up in a way where he's you know says something like, After I've been on this mission, I wouldn't want to go back.
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But in the beginning, he's he's done missions, they've kind of fucked him up because he doesn't know where he is some of the times.
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He wakes up and has to realize that he's in Saigon.
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And he said sometimes when he's home, he wishes he was in the jungle, and vice versa, and all that stuff.
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So it's definitely all mixed up about all that stuff.
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But I don't know.
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I just thought about that when you're bringing those two images and saying they combine together at the end, it's almost like that's the he's now a statue in a sense.
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Like he he'll never get out of that jungle now that he's been through all of this stuff.
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Yeah, it's definitely representative of a conflict between two things.
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And that exact line that you're referring to in that first scene is Will from Willard is um I'm reading from the transcript of the screenplay.
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He says, When I was home after my first tour, it was worse.
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I'd wake up and there'd be nothing.
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I hardly said a word to my wife until I said yes to a divorce.
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When I was here, I wanted to be there.
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When I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the jungle.
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I'm here a week now, waiting for a mission.
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Getting softer.
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Every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker, and every minute Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger.
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Yeah.
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But I still, you know, so I think it probably speaks to what you're talking about.
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That internal conflict of that character, not knowing where he wants to be, you know, wanting to be in one more than one place, and not wanting to be in any of them.
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But also representative of that conflict between a civilized culture resolving conflict by means of uncivilized methods.
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And struggling with that and grappling with that that that inner conflict of being civilized and being savage.
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Because I think that face statue ultimately represents that like a savage, more primitive wild culture which is closer to death, and so the stakes are higher.
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You know, they don't have advanced technology to protect them from the dangers of nature.
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They're in nature.
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They could be strolling around along a trail and get attacked by a tiger and it's done.
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And a tiger doesn't care.
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And so, in order to live amongst the tigers, you have to become a tiger, which is what Colonel Kurtz does within the broader context of or maybe uh less broader context of just operating a war.
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So fascinating motif that one can study and contemplate and can come to a variety of different conclusions.
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Um so in that opening scene, you know, after that face statue fades out, um there's a whole bunch of superimposed images cross-dissolving, and I don't think I'd ever seen a sequence like that before.
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Seeing it in Apocalypse now.
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And I'm not sure I've seen anything since.
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Yeah.
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It was edited by Walter Murch.
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And he was the primary editor.
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There were some other editors as well.
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Um little fun fact Walter Murch was the first person ever to receive a credit as sound designer in a movie.
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And he it was for Apocalypse now.
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Well, so he edited the movie but also did sound design.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, there's an interesting there's interesting sound design in that opening sequence too.
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Yeah.
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Like at one point, I think it's during that sequence or during the line that I just read jungle sounds fade in.
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And he's kind of squatting in his room, kind of like looking around and kind of teetering on his on the balls of his feet, looking around, and you can hear all kinds of animal noises and bird noises, and perhaps lizard noises in the background while he's saying all of that.
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Yeah, and then he does um some like naked Tai Chi stuff, which made me think about the introduction of the bad guy in Die Hard 2, does pretty much the same thing.
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So that's hilarious, yeah.
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And Martin Sheen actually punches a mirror.
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Yeah.
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They they talk about the scene in the documentary Hearts of Darkness, and Martin Sheen got really, really drunk during that scene.
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Oh, for real?
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For real.
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He got really, really drunk in that scene.
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And he was having a hard time just standing on his feet, and he lost perspective.
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He didn't know how close he was to that mirror.
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And Coppola was giving him direction the whole time, and then he just punched it and then gashed up his thumb, and they wanted to stop the production.
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Martin Sheen made the choice to continue the scene.
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And so they continued it.
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And then the scene is gets cut together the way it does, of him dealing with this bloodied hand, he wipes it all over his face, it's all over the sheets, it's everywhere.
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It's pretty perfect, pretty perfect.
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But again, the result of an intuitive process.
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It wasn't planned at all.
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But you can't imagine that scene without all that blood.
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One interesting note from that opening scene.
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So Martin Sheen's character is naked in the scene.
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And you know, goes through this mental breakdown.
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And during the end of the scene, he's naked, bloodied, he's sitting on the floor, and he's facing the camera.
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And his genitals are exposed.
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And he makes the choice to cover them with a sheet.
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And I thought that that was really interesting.
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It bothers me.
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Um, I mean, I think, you know, mainly because the character in the movie is alone in a hotel room.
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But, you know, Martin Sheen actor is in a room full of production crew members.
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Right.
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You know, it's hard to believe the character would cover himself in that moment, but not hard to believe the actor would not cover himself, although his genitals are in not in the frame.
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Um, but he would have no way of knowing that.
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Um and it's the only part of the introduction that takes me out of the movie.
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Well, that's cool.
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I've never I've never checked that out.
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I'll definitely look at that the next time.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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It's really brief because the movie is so good.
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So as soon, because it's like, you know, that scene in Sheen's performance is so powerful, so much more powerful than that little moment.
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And the scene right after that shortly fades to black and quickly cuts the next scene with a really cool establishing shot of two soldiers walking up a staircase, and Captain Woodward's voiceover comes back in, and he describes the soldiers coming to him with a mission.
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And that low, deep voice is comes in and he's like, brought it up to me like room service.
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You know, so there's so it immediately keeps the movie immediately keeps moving and is immediately intriguing and continues to be intriguing that it's that one little quote unquote mistake in the movie that at least brought me out of the movie.
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Yeah.
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I don't even I don't ever remember it.
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Because it's so edited so well.
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And it's and everything about it, even two soldiers walking up the stairs and listening to a voiceover of Martin Sheen's character is so intriguing.
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So I thought that was noteworthy in the introduction.
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Yeah, one detail I like during that too, there's a s there's a shot where I think it gets to it first where there's a weird um shadow of the ceiling fan that almost looks like an effect.
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Uh I you know it's because it's it's almost like slow strobe.
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Um that it happens for a few seconds and then it fades to an way overhead shot where the shadows of the ceiling fan are going around the room and he's sitting on the floor eating.
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And um, I kind of like that.
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I mean, just the effect of that was cool, but I like the detail of him uh eating like out of bowls on the floor where it's um like uh it just I think to me has a little uh impact of how he's uh adapting to a different culture.
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Like he's been there so long, like he eats like you know, like when you see in movies and stuff, people in Asian cultures eating, they sit on the floor and eat out of bowls and stuff like that, and he's uh eating the same way.
00:26:07.680 --> 00:26:08.240
So I don't know.
00:26:08.400 --> 00:26:12.799
It's just like a little detail that Yeah, that is interesting.
00:26:12.960 --> 00:26:22.799
When I saw that, I had the impression that he's squatting in the bush like Charlie, trying to regain his strength before he goes back to the jungle.
00:26:23.039 --> 00:26:23.680
Yeah.
00:26:25.039 --> 00:26:30.640
And he's eating like them too, although he probably wouldn't have bowls out in the jungle.
00:26:30.799 --> 00:26:31.039
Yeah.
00:26:31.279 --> 00:26:31.839
You know.
00:26:32.400 --> 00:26:40.400
Um I don't know about that, I don't know about that ceiling fan shot because I think there's only two ceiling fan shots.
00:26:40.480 --> 00:26:45.920
And they're gonna be a little bit more than shadows of of the fan going around.
00:26:46.240 --> 00:26:55.839
So when when it's that when it's that overhead shot and he's on the floor, there's huge like fan blade shadows going around the room.
00:26:56.240 --> 00:27:08.720
But they like it's like in the whatever shot is before that, it has that, probably has that shot superimposed over it.
00:27:09.279 --> 00:27:32.640
And so, but all that's coming across is the fact that it's like a sh a shadow, so it has like a little strobe effect, and then it fades into that shot of him overhead, and then you see what why that strobe effect is happening is because these big black shadows are circling the entire room.
00:27:35.440 --> 00:27:36.640
I totally missed that.
00:27:36.720 --> 00:27:39.039
I'm gonna have to watch that whole sequence again looking for that.
00:27:39.920 --> 00:27:43.440
Yeah, there's so much, it's like every time you watch it, there's so much.
00:27:43.680 --> 00:27:48.960
Like, I the the last two times I watched it, it was pr very different.
00:27:49.200 --> 00:28:02.960
Um, so you know, like so getting into the next part, because this is where I really found the differences, is uh especially once they get to the scene with where he's getting the mission delivered to him.
00:28:03.119 --> 00:28:12.240
But before we get there, then we have those two guys coming up to just bring him, and he's super hungover.
00:28:13.200 --> 00:28:24.000
And that the part about that, I think, the or one of the interesting parts about that is just how he's a what is he, uh captain or he's a captain.
00:28:24.240 --> 00:28:24.720
Captain.
00:28:24.880 --> 00:28:39.119
So they're coming to pick this guy up for a mission, he's so hungover they they have a term for it where he's they say something like, We got a dead one, or something like that.
00:28:40.079 --> 00:28:48.559
Which means, I guess, oh, we're picking this guy up, he's been off duty for a week and he's trashed.
00:28:49.119 --> 00:28:53.119
We there's a protocol for this because we do this all the time.
00:28:53.519 --> 00:28:56.799
And I think that's kind of interesting.
00:28:57.759 --> 00:28:58.480
Yeah, yeah.
00:28:58.799 --> 00:29:01.039
That there's these these guys.
00:29:01.279 --> 00:29:11.599
I like it, I like it when Captain Willard is he's listening to them and they're like, um, Captain, we have orders from uh Latrang to come and get you.
00:29:11.759 --> 00:29:14.559
And he's like, Okay, what are the charges?
00:29:14.799 --> 00:29:15.359
Right.
00:29:16.160 --> 00:29:17.839
Thinking he's being arrested for something.
00:29:18.160 --> 00:29:18.880
Exactly.
00:29:19.119 --> 00:29:25.680
It's so perfectly revealing of his state of mind and what he thinks of himself and what he's done.
00:29:25.920 --> 00:29:27.519
Right, exactly.
00:29:27.920 --> 00:29:31.759
Yeah, yeah, but no, it that doesn't matter.
00:29:32.079 --> 00:29:35.359
We just got another another job for you to do.
00:29:36.079 --> 00:29:36.720
You know.
00:29:38.240 --> 00:29:42.160
It's very well written.
00:29:42.880 --> 00:29:43.680
Oh yeah.
00:29:44.160 --> 00:29:44.880
Oh yeah.
00:29:45.119 --> 00:29:57.200
Yeah, and so then the next scene, yeah, he goes uh into a trailer, there's a colonel, uh, there's or there's a colonel, there's a general, and then there's this other guy.
00:29:57.359 --> 00:29:57.680
Yeah.
00:29:58.079 --> 00:30:00.640
Some sort of civilian.
00:30:01.039 --> 00:30:06.240
Um perhaps with the you know, you don't know, with Department of Defense.
00:30:06.480 --> 00:30:07.279
That's what I wrote down.
00:30:07.359 --> 00:30:10.240
I was like, who are these three guys?
00:30:11.200 --> 00:30:18.480
You know, which like, yeah, the colonel, you get that, or I mean, like, the what is it, the general, you get that.
00:30:18.720 --> 00:30:34.960
Then the colonel who gives me some questions, just because it's Harrison Ford, presumably around the same age as Martin Sheen, if not younger, you know, on the I don't know.
00:30:35.200 --> 00:30:39.039
Um, yeah, but so that's interesting to me.
00:30:39.839 --> 00:30:41.920
Just, I don't know, for some reason.
00:30:42.079 --> 00:30:55.359
But then, yeah, then there's this third guy who is not in uniform, doesn't he has a tie on, but it's not tied, and he seems like he's important, but I'm like, who is this guy?
00:30:56.240 --> 00:30:57.680
Yeah, he doesn't say anything.
00:30:58.079 --> 00:31:00.799
Ultimately, no, he says the main thing.
00:31:01.279 --> 00:31:04.000
Yeah, yeah, at the end of the scene.
00:31:04.720 --> 00:31:07.119
So I'm like, who even is this guy?
00:31:07.359 --> 00:31:11.119
Yeah, you know, is he like CIA or something like that?
00:31:11.519 --> 00:31:12.160
Exactly.
00:31:12.319 --> 00:31:20.480
It's really it's really an intriguing way to uh present a scene and then allow it to unfold because he's there all the time.
00:31:20.640 --> 00:31:20.960
Yeah.
00:31:21.200 --> 00:31:27.599
And Harrison Ford does most of the talking at the beginning, and then the general at some point takes over.
00:31:28.480 --> 00:31:39.039
And they do a little test at first, they do a little test on him to see if he will reveal any anything about what he's done.
00:31:39.359 --> 00:31:43.839
Any information about past missions, and it seems like he knows the deal.
00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:49.680
Maybe they get trained, you know, because if they get captured, they have to keep all that shit.
00:31:49.839 --> 00:31:53.440
So it's sort of like a a little test.
00:31:53.599 --> 00:31:59.279
It should be easy, but you still have to do it, you know.
00:31:59.519 --> 00:32:02.240
And so he passes that test.
00:32:02.720 --> 00:32:07.680
He says, I don't know what you're talking about, and if I did, I wouldn't say anything.
00:32:07.920 --> 00:32:12.240
And so then they go, Okay, let's uh sit down to eat then.
00:32:13.599 --> 00:32:21.279
Sir, I am unaware of any such activity or operation, nor would I be disposed to discuss an operation if it did in fact exist.
00:32:21.599 --> 00:32:22.000
Right.
00:32:22.319 --> 00:32:25.440
It's so specific, you know, it's like scripted for sure.
00:32:25.599 --> 00:32:33.279
Yeah, you know, but they have to they have to make sure he is has the state of mind that he can remember the script, you know.
00:32:33.440 --> 00:32:37.200
And and then once he does, he's like, okay, we got a bunch of food here.
00:32:37.279 --> 00:32:40.480
Let's sit down and eat this and try to break the tension a little bit.
00:32:40.880 --> 00:32:44.240
The general's so funny because he just comes in and he's like, let's have a bit of lunch.
00:32:44.400 --> 00:32:46.640
I thought that would be I thought that would be nice.
00:32:46.799 --> 00:32:55.599
Yeah, and then he has this uh he he does the courtesy of we're gonna pass this around, but just to save time, why don't we pass it both ways?
00:32:55.759 --> 00:32:56.319
Is that cool?
00:32:56.480 --> 00:32:58.960
You know, so it's like so courteous.
00:32:59.680 --> 00:33:00.160
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:33:00.319 --> 00:33:08.400
And then he then he's joking, he's like, if you eat these shrimps, you you won't have to do anything else to prove your courage to me.
00:33:12.000 --> 00:33:12.480
Yeah.
00:33:12.640 --> 00:33:12.880
Yeah.
00:33:13.119 --> 00:33:15.039
And then and then they start laying the stuff out.
00:33:15.119 --> 00:33:32.720
And here's what I noticed more this time than ever before is there is this is where the general lays out the whole theme of the movie straight up.
00:33:33.200 --> 00:33:45.440
You know, saying when he's talking about Kurtz, and uh I don't know if you have the the script or whatever, but he's he's I'm looking right at it.
00:33:45.680 --> 00:33:52.400
He's laying all this stuff out about him being insane or something like that, and trying to get this buy-in.
00:33:52.720 --> 00:34:03.440
But he it it's the way it's written, I should have I should have written all this down, but the way it's written, it's really like laying it out that there's a conflict.
00:34:03.759 --> 00:34:07.839
This is what the conflict of the whole movie is gonna be ultimately about.
00:34:08.400 --> 00:34:12.239
And it's Martin Sheen just looking straight at the camera.
00:34:12.639 --> 00:34:14.800
So it's it's him looking at the camera.
00:34:23.039 --> 00:34:23.679
Right.
00:34:23.920 --> 00:34:26.639
And so you're saying Martin Sheen is looking directly at the end.
00:34:26.800 --> 00:34:41.679
He's looking right at us, and we're hearing this guy saying this stuff, so it it's double talking right to us because we're at the movie theater or in our house listening to it, so that stuff is coming to us, but it's also going to this character.
00:34:41.840 --> 00:34:52.159
But the fact that you're showing the character who's hearing it looking right at us, it just makes you internalize it.
00:34:52.480 --> 00:35:03.920
And it's like, this is what you should be thinking about and dealing with this whole movie, and it's almost saying, Are you gonna do that if you agree?
00:35:05.119 --> 00:35:09.280
Come on this journey and let's see what we're all made of, you know?
00:35:09.440 --> 00:35:19.920
Yeah, it's so it's like really cool, and I never noticed that before of the intentional looking directly at the camera stuff that's happening in that scene.
00:35:20.159 --> 00:35:20.880
It's awesome.
00:35:21.199 --> 00:35:24.880
Would you would you consider that a breaking of the fourth wall?
00:35:25.360 --> 00:35:27.119
Uh I don't think so.
00:35:27.519 --> 00:35:30.960
Um because it's not it's not.
00:35:31.519 --> 00:35:52.000
I think the traditional breaking of the fourth wall is being self-aware that it's a movie, and it's breaking that um artifice of we're on this side of the screen, the movie's happening on this other side of the screen.
00:35:52.239 --> 00:36:02.159
The knowingly breaking the fourth wall is kind of saying from the movie, being like, hey guys in the theater, we know this is a movie type of thing.
00:36:02.320 --> 00:36:05.039
And it's not it's not consciously doing that.
00:36:05.199 --> 00:36:13.679
This is like a it's just like a mental trick to bring people's brains into it a little bit more.
00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:16.719
The uh looking directly at camera.
00:36:16.960 --> 00:36:23.119
But yeah, because it's already established that the general is sitting directly across from Captain Willard.
00:36:23.199 --> 00:36:23.360
Yeah.
00:36:23.599 --> 00:36:30.000
So him looking at the camera is it's almost like a POV shot of the general.
00:36:30.320 --> 00:36:33.199
Right, but it doesn't function that way to me at all.
00:36:33.519 --> 00:36:44.719
It's Sheen looking right at us, but with the with the audio that we're hearing, it's it may it turns it into we're being spoken to.
00:36:45.760 --> 00:36:51.760
You know, and it's because it's it's uh yeah, I again I should have I did a bad job.
00:36:51.840 --> 00:36:58.480
I should have written all of this stuff down, or at least got some uh I just kind of got sucked into it.
00:36:59.360 --> 00:37:01.519
So I didn't take the notes down.
00:37:01.679 --> 00:37:08.639
But yeah, he just he kind of lays lays it out on I mean because he it even is like I can read it.
00:37:08.719 --> 00:37:30.320
I can read it because he talks he talks a little bit about becoming a god or something like that, and yeah, may like almost questioning to himself like I guess that would be enticing to a person if they got that amount of power or something like that, you know?
00:37:30.559 --> 00:37:32.719
And yeah, that the general, yeah.
00:37:32.800 --> 00:37:50.960
So the general's whole purpose in this scene is to not lay is to participate in introducing the orders to Captain Willard, but he doesn't provide the context of the orders.
00:37:51.199 --> 00:37:55.679
Context of the orders is provided by the colonel, like the subordinate.
00:37:56.000 --> 00:38:14.320
The general participates in the introduction of the orders by providing moral context and like philosophical context for that scene, and then what you're saying ultimately the whole movie.
00:38:15.039 --> 00:38:22.400
You know, he says Well, you see, Willard, in this war things get confused out there.
00:38:23.440 --> 00:38:28.320
Power, ideals, the old military and practical military necessity.
00:38:29.840 --> 00:38:34.239
But out there with these natives, it must be a temption temptation to be God.
00:38:35.039 --> 00:38:39.840
Because the rational and the irrational between good and evil.
00:38:41.199 --> 00:38:43.519
And good does not always triumph.
00:38:44.480 --> 00:38:50.800
Sometimes the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature.
00:38:51.760 --> 00:38:53.760
Every man has got a breaking point.
00:38:55.280 --> 00:38:56.800
You have and I have them.
00:38:57.360 --> 00:38:59.440
Walter Kurtz has reached his.
00:39:00.400 --> 00:39:03.840
And very obviously he has gone insane.
00:39:05.119 --> 00:39:14.639
So that kind of speaks to that conflict that gets touched on in these in the dream sequence introduction, the very first scene.
00:39:14.800 --> 00:39:14.960
Yeah.
00:39:15.360 --> 00:39:26.480
Where Martin Sheen is conflicted about being here or there, you know, being in the bush, getting stronger or being here and getting weaker.
00:39:26.719 --> 00:39:36.800
You know, there's a conflict within him to be there, to be stronger, to directly grapple with what the general's talking about.
00:39:37.440 --> 00:39:39.199
You know, for whatever reason.
00:39:40.559 --> 00:39:49.440
I'm not sure it's really I clearly identified why Captain Willard wants these types of missions.
00:39:50.239 --> 00:39:55.440
It's it it's just presented as he wants them and he's struggling.
00:39:55.840 --> 00:40:05.920
You know, his the angels of his better nature are struggling, just as the angels of Colonel Kurtz's better nature is gone.
00:40:07.519 --> 00:40:21.599
Yeah, it's a great delivery and it's a great it's a great context set of the moral conflict and the moral choice that Captain Willard has to make.
00:40:22.400 --> 00:40:25.920
You know, is he going to be like Colonel Kurtz?
00:40:26.159 --> 00:40:32.079
Is he going to go in that direction and l lose the better angels of his own nature?
00:40:32.719 --> 00:40:37.360
Or is he going to prevent that?
00:40:38.320 --> 00:40:49.840
It's almost presented as if if you kill this guy, that's a good thing because he's completely insane and evil and has no redeeming value.
00:40:50.320 --> 00:40:52.000
So we have to eliminate him.
00:40:52.400 --> 00:40:54.239
If you do that, that's a good thing.
00:40:54.559 --> 00:41:08.079
That means that you are preventing that because ultimately you don't want to be that, but you have to murder him in order to do that.
00:41:08.960 --> 00:41:13.920
Yeah, so it um he wants missions.
00:41:14.559 --> 00:41:15.039
He wants missions.
00:41:16.719 --> 00:41:24.000
I'm trying to go back to you you you were mentioned about how it's not really clear why he wants these missions and stuff like that.
00:41:24.079 --> 00:41:33.119
But I think he he wants missions, um, but this one is different.
00:41:33.760 --> 00:41:38.239
Because this is one of their own, basically.
00:41:38.800 --> 00:41:39.599
Yeah, yeah.
00:41:39.760 --> 00:41:44.079
And he does say once he after this mission, he'll never want another one.
00:41:44.239 --> 00:41:44.480
Right.
00:41:44.639 --> 00:41:46.320
He wants this to be his final mission.
00:41:46.480 --> 00:41:46.880
Yeah.
00:41:47.119 --> 00:41:53.840
It's a be careful what you wish for type of thing in that in the beginning sense.
00:41:54.079 --> 00:42:11.679
But it's also, you know, I watched it a couple times, and the evidence that they give for him having to buy in that Colonel Kurtz is insane is a pretty short audio clip.
00:42:13.039 --> 00:42:23.599
And it's, you know, it's like, I if that was me, I don't know if I would buy in to obviously he's insane if he's just going.
00:42:23.920 --> 00:42:28.079
I had this dream about the snail going on razor.
00:42:28.320 --> 00:42:30.960
That's my dream, that's my nightmare.
00:42:31.199 --> 00:42:33.119
And then you go, check that out.
00:42:33.280 --> 00:42:34.719
We gotta kill this dude.
00:42:34.960 --> 00:42:40.239
I mean, I know they got intel that he wants to kill, like well, he went rogue.
00:42:40.480 --> 00:43:00.079
He went rogue and he killed some uh what I think they describe as South Vietnamese army officers who he thought were working with the North Vietnamese, and so he on his own made the decision to have them killed.
00:43:00.239 --> 00:43:00.800
Right, right, right.
00:43:01.039 --> 00:43:02.239
Without with a without order.
00:43:02.400 --> 00:43:10.239
So he's he's operating entirely on his own without any, you know, whatever they say, guidance.
00:43:11.280 --> 00:43:12.159
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:43:12.320 --> 00:43:14.239
I mean, I'm sure it's legit.
00:43:14.480 --> 00:43:15.840
I'm just saying.
00:43:17.840 --> 00:43:23.840
And it's a long, it's a long movie, so you gotta get that buy-in quick so we can get out there.
00:43:24.480 --> 00:43:33.039
It is a bar, it is a bizarre thing to contemplate a snail crawling on the edge of a straight razor.
00:43:33.199 --> 00:43:33.440
Yeah.
00:43:33.760 --> 00:43:41.199
And he describes it as crawling, slithering along the edge of a straight razor and surviving.
00:43:41.440 --> 00:43:42.000
Yeah.
00:43:42.320 --> 00:43:59.760
And you know, and that's kind of like they kind of every all the information they lay out about Colonel Carrotz, it's like it is like on the edge of right and wrong, you know, and they're ultimately.
00:44:00.159 --> 00:44:04.559
Making the choice that, like, he stepped over the edge.
00:44:05.440 --> 00:44:08.880
And it's like if you step over the edge, you risk survival.
00:44:09.119 --> 00:44:14.000
But this is weird because it's a snail on the edge, slithering straight on the edge.
00:44:14.159 --> 00:44:18.320
It should just sl the edge should just slice the snail in half.
00:44:18.800 --> 00:44:21.039
But for whatever reason, it survives.
00:44:21.119 --> 00:44:23.519
So the snail is on either side.
00:44:23.760 --> 00:44:24.320
Right.
00:44:25.039 --> 00:44:31.440
And you could possibly make the argument that Colonel Kurtz is on either side.
00:44:31.679 --> 00:44:44.400
You know, he's been employed by the United States government to conduct war, and he's just not participating in the way he was ordered to participate.
00:44:44.719 --> 00:44:49.760
He's making his own decisions outside of the hierarchy of decision makers and control.
00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:56.079
So um I think that's a I think that's a theme in a lot of Coppola's movies.
00:44:57.440 --> 00:44:59.920
It's there in The Godfather, for sure.
00:45:00.079 --> 00:45:00.480
Mm-hmm.
00:45:01.840 --> 00:45:24.000
You know, when Mark Michael Corleone ultimately justifies participating in his father's business to Kay, his love interest, he explains to her that her father, his father is no different from any other powerful man who has responsibilities to others.
00:45:24.960 --> 00:45:25.199
You know?
00:45:25.599 --> 00:45:40.800
Ergo, according to Michael Corleone, it's okay to put a gun to somebody's head and demand that they sign the contract by assuring them either your signature or your brains will be on this contract.
00:45:42.239 --> 00:45:45.920
You know, in an effort to get a deal done.
00:45:46.559 --> 00:45:54.079
So it's definitely something that it's definitely a conflict that Coppola grapples with in a lot of his movies.
00:45:54.480 --> 00:45:58.719
And the interesting thing about Apocalypse now is it's so subtle.
00:45:58.960 --> 00:45:59.760
Everything.
00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:01.599
Everything is so subtle.
00:46:01.760 --> 00:46:04.079
It doesn't really beat you over the head.
00:46:04.159 --> 00:46:07.840
It seems like even the general is struggling to articulate it.
00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:08.639
Yeah.
00:46:08.960 --> 00:46:18.159
You know, because it's no, the general looks like he's actively contemplating if what he's saying is true or something like that.
00:46:18.320 --> 00:46:23.199
Like he seems like he's wrestling with what he's talking about while he's talking.
00:46:23.280 --> 00:46:30.239
So I yeah, it's yeah, and part of that context of his grapple, he's he's grappling with the old morality.
00:46:30.559 --> 00:46:32.639
It must be a temptation to be God.
00:46:32.719 --> 00:46:45.039
The old morality is religious morality, it's also a current morality because it's employed by billions of people, even in the 70s, even during the Vietnam War.
00:46:45.360 --> 00:46:55.199
In that traditional morality, at least the Catholic tradition rooted in the Old Testament.
00:46:55.599 --> 00:46:59.199
We have the Ten Commandments, thou shalt not kill.
00:46:59.519 --> 00:47:04.719
And then in the New Testament, you have Jesus Christ saying, turn the other cheek.
00:47:05.760 --> 00:47:09.119
You know, if somebody physically assaults you.
00:47:09.599 --> 00:47:13.920
Apply that to the context of war, everything you're doing is wrong.
00:47:15.280 --> 00:47:16.960
Everything you're doing is immoral.
00:47:19.519 --> 00:47:30.719
And so the moral conflict is laid bare, but there is a root of the conflict in religious morals.
00:47:31.119 --> 00:47:33.119
But they don't beat you over the head with that.
00:47:33.519 --> 00:47:35.840
You know, they just kind of ask the question.
00:47:36.159 --> 00:47:38.079
And then just grapple with it.
00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:42.000
And that's ultimately what the movie is.
00:47:42.159 --> 00:47:46.480
It's just a grappling with the idea of killing.
00:47:48.320 --> 00:47:49.360
Taking life.
00:47:52.320 --> 00:47:55.760
And that being horror.
00:47:57.199 --> 00:47:59.119
The taking of life is horror.
00:48:00.800 --> 00:48:02.960
So right on.
00:48:04.559 --> 00:48:05.840
Any final thoughts?
00:48:06.159 --> 00:48:07.440
So yeah, yeah.
00:48:07.519 --> 00:48:18.159
So that's that's basically the 15 minutes because they offer him the mission or whatever, and he accepts and then we're off.
00:48:18.239 --> 00:48:38.000
So and that's where I'm thinking that's generally what a first act would be getting to know who what characters you're gonna deal with, and then presenting a choice, and then once the decision is made on that choice, then you're off done on to act two.
00:48:39.119 --> 00:48:41.280
Is that what you feel like?
00:48:42.239 --> 00:48:42.559
Yeah.
00:48:42.800 --> 00:48:43.360
Okay, yeah.
00:48:43.519 --> 00:48:45.280
So I I Yeah, you I look at it.
00:48:45.599 --> 00:48:49.760
You're off to act two, or as um Aristotle would say, the complication.
00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:50.320
Okay.
00:48:50.480 --> 00:48:56.880
And then or the middle of the movie or story, where it just gets more and more complicated.
00:48:57.119 --> 00:48:57.679
Right.
00:48:58.159 --> 00:49:02.480
And the tension builds until you get to the next point.
00:49:02.639 --> 00:49:02.800
Yeah.
00:49:02.960 --> 00:49:04.159
The next plot point.
00:49:04.400 --> 00:49:07.519
Which we will not discuss today, perhaps on a future episode.
00:49:07.760 --> 00:49:07.920
Yeah.
00:49:08.079 --> 00:49:10.079
We'll do 15 minutes at a time.
00:49:10.320 --> 00:49:12.960
It'll take us four weeks.
00:49:16.400 --> 00:49:19.280
Well, 15 minutes at a time of Apocalypse now.
00:49:19.440 --> 00:49:22.639
I think that movie's two hours and 45 minutes.
00:49:22.880 --> 00:49:24.000
That would take us.
00:49:24.800 --> 00:49:25.920
Redux, baby.
00:49:26.800 --> 00:49:27.679
345.
00:49:29.199 --> 00:49:30.960
That'll take four months.
00:49:34.800 --> 00:49:35.360
All right.
00:49:35.840 --> 00:49:39.360
So do you have any final thoughts?
00:49:40.639 --> 00:49:43.119
No, I think we covered covered everything.
00:49:43.199 --> 00:49:46.000
Um, oh, uh, this is dumb to bring this up.
00:49:46.079 --> 00:49:53.519
I I think I always have like some random other thought to just throw in at the very end to just blow up the transitions.
00:49:53.679 --> 00:49:53.840
Yeah.
00:49:54.079 --> 00:50:10.559
But um one one other thing I I took note of in that scene is when Harrison Ford, I think, lays out uh about taking out Colonel Kurtz.
00:50:11.119 --> 00:50:11.360
Yeah.
00:50:11.599 --> 00:50:13.119
I think that's where where he says it.
00:50:13.280 --> 00:50:19.119
But he he clears his throat twice in the saying of this line.
00:50:19.440 --> 00:50:22.800
And I just wrote that down to take note of it.
00:50:23.119 --> 00:50:32.320
I haven't really unpacked all that might be gone on there, but it's I I would assume it's super intentional.
00:50:33.280 --> 00:50:37.360
You know, so I didn't know if you noticed that or had any thoughts about that.
00:50:38.079 --> 00:50:38.719
Oh yeah.
00:50:39.519 --> 00:50:49.360
I haven't thought too deeply about that, but it it typically that might be considered like a nervous tick.
00:50:49.440 --> 00:50:50.079
Yeah.
00:50:50.800 --> 00:51:03.360
And so he is, I think, either approaching the moment or has started expressing the actual order, which is to terminate the colonel's command.
00:51:05.840 --> 00:51:19.840
And then Captain Willard turns then to the general for clarification and goes, terminate the colonel.
00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:23.199
Because he just said Harrison Ford just says terminate the colonel's command.
00:51:23.840 --> 00:51:25.599
And he's like, terminate the colonel.
00:51:26.079 --> 00:51:48.000
And then that civilian who's in the room who hasn't said anything up to this point, says the one and only line in this scene, and the final line, which is not the final line, but the most impactful line of the whole scene, which is terminate with extreme prejudice.
00:51:48.480 --> 00:51:50.239
And offers him a cigarette.
00:51:50.639 --> 00:52:09.920
Offers him a cigarette, and then he stuck, which he takes, and he starts and then the civilian lights it for him, and he's just taking this in, and then in the background you can hear Harrison Ford's character saying that standard scripted language was like saying, like, there, you know, can't talk about this mission.
00:52:10.079 --> 00:52:15.440
Yeah, you know, you are not, this is not an official mission, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:52:15.920 --> 00:52:19.119
You know, basically talking about the top secret nature of the mission.
00:52:19.280 --> 00:52:19.920
Yeah.
00:52:20.159 --> 00:52:22.800
So that cough was cool.
00:52:22.960 --> 00:52:39.760
The one thing I did notice about Harrison Ford also was when the general starts pun kind of pontificating and contemplating the deeper philosophical implications of Colonel Kurtz's behavior and presenting the moral conflict of the movie.
00:52:40.079 --> 00:52:54.239
Harrison Ford's character does this eye movement, kind of like back and forth from like from Captain Willard to the general, going like almost as if, like, what the fuck are we talking about?
00:52:54.639 --> 00:52:57.519
Like, oh, like, well, we're going there.
00:52:59.280 --> 00:53:01.119
I thought I was just delivering these orders.
00:53:01.199 --> 00:53:07.599
So there's like definitely this nervous quality to the Harrison Ford character that comes out.
00:53:07.760 --> 00:53:13.760
And he's the he's under orders too, and he's the one primarily voicing the orders.
00:53:13.920 --> 00:53:14.079
Right.
00:53:14.159 --> 00:53:14.320
Yeah.
00:53:14.480 --> 00:53:21.119
You know, so it's like to some degree, it's like he's on the hook as the guy going, like, you just you presented these orders.
00:53:21.280 --> 00:53:26.239
You know, the rest of the guys have kind of like plausible deniability to some degree.
00:53:26.400 --> 00:53:31.039
You know, definitely the general does, because he never orders him to terminate anyone.
00:53:31.840 --> 00:53:37.440
You know, it's just the colonel and this, you know, civilian.
00:53:37.760 --> 00:53:38.960
Whoever that guy is.
00:53:39.280 --> 00:53:39.920
Yeah.
00:53:41.599 --> 00:53:47.119
So I'm glad you brought that up because I love that reaction from Harrison Ford's character.
00:53:47.760 --> 00:53:54.000
Do you remember what I'm talking about where he kind of has to be a little bit more than a reaction where he kind of looks back and forth real quick?
00:53:56.239 --> 00:53:57.440
I think it's hilarious.
00:53:57.519 --> 00:53:59.760
It's so well well done.
00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:00.960
So yeah.
00:54:01.199 --> 00:54:04.159
So, but that's you start noticing.
00:54:04.639 --> 00:54:13.840
I mean, once you start watching the first 15 minutes over and over, you just you can't help but start noticing every detail, I think.
00:54:14.320 --> 00:54:31.440
Each each time you watch it, because you you internalize all the stuff that you've seen the first time, and then you're on the lookout for new stuff because you already know the other stuff that you know, and then you just keep building on that, and then just all these all these details show up.
00:54:32.000 --> 00:54:49.760
Yeah, I think that's one of the interesting things that I may have already known, but I kind of learned talking about it in this episode, having you having brought up the shadow of the fan in the wide shot, wide overhead shot looking down at Colonel Kurtz.
00:54:50.320 --> 00:54:52.239
I don't recall seeing that.
00:54:52.559 --> 00:55:04.480
So again, the first seven and a half minutes of the movie is so busy with so many layers of superimposed images, it's easy to miss something.
00:55:04.639 --> 00:55:14.800
There's also voiceover and the epic musical track, the end from the doors is playing, and their sound design coming in.
00:55:14.960 --> 00:55:17.440
There's a lot going on, so it's easy to miss things.
00:55:17.599 --> 00:55:22.239
So um I gotta say, too, that just when I thought, go ahead.
00:55:22.400 --> 00:55:42.400
Oh, just the the superimpositions and all of that stuff really hits hard for me because the time period that this was made, all of those ideas have to be so meticulously thought out ahead of time.
00:55:42.960 --> 00:55:43.280
Yeah.
00:55:43.519 --> 00:55:56.960
And the way that they would achieve them through like doubling film strips on top of each other and then reshooting that, or however they would do that stuff back in the day.
00:55:57.280 --> 00:55:58.719
It's so amazing to me.
00:55:58.800 --> 00:56:08.800
Where now you can just shoot a bunch of stuff and put it in the computer and just like put it together, change opacities, and just look at it and move shit around and all this stuff.
00:56:08.880 --> 00:56:19.679
It's like it's it's the craft of coming up with those ideas back in those days is so different to me than seeing it done nowadays.
00:56:19.840 --> 00:56:23.039
And that and that's maybe why you don't see it that much anymore.
00:56:23.360 --> 00:56:26.559
I think a lot of those principles still hold.
00:56:26.719 --> 00:56:33.199
There are still things that you have to do in order to pull off a superimposed sequence like that.
00:56:33.360 --> 00:56:33.679
Yeah.
00:56:33.840 --> 00:56:44.800
And I discovered that making my first short film in film school because I had a similar um, well, we made that movie.
00:56:44.880 --> 00:56:49.920
Um, we had a similar introduction to that movie, but I shot and edited that movie.
00:56:50.000 --> 00:57:15.199
And what I learned was you need to be very particular about what is in the shot, because certain shots will have varying degrees of detail and texture, and those are all those are, and if so, if there's something that you want to stand out, it really has to be superimposed against a background that does not have a lot of detail.
00:57:15.760 --> 00:57:40.320
And so one thing that I noticed after breaking down the shot list of the introduction is that close-up upside down overhead shot of Martin Sheen's face, that shot comes back at the later in the sequence when the dream sequence is over.
00:57:40.880 --> 00:57:46.000
And you actually see the right side of the frame, because his face is in the left side of the frame.
00:57:46.239 --> 00:57:55.760
But in the superimposed introduction, they so let me figure out the best way to explain this.
00:57:56.000 --> 00:58:02.079
So without all the superimposed images, and you just have the overshot of his face, that's on the left side of the screen.
00:58:02.159 --> 00:58:15.519
On the right side is a shadow of his face, and you can see the light on the right side of the image that makes up the contours of his face.
00:58:15.920 --> 00:58:28.079
But they use that exact same shot in the superimposed section, and they bring that face statue in the right side of the frame.
00:58:28.480 --> 00:58:33.840
And when they do that, the in the entire right side of the frame is black.
00:58:34.079 --> 00:58:49.920
Now, I don't know if they created some sort of mat in post-production to create that side of the frame to be all black, or if they just flagged the shot to get rid of the shadow of his face on the right side of the frame.
00:58:50.559 --> 00:58:59.760
But they did something to create a solid color of black on the right side of the frame so that they could superimpose an image with a lot of detail.
00:59:01.119 --> 00:59:03.119
And so that's one of those principles.
00:59:03.280 --> 00:59:15.679
If you're layering like a detailed shot, a shot with a lot of detail and nuance to the image, you want to, as best you can superimpose that over a background that is a solid color.
00:59:17.119 --> 00:59:19.039
Because that'll help details pop.
00:59:19.280 --> 00:59:30.480
So whether or not you're doing that in film or whether you're doing that in the digital era, that's a principle that you may or you may need to apply depending upon you know the nature of the sequence.
00:59:31.519 --> 00:59:34.639
So I thought that was interesting.
00:59:34.800 --> 00:59:35.440
Yeah.
00:59:37.199 --> 00:59:41.360
Um anything else important to know about this?
00:59:41.840 --> 00:59:42.880
About this movie?
00:59:43.119 --> 00:59:43.599
Nah.
00:59:43.760 --> 00:59:57.039
I think we covered, I mean, we broke down 15 minutes over the course of an hour, so I think that's all all you really are paying all your money for.
00:59:58.239 --> 01:00:07.360
But um, no, I think uh just in the future, I think we'll be continuing to do this every once in a while, right?
01:00:07.760 --> 01:00:14.559
Just going I don't know if we'll maybe we've already done a couple other movies like um what do we do?
01:00:14.719 --> 01:00:22.239
Breakfast of Tiffany's Badlands, Amelie, uh Amongst of The Abyss.
01:00:22.559 --> 01:00:23.039
Yeah.
01:00:23.599 --> 01:00:24.000
Yeah.
01:00:24.320 --> 01:00:29.920
So um Yeah, so I think we'll just continue to do that every once in a while.
01:00:31.440 --> 01:00:33.039
Because it's cool, it's fun.
01:00:34.320 --> 01:00:35.280
Yeah, and it's important.
01:00:35.360 --> 01:00:49.599
So it's important to uh exemplify what you mean by an inciting incident so that you solidify it in your brain what that is in an effort to watch and critique storylines.
01:00:50.559 --> 01:00:57.679
Because often errors and stories are errors in the plot, plot holes, they call them.
01:00:58.159 --> 01:01:07.199
Or if you're trying to write a screenplay, you know, identifying and exemplifying those examples will reinforce it in your mind.
01:01:07.440 --> 01:01:14.320
And if you're just a cinephile, well, it may help you understand more why you love the movies that you love.
01:01:14.639 --> 01:01:14.960
Right.
01:01:16.159 --> 01:01:16.719
All right.
01:01:18.639 --> 01:01:25.440
I am officially a copalophile.
01:01:26.639 --> 01:01:32.639
I think I probably always have been, but I've never explicitly stated that.
01:01:32.960 --> 01:01:33.280
Yeah.
01:01:33.519 --> 01:01:35.360
Gotta see Megalopolis.
01:01:36.159 --> 01:01:38.000
I think it's gotta see megalopolis.
01:01:38.239 --> 01:01:41.599
I think it's out or something now.
01:01:41.840 --> 01:01:42.480
I can't.
01:01:42.880 --> 01:01:46.000
I I he's always doing stuff with it.
01:01:46.239 --> 01:01:51.920
Um I think late the latest thing is it's a graphic novel now.
01:01:52.880 --> 01:02:04.960
So I mean he's he's just gonna keep cranking the handle on this and and whatever comes out, he's gonna keep rolling with it until he makes makes his money back, probably.
01:02:05.360 --> 01:02:08.079
Which he'll do, I think.
01:02:08.880 --> 01:02:10.079
But I can't wait to see it.
01:02:11.119 --> 01:02:12.000
Time will tell.
01:02:12.079 --> 01:02:12.239
Yeah.
01:02:13.039 --> 01:02:20.239
If there's one thing to be said about Coppola, he is focused on doing it, doing whatever he's doing the way he wants to do it.
01:02:20.400 --> 01:02:20.719
That's right.
01:02:20.880 --> 01:02:23.280
And that is that is to be commended and respected.
01:02:23.360 --> 01:02:23.519
Yeah.
01:02:23.760 --> 01:02:31.039
He is a true tour and uh independent thinker and filmmaker.
01:02:31.280 --> 01:02:33.280
So that's why I love the guy.
01:02:33.440 --> 01:02:35.119
So I believe that was a wrap.
01:02:35.199 --> 01:02:35.360
Yeah.
01:02:35.519 --> 01:02:36.000
Is that a wrap?
01:02:36.239 --> 01:02:38.800
Yeah, man, pencil me in as a Copa Lephile.
01:02:40.000 --> 01:02:40.559
All right.
01:02:41.199 --> 01:02:47.679
Well, all you need is a streaming service to watch this movie.
01:02:47.760 --> 01:02:52.960
All you need is a DVD or Blu-ray and a DVD player, Blu-ray player.
01:02:53.039 --> 01:02:53.280
Yep.
01:02:53.440 --> 01:02:54.639
And all you need is love.
01:02:55.119 --> 01:02:56.480
So go file it.
00:00:56.560 --> 00:01:00.240
Welcome to Filing, where we love to think and rap about our love of cinema.
00:01:00.399 --> 00:01:03.759
This is not to be confused with filling, as some have pronounced it.
00:01:04.079 --> 00:01:06.159
This is the Filing Cast.
00:01:06.480 --> 00:01:14.079
That said, we will be filling your minds with sounds and ideas inspired by things we file, or rather, things we love.
00:01:14.319 --> 00:01:18.000
I'm Sean Patrick, and I'll be joined by Brandon Mitchell.
00:01:18.239 --> 00:01:21.840
We are ideophiles, storyphiles, and cinephiles.
00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:28.719
Our aim is to share those loves and understand their value and importance in our lives with each other and everyone who listens.
00:01:29.200 --> 00:01:39.359
Our discussion might be a broad and detailed spoiler, so if you haven't seen this episode's movie, stop this cast right now, go watch it, and then return to filing to hear our thoughts and feelings.
00:01:39.599 --> 00:01:44.079
Please note there is some occasional static and unintended noise during this episode.
00:01:44.239 --> 00:01:47.680
It is quiet, occasional, and barely noticeable.
00:01:47.920 --> 00:01:50.159
I don't even know why I brought it up.
00:01:50.640 --> 00:01:56.400
We meandered a little bit in this episode, so we summoned the spirit of Walter Murch.
00:01:56.640 --> 00:02:00.959
Walter Merch was the editor and sound designer of Apocalypse Now, so with Mr.
00:02:01.040 --> 00:02:05.040
Merch in mind, we edited this episode quite a bit for clarity.
00:02:05.359 --> 00:02:12.159
But if you find we're still meandering and not entertaining you enough, then turn your listen into a themed reaction game.
00:02:12.400 --> 00:02:18.400
This week, every time you hear one of us say something idiotic, do 10 jumping jacks as fast as you dare.
00:02:18.560 --> 00:02:21.919
You might get an amazing high-intensity workout.
00:02:22.319 --> 00:02:32.800
This episode is part two of the After the Life inspiration series, which is a collection of movie reviews intended to inspire the production of an original movie titled The After the Life, The Movie.
00:02:33.039 --> 00:02:41.759
The After the Life The Movie is currently being produced and will screen at an event called The Fest 2026 on July 18th.
00:02:41.919 --> 00:02:46.080
Go to thefest2026.com for details about the event.
00:02:47.199 --> 00:02:50.400
In this episode, we discuss the movie Apocalypse Now.
00:02:50.800 --> 00:02:56.400
Apocalypse Now is an American movie that was co-written, directed, and produced by Francis Ford Coppola.
00:02:57.120 --> 00:03:03.360
The theme, or broadest meaning of Apocalypse Now, is the horror of war.
00:03:04.319 --> 00:03:10.159
The plot theme or central conflict of the movie is perhaps best described by a character in the movie, a U.S.
00:03:10.319 --> 00:03:12.400
Army general, played by the actor G.
00:03:12.560 --> 00:03:12.719
D.
00:03:12.879 --> 00:03:13.759
Spradlin.
00:03:14.479 --> 00:03:27.199
He describes the central conflict as the rational versus the irrational, good versus evil, or the better angels of our nature versus the dark side.
00:03:28.240 --> 00:03:31.919
The movie was written amid the backdrop of the Vietnam War.
00:03:32.479 --> 00:03:36.639
In 1968, over 16,500 U.S.
00:03:36.719 --> 00:03:48.560
soldiers, 27,915 South Vietnamese soldiers, and tens of thousands of North Vietnamese soldiers and Vietnamese citizens were killed.
00:03:49.759 --> 00:03:57.840
In 1969, the writer John Milius completed the first draft of a screenplay titled The Psychedelic Soldier.
00:03:59.919 --> 00:04:01.120
Before the last U.S.
00:04:01.199 --> 00:04:07.680
combat troops left Vietnam in 1973, Milius changed the title to Apocalypse Now.
00:04:08.400 --> 00:04:14.319
The new title was a sarcastic spin on the hippie slogan of the time, Nirvana Now.
00:04:15.039 --> 00:04:24.560
The United States officially ended direct military involvement in Vietnam in 1975, and in 1976, the production of Apocalypse Now began.
00:04:25.279 --> 00:04:36.639
Production ended in May of 1977, and then in 1979, 10 years after the screenplay's first draft was completed, the movie Apocalypse Now was released to audiences.
00:04:37.360 --> 00:04:41.360
The movie was originally 2 hours and 33 minutes long.
00:04:41.759 --> 00:04:49.519
It was re-released in 2001 at a length of 3 hours and 17 minutes, and again in 2019 at 3 hours and 1 minute.
00:04:49.839 --> 00:04:53.680
But we're only going to talk about the first 15 minutes.
00:04:53.920 --> 00:04:57.920
We're calling this type of talk the first 15-minute exercise.
00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:07.199
And the goal of this exercise is to identify a single plot point called the inciting incident, or the first cause of action.
00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:15.759
This incident or action incites or causes all subsequent action in the story's plot.
00:05:17.120 --> 00:05:29.040
This is our first time recording this type of conversation, so, like the boat in Apocalypse Now drifting through the foggy twists and turns of the fictional Noon River, we may lose our direction.
00:05:30.319 --> 00:05:35.360
Perhaps that's to be expected when contemplating the darker realms of human nature.
00:05:36.079 --> 00:05:43.279
But we mostly discuss whatever we see in here, like or dislike, about the first 15 minutes of Apocalypse Now.
00:05:43.600 --> 00:05:45.680
So please do not flee.
00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:47.839
Enjoy episode three.
00:06:23.439 --> 00:06:32.079
We were talking a lot about um the acts, act one, act two, act three of a movie.
00:06:32.240 --> 00:06:41.040
If, you know, unless there's more than that, because some experimental movies and stuff will mess around with multiple acts or one act or whatever.
00:06:41.199 --> 00:06:44.800
But typically it's a three-act structure that we're dealing with.
00:06:45.120 --> 00:06:53.040
And I think it's not easy to differentiate what they are a lot of times.
00:06:53.279 --> 00:07:10.959
So um part of this exercise is to see within the first 15 minutes of a movie, are you getting to the second act by that point, or is is it can we differentiate what it means by being the first act?
00:07:11.120 --> 00:07:20.399
And I think Apocalypse Now is an interesting one because that inciting incident happens within the first 15 minutes of this movie.
00:07:20.720 --> 00:07:22.560
Yeah, I think it does.
00:07:22.800 --> 00:07:34.399
The main character played by Martin Sheen, Captain Willard, receives orders from his higher-ups to go on a mission.
00:07:34.720 --> 00:07:42.079
And he is looking for a mission and he accepts the mission and then he embarks upon the mission.
00:07:42.319 --> 00:07:42.560
Right.
00:07:42.800 --> 00:07:46.800
And so he cho ultimately choosing to go on that mission.
00:07:47.759 --> 00:07:52.240
Um, and that is I think the inciting incident.
00:07:52.319 --> 00:07:53.120
I think it's pretty simple.
00:07:53.360 --> 00:07:56.480
It happens within the first 18 minutes of the movie.
00:07:56.720 --> 00:07:57.040
Okay.
00:07:57.360 --> 00:08:07.920
I want to note too, um, when uh as we're doing this first 15-minute exercise, that we're not strict about the 15 minutes.
00:08:08.160 --> 00:08:08.800
That's a good point.
00:08:09.199 --> 00:08:13.120
It's not like we set a timer and when 15 minutes hits, we stop it.
00:08:13.199 --> 00:08:19.279
It's whatever that scene is, you let it continue so it's not a strict 15-minute rule.
00:08:19.439 --> 00:08:25.120
So that's why I guess with this one being in the first 18 minutes, that's how long that scene plays out.
00:08:25.360 --> 00:08:26.000
Yeah.
00:08:26.399 --> 00:08:26.879
Yeah.
00:08:27.120 --> 00:08:27.360
Yeah.
00:08:27.519 --> 00:08:30.959
You want to get into this first 15 minutes?
00:08:31.279 --> 00:08:32.080
Go through that.
00:08:32.399 --> 00:08:32.960
Yeah.
00:08:33.279 --> 00:08:33.919
Cool.
00:08:34.960 --> 00:08:52.720
Yeah, because I think um the movie really, I agree that it really gets into that and lays that the that theme out um super clearly in the first 15 minutes, and it does it in a lot of different ways.
00:08:52.879 --> 00:09:00.879
What's also uh kind of strange about it is, you know, because you were saying about the horrors of war.
00:09:01.919 --> 00:09:17.440
Um it basically starts and a lot of that damage has already occurred before this plot even starts rolling out.
00:09:18.480 --> 00:09:19.200
You know what I mean?
00:09:20.879 --> 00:09:30.240
The story starts in the middle of the war and in the middle, or perhaps even at the tail end of a particular character's experience of the war.
00:09:30.480 --> 00:09:38.320
Yeah, I mean, because it's it starts with the kind of it's almost half like a dream sequence.
00:09:38.720 --> 00:09:39.039
Yep.
00:09:39.279 --> 00:09:41.679
The first, I don't know, five minutes or so.
00:09:42.159 --> 00:09:51.360
Um starting with the sounds of the helicopters, they're kind of warped a little bit or slowed down, maybe.
00:09:51.759 --> 00:10:05.679
Um, and it's slow motion of the jungle, and then all this yellow smoke starts showing up in the frame and kind of real quick.
00:10:05.759 --> 00:10:15.039
I don't know if that's smoke or if that's like chop, uh like the result of like helicopter chop picking up sand off the beach.
00:10:15.279 --> 00:10:23.279
Okay, yeah, because I was thinking the a thought that went through my head is Agent Orange, you know.
00:10:23.600 --> 00:10:44.240
Um it just for some reason made me think of that, and because the coloring of it is yellow, a little orange-ish, and maybe also no knowing that then there's gonna be this napalm explosion just blowing up the entire forest.
00:10:45.440 --> 00:11:01.679
And so at because the first shot of the forest is pretty pristine until it's like cut off by helicopters in the floor foreground going past, then that yeah, that dust or whatever starts coming up.
00:11:01.759 --> 00:11:30.559
It's just the coloring of it looks not earthly, you know, so it it has some sort of a little bit of danger, you know, because it's like if you're walking around and that dust was out there, you wouldn't want to be breathing that in just by the look of it, and so it doesn't even it doesn't look as like dirt, it looks like something else, like more chemical, you know.
00:11:30.799 --> 00:11:34.159
Yeah, but but then like the whole forest blows up.
00:11:34.399 --> 00:11:50.960
Then you go into this dream sequence where his uh Martin Sheen's face shows up upside down, so it's like that's him, like he's a guy in this world and he's upside down, you know.
00:11:51.360 --> 00:12:05.360
And then it's kind of fading in and out of images from the war, maybe helicopters, but also his ceiling fan is up there.
00:12:05.600 --> 00:12:26.320
Well, before well, before that, um so when the when Captor Captain Willard's face comes in upside down, you then get that uh low-angle ceiling fan shot, which is in the industry, I believe that's called a nadir shot.
00:12:26.559 --> 00:12:26.879
Okay.
00:12:27.120 --> 00:12:31.039
N a D I R, which is a reverse overhead shot.
00:12:31.120 --> 00:12:37.600
So it's a shot from the floor with the camera pointing up toward the ceiling.
00:12:37.759 --> 00:12:38.159
Uh-huh.
00:12:39.440 --> 00:12:43.840
And then the background changes.
00:12:45.360 --> 00:12:51.120
And then instead of panning right, the background image pans left.
00:12:51.360 --> 00:12:57.679
And then you're during all this, do you see Captain Willard's face upside down on the left side of the frame?
00:12:57.919 --> 00:13:12.799
And then on the right side of the frame fades in the face of a statue that I never noticed before in the opening sequence.
00:13:13.039 --> 00:13:18.000
I did not notice it until I w watched that opening sequence several times in the last week.
00:13:18.320 --> 00:13:18.799
Yeah.
00:13:19.120 --> 00:13:23.360
And that face is a motif that returns at the end of the movie.
00:13:23.679 --> 00:13:36.960
And in the beginning, the faces are separate, and at the end, after Captain Willard kills Colonel Kurtz, they're superimposed halfway over top of one another.
00:13:37.200 --> 00:13:37.600
Oh wow.
00:13:37.759 --> 00:13:41.120
So Captain Willard's eye matches the eye in the statue.
00:13:41.360 --> 00:13:41.679
Nice.
00:13:41.840 --> 00:14:14.080
And the and the statue is some sort of monument in this Cambodian jungle culture, perhaps some sort of deity or the representation of some sort of deity that's worshipped or that represents something to this primitive culture, that to me ultimately symbolizes the wild or like the savage nature of the wild, as killing can do.
00:14:14.320 --> 00:14:24.639
And so this I find it interesting at the end of the movie that those two that their faces are superimposed only halfway over top of one another.
00:14:24.799 --> 00:14:26.399
But that's something about the end of the movie.
00:14:26.559 --> 00:14:27.679
Back to the beginning of the movie.
00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:28.960
No, that's cool though.
00:14:29.039 --> 00:14:59.120
I I like that because um it also could be the stone statue is a more permanent thing, and may in in the beginning they're separate, but it's like when they're combined together, maybe that means he is permanently, in a way, stuck in that environment.
00:15:00.320 --> 00:15:21.279
Cause I think the I think the nature of how war sinks into you and you can't let go of it uh is in the first 15 minutes because he has voiceover where he's talking about you know, almost well, he definitely wants a mission.
00:15:22.159 --> 00:15:29.519
I think it it wraps up in a way where he's you know says something like, After I've been on this mission, I wouldn't want to go back.
00:15:30.159 --> 00:15:42.320
But in the beginning, he's he's done missions, they've kind of fucked him up because he doesn't know where he is some of the times.
00:15:42.639 --> 00:15:47.120
He wakes up and has to realize that he's in Saigon.
00:15:47.440 --> 00:15:53.840
And he said sometimes when he's home, he wishes he was in the jungle, and vice versa, and all that stuff.
00:15:53.919 --> 00:15:56.399
So it's definitely all mixed up about all that stuff.
00:15:56.480 --> 00:15:57.039
But I don't know.
00:15:57.120 --> 00:16:10.080
I just thought about that when you're bringing those two images and saying they combine together at the end, it's almost like that's the he's now a statue in a sense.
00:16:10.320 --> 00:16:14.879
Like he he'll never get out of that jungle now that he's been through all of this stuff.
00:16:15.279 --> 00:16:19.279
Yeah, it's definitely representative of a conflict between two things.
00:16:19.360 --> 00:16:28.879
And that exact line that you're referring to in that first scene is Will from Willard is um I'm reading from the transcript of the screenplay.
00:16:29.120 --> 00:16:32.159
He says, When I was home after my first tour, it was worse.
00:16:32.320 --> 00:16:34.320
I'd wake up and there'd be nothing.
00:16:34.559 --> 00:16:37.759
I hardly said a word to my wife until I said yes to a divorce.
00:16:38.000 --> 00:16:40.240
When I was here, I wanted to be there.
00:16:40.480 --> 00:16:45.039
When I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the jungle.
00:16:45.440 --> 00:16:48.080
I'm here a week now, waiting for a mission.
00:16:48.320 --> 00:16:49.360
Getting softer.
00:16:49.759 --> 00:16:56.240
Every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker, and every minute Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger.
00:16:57.600 --> 00:16:58.080
Yeah.
00:16:59.360 --> 00:17:03.840
But I still, you know, so I think it probably speaks to what you're talking about.
00:17:04.160 --> 00:17:18.640
That internal conflict of that character, not knowing where he wants to be, you know, wanting to be in one more than one place, and not wanting to be in any of them.
00:17:18.960 --> 00:17:32.480
But also representative of that conflict between a civilized culture resolving conflict by means of uncivilized methods.
00:17:34.559 --> 00:17:47.119
And struggling with that and grappling with that that that inner conflict of being civilized and being savage.
00:17:48.480 --> 00:18:03.839
Because I think that face statue ultimately represents that like a savage, more primitive wild culture which is closer to death, and so the stakes are higher.
00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:11.839
You know, they don't have advanced technology to protect them from the dangers of nature.
00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:13.119
They're in nature.
00:18:13.359 --> 00:18:18.400
They could be strolling around along a trail and get attacked by a tiger and it's done.
00:18:18.559 --> 00:18:20.000
And a tiger doesn't care.
00:18:20.240 --> 00:18:34.640
And so, in order to live amongst the tigers, you have to become a tiger, which is what Colonel Kurtz does within the broader context of or maybe uh less broader context of just operating a war.
00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:49.200
So fascinating motif that one can study and contemplate and can come to a variety of different conclusions.
00:18:49.519 --> 00:19:17.279
Um so in that opening scene, you know, after that face statue fades out, um there's a whole bunch of superimposed images cross-dissolving, and I don't think I'd ever seen a sequence like that before.
00:19:18.160 --> 00:19:20.000
Seeing it in Apocalypse now.
00:19:20.880 --> 00:19:23.680
And I'm not sure I've seen anything since.
00:19:25.119 --> 00:19:25.519
Yeah.
00:19:25.759 --> 00:19:28.160
It was edited by Walter Murch.
00:19:30.799 --> 00:19:32.400
And he was the primary editor.
00:19:32.559 --> 00:19:34.400
There were some other editors as well.
00:19:35.359 --> 00:19:45.119
Um little fun fact Walter Murch was the first person ever to receive a credit as sound designer in a movie.
00:19:45.440 --> 00:19:47.680
And he it was for Apocalypse now.
00:19:48.079 --> 00:19:52.079
Well, so he edited the movie but also did sound design.
00:19:52.400 --> 00:19:52.799
Yeah.
00:19:54.559 --> 00:19:58.559
Yeah, there's an interesting there's interesting sound design in that opening sequence too.
00:19:58.640 --> 00:19:58.799
Yeah.
00:19:58.960 --> 00:20:11.200
Like at one point, I think it's during that sequence or during the line that I just read jungle sounds fade in.
00:20:11.279 --> 00:20:33.599
And he's kind of squatting in his room, kind of like looking around and kind of teetering on his on the balls of his feet, looking around, and you can hear all kinds of animal noises and bird noises, and perhaps lizard noises in the background while he's saying all of that.
00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:50.240
Yeah, and then he does um some like naked Tai Chi stuff, which made me think about the introduction of the bad guy in Die Hard 2, does pretty much the same thing.
00:20:51.279 --> 00:20:57.920
So that's hilarious, yeah.
00:20:58.559 --> 00:21:02.160
And Martin Sheen actually punches a mirror.
00:21:02.319 --> 00:21:02.880
Yeah.
00:21:03.119 --> 00:21:12.480
They they talk about the scene in the documentary Hearts of Darkness, and Martin Sheen got really, really drunk during that scene.
00:21:12.720 --> 00:21:13.440
Oh, for real?
00:21:14.480 --> 00:21:15.039
For real.
00:21:15.279 --> 00:21:17.839
He got really, really drunk in that scene.
00:21:18.079 --> 00:21:23.759
And he was having a hard time just standing on his feet, and he lost perspective.
00:21:23.920 --> 00:21:26.960
He didn't know how close he was to that mirror.
00:21:27.920 --> 00:21:41.519
And Coppola was giving him direction the whole time, and then he just punched it and then gashed up his thumb, and they wanted to stop the production.
00:21:41.839 --> 00:21:45.920
Martin Sheen made the choice to continue the scene.
00:21:46.480 --> 00:21:47.920
And so they continued it.
00:21:48.240 --> 00:21:58.319
And then the scene is gets cut together the way it does, of him dealing with this bloodied hand, he wipes it all over his face, it's all over the sheets, it's everywhere.
00:21:58.559 --> 00:21:59.759
It's pretty perfect, pretty perfect.
00:22:02.720 --> 00:22:05.759
But again, the result of an intuitive process.
00:22:07.200 --> 00:22:08.160
It wasn't planned at all.
00:22:08.319 --> 00:22:11.759
But you can't imagine that scene without all that blood.
00:22:12.880 --> 00:22:16.559
One interesting note from that opening scene.
00:22:16.799 --> 00:22:21.279
So Martin Sheen's character is naked in the scene.
00:22:21.519 --> 00:22:24.720
And you know, goes through this mental breakdown.
00:22:24.880 --> 00:22:30.559
And during the end of the scene, he's naked, bloodied, he's sitting on the floor, and he's facing the camera.
00:22:30.799 --> 00:22:33.440
And his genitals are exposed.
00:22:33.680 --> 00:22:36.799
And he makes the choice to cover them with a sheet.
00:22:38.079 --> 00:22:41.519
And I thought that that was really interesting.
00:22:42.160 --> 00:22:43.440
It bothers me.
00:22:43.599 --> 00:22:49.440
Um, I mean, I think, you know, mainly because the character in the movie is alone in a hotel room.
00:22:49.680 --> 00:22:53.839
But, you know, Martin Sheen actor is in a room full of production crew members.
00:22:54.000 --> 00:22:54.480
Right.
00:22:54.960 --> 00:23:06.240
You know, it's hard to believe the character would cover himself in that moment, but not hard to believe the actor would not cover himself, although his genitals are in not in the frame.
00:23:06.559 --> 00:23:10.160
Um, but he would have no way of knowing that.
00:23:10.400 --> 00:23:14.720
Um and it's the only part of the introduction that takes me out of the movie.
00:23:15.119 --> 00:23:16.319
Well, that's cool.
00:23:16.400 --> 00:23:18.160
I've never I've never checked that out.
00:23:18.240 --> 00:23:20.559
I'll definitely look at that the next time.
00:23:20.880 --> 00:23:21.599
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:23:21.680 --> 00:23:23.920
It's really brief because the movie is so good.
00:23:24.319 --> 00:23:34.000
So as soon, because it's like, you know, that scene in Sheen's performance is so powerful, so much more powerful than that little moment.
00:23:34.720 --> 00:23:53.920
And the scene right after that shortly fades to black and quickly cuts the next scene with a really cool establishing shot of two soldiers walking up a staircase, and Captain Woodward's voiceover comes back in, and he describes the soldiers coming to him with a mission.
00:23:54.240 --> 00:24:01.920
And that low, deep voice is comes in and he's like, brought it up to me like room service.
00:24:02.400 --> 00:24:18.000
You know, so there's so it immediately keeps the movie immediately keeps moving and is immediately intriguing and continues to be intriguing that it's that one little quote unquote mistake in the movie that at least brought me out of the movie.
00:24:18.160 --> 00:24:18.319
Yeah.
00:24:18.559 --> 00:24:21.440
I don't even I don't ever remember it.
00:24:21.920 --> 00:24:23.599
Because it's so edited so well.
00:24:23.839 --> 00:24:35.440
And it's and everything about it, even two soldiers walking up the stairs and listening to a voiceover of Martin Sheen's character is so intriguing.
00:24:35.680 --> 00:24:40.880
So I thought that was noteworthy in the introduction.
00:24:41.599 --> 00:25:01.599
Yeah, one detail I like during that too, there's a s there's a shot where I think it gets to it first where there's a weird um shadow of the ceiling fan that almost looks like an effect.
00:25:02.559 --> 00:25:07.440
Uh I you know it's because it's it's almost like slow strobe.
00:25:08.400 --> 00:25:23.200
Um that it happens for a few seconds and then it fades to an way overhead shot where the shadows of the ceiling fan are going around the room and he's sitting on the floor eating.
00:25:24.079 --> 00:25:27.039
And um, I kind of like that.
00:25:27.119 --> 00:25:48.400
I mean, just the effect of that was cool, but I like the detail of him uh eating like out of bowls on the floor where it's um like uh it just I think to me has a little uh impact of how he's uh adapting to a different culture.
00:25:48.720 --> 00:26:07.519
Like he's been there so long, like he eats like you know, like when you see in movies and stuff, people in Asian cultures eating, they sit on the floor and eat out of bowls and stuff like that, and he's uh eating the same way.
00:26:07.680 --> 00:26:08.240
So I don't know.
00:26:08.400 --> 00:26:12.799
It's just like a little detail that Yeah, that is interesting.
00:26:12.960 --> 00:26:22.799
When I saw that, I had the impression that he's squatting in the bush like Charlie, trying to regain his strength before he goes back to the jungle.
00:26:23.039 --> 00:26:23.680
Yeah.
00:26:25.039 --> 00:26:30.640
And he's eating like them too, although he probably wouldn't have bowls out in the jungle.
00:26:30.799 --> 00:26:31.039
Yeah.
00:26:31.279 --> 00:26:31.839
You know.
00:26:32.400 --> 00:26:40.400
Um I don't know about that, I don't know about that ceiling fan shot because I think there's only two ceiling fan shots.
00:26:40.480 --> 00:26:45.920
And they're gonna be a little bit more than shadows of of the fan going around.
00:26:46.240 --> 00:26:55.839
So when when it's that when it's that overhead shot and he's on the floor, there's huge like fan blade shadows going around the room.
00:26:56.240 --> 00:27:08.720
But they like it's like in the whatever shot is before that, it has that, probably has that shot superimposed over it.
00:27:09.279 --> 00:27:32.640
And so, but all that's coming across is the fact that it's like a sh a shadow, so it has like a little strobe effect, and then it fades into that shot of him overhead, and then you see what why that strobe effect is happening is because these big black shadows are circling the entire room.
00:27:35.440 --> 00:27:36.640
I totally missed that.
00:27:36.720 --> 00:27:39.039
I'm gonna have to watch that whole sequence again looking for that.
00:27:39.920 --> 00:27:43.440
Yeah, there's so much, it's like every time you watch it, there's so much.
00:27:43.680 --> 00:27:48.960
Like, I the the last two times I watched it, it was pr very different.
00:27:49.200 --> 00:28:02.960
Um, so you know, like so getting into the next part, because this is where I really found the differences, is uh especially once they get to the scene with where he's getting the mission delivered to him.
00:28:03.119 --> 00:28:12.240
But before we get there, then we have those two guys coming up to just bring him, and he's super hungover.
00:28:13.200 --> 00:28:24.000
And that the part about that, I think, the or one of the interesting parts about that is just how he's a what is he, uh captain or he's a captain.
00:28:24.240 --> 00:28:24.720
Captain.
00:28:24.880 --> 00:28:39.119
So they're coming to pick this guy up for a mission, he's so hungover they they have a term for it where he's they say something like, We got a dead one, or something like that.
00:28:40.079 --> 00:28:48.559
Which means, I guess, oh, we're picking this guy up, he's been off duty for a week and he's trashed.
00:28:49.119 --> 00:28:53.119
We there's a protocol for this because we do this all the time.
00:28:53.519 --> 00:28:56.799
And I think that's kind of interesting.
00:28:57.759 --> 00:28:58.480
Yeah, yeah.
00:28:58.799 --> 00:29:01.039
That there's these these guys.
00:29:01.279 --> 00:29:11.599
I like it, I like it when Captain Willard is he's listening to them and they're like, um, Captain, we have orders from uh Latrang to come and get you.
00:29:11.759 --> 00:29:14.559
And he's like, Okay, what are the charges?
00:29:14.799 --> 00:29:15.359
Right.
00:29:16.160 --> 00:29:17.839
Thinking he's being arrested for something.
00:29:18.160 --> 00:29:18.880
Exactly.
00:29:19.119 --> 00:29:25.680
It's so perfectly revealing of his state of mind and what he thinks of himself and what he's done.
00:29:25.920 --> 00:29:27.519
Right, exactly.
00:29:27.920 --> 00:29:31.759
Yeah, yeah, but no, it that doesn't matter.
00:29:32.079 --> 00:29:35.359
We just got another another job for you to do.
00:29:36.079 --> 00:29:36.720
You know.
00:29:38.240 --> 00:29:42.160
It's very well written.
00:29:42.880 --> 00:29:43.680
Oh yeah.
00:29:44.160 --> 00:29:44.880
Oh yeah.
00:29:45.119 --> 00:29:57.200
Yeah, and so then the next scene, yeah, he goes uh into a trailer, there's a colonel, uh, there's or there's a colonel, there's a general, and then there's this other guy.
00:29:57.359 --> 00:29:57.680
Yeah.
00:29:58.079 --> 00:30:00.640
Some sort of civilian.
00:30:01.039 --> 00:30:06.240
Um perhaps with the you know, you don't know, with Department of Defense.
00:30:06.480 --> 00:30:07.279
That's what I wrote down.
00:30:07.359 --> 00:30:10.240
I was like, who are these three guys?
00:30:11.200 --> 00:30:18.480
You know, which like, yeah, the colonel, you get that, or I mean, like, the what is it, the general, you get that.
00:30:18.720 --> 00:30:34.960
Then the colonel who gives me some questions, just because it's Harrison Ford, presumably around the same age as Martin Sheen, if not younger, you know, on the I don't know.
00:30:35.200 --> 00:30:39.039
Um, yeah, but so that's interesting to me.
00:30:39.839 --> 00:30:41.920
Just, I don't know, for some reason.
00:30:42.079 --> 00:30:55.359
But then, yeah, then there's this third guy who is not in uniform, doesn't he has a tie on, but it's not tied, and he seems like he's important, but I'm like, who is this guy?
00:30:56.240 --> 00:30:57.680
Yeah, he doesn't say anything.
00:30:58.079 --> 00:31:00.799
Ultimately, no, he says the main thing.
00:31:01.279 --> 00:31:04.000
Yeah, yeah, at the end of the scene.
00:31:04.720 --> 00:31:07.119
So I'm like, who even is this guy?
00:31:07.359 --> 00:31:11.119
Yeah, you know, is he like CIA or something like that?
00:31:11.519 --> 00:31:12.160
Exactly.
00:31:12.319 --> 00:31:20.480
It's really it's really an intriguing way to uh present a scene and then allow it to unfold because he's there all the time.
00:31:20.640 --> 00:31:20.960
Yeah.
00:31:21.200 --> 00:31:27.599
And Harrison Ford does most of the talking at the beginning, and then the general at some point takes over.
00:31:28.480 --> 00:31:39.039
And they do a little test at first, they do a little test on him to see if he will reveal any anything about what he's done.
00:31:39.359 --> 00:31:43.839
Any information about past missions, and it seems like he knows the deal.
00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:49.680
Maybe they get trained, you know, because if they get captured, they have to keep all that shit.
00:31:49.839 --> 00:31:53.440
So it's sort of like a a little test.
00:31:53.599 --> 00:31:59.279
It should be easy, but you still have to do it, you know.
00:31:59.519 --> 00:32:02.240
And so he passes that test.
00:32:02.720 --> 00:32:07.680
He says, I don't know what you're talking about, and if I did, I wouldn't say anything.
00:32:07.920 --> 00:32:12.240
And so then they go, Okay, let's uh sit down to eat then.
00:32:13.599 --> 00:32:21.279
Sir, I am unaware of any such activity or operation, nor would I be disposed to discuss an operation if it did in fact exist.
00:32:21.599 --> 00:32:22.000
Right.
00:32:22.319 --> 00:32:25.440
It's so specific, you know, it's like scripted for sure.
00:32:25.599 --> 00:32:33.279
Yeah, you know, but they have to they have to make sure he is has the state of mind that he can remember the script, you know.
00:32:33.440 --> 00:32:37.200
And and then once he does, he's like, okay, we got a bunch of food here.
00:32:37.279 --> 00:32:40.480
Let's sit down and eat this and try to break the tension a little bit.
00:32:40.880 --> 00:32:44.240
The general's so funny because he just comes in and he's like, let's have a bit of lunch.
00:32:44.400 --> 00:32:46.640
I thought that would be I thought that would be nice.
00:32:46.799 --> 00:32:55.599
Yeah, and then he has this uh he he does the courtesy of we're gonna pass this around, but just to save time, why don't we pass it both ways?
00:32:55.759 --> 00:32:56.319
Is that cool?
00:32:56.480 --> 00:32:58.960
You know, so it's like so courteous.
00:32:59.680 --> 00:33:00.160
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:33:00.319 --> 00:33:08.400
And then he then he's joking, he's like, if you eat these shrimps, you you won't have to do anything else to prove your courage to me.
00:33:12.000 --> 00:33:12.480
Yeah.
00:33:12.640 --> 00:33:12.880
Yeah.
00:33:13.119 --> 00:33:15.039
And then and then they start laying the stuff out.
00:33:15.119 --> 00:33:32.720
And here's what I noticed more this time than ever before is there is this is where the general lays out the whole theme of the movie straight up.
00:33:33.200 --> 00:33:45.440
You know, saying when he's talking about Kurtz, and uh I don't know if you have the the script or whatever, but he's he's I'm looking right at it.
00:33:45.680 --> 00:33:52.400
He's laying all this stuff out about him being insane or something like that, and trying to get this buy-in.
00:33:52.720 --> 00:34:03.440
But he it it's the way it's written, I should have I should have written all this down, but the way it's written, it's really like laying it out that there's a conflict.
00:34:03.759 --> 00:34:07.839
This is what the conflict of the whole movie is gonna be ultimately about.
00:34:08.400 --> 00:34:12.239
And it's Martin Sheen just looking straight at the camera.
00:34:12.639 --> 00:34:14.800
So it's it's him looking at the camera.
00:34:23.039 --> 00:34:23.679
Right.
00:34:23.920 --> 00:34:26.639
And so you're saying Martin Sheen is looking directly at the end.
00:34:26.800 --> 00:34:41.679
He's looking right at us, and we're hearing this guy saying this stuff, so it it's double talking right to us because we're at the movie theater or in our house listening to it, so that stuff is coming to us, but it's also going to this character.
00:34:41.840 --> 00:34:52.159
But the fact that you're showing the character who's hearing it looking right at us, it just makes you internalize it.
00:34:52.480 --> 00:35:03.920
And it's like, this is what you should be thinking about and dealing with this whole movie, and it's almost saying, Are you gonna do that if you agree?
00:35:05.119 --> 00:35:09.280
Come on this journey and let's see what we're all made of, you know?
00:35:09.440 --> 00:35:19.920
Yeah, it's so it's like really cool, and I never noticed that before of the intentional looking directly at the camera stuff that's happening in that scene.
00:35:20.159 --> 00:35:20.880
It's awesome.
00:35:21.199 --> 00:35:24.880
Would you would you consider that a breaking of the fourth wall?
00:35:25.360 --> 00:35:27.119
Uh I don't think so.
00:35:27.519 --> 00:35:30.960
Um because it's not it's not.
00:35:31.519 --> 00:35:52.000
I think the traditional breaking of the fourth wall is being self-aware that it's a movie, and it's breaking that um artifice of we're on this side of the screen, the movie's happening on this other side of the screen.
00:35:52.239 --> 00:36:02.159
The knowingly breaking the fourth wall is kind of saying from the movie, being like, hey guys in the theater, we know this is a movie type of thing.
00:36:02.320 --> 00:36:05.039
And it's not it's not consciously doing that.
00:36:05.199 --> 00:36:13.679
This is like a it's just like a mental trick to bring people's brains into it a little bit more.
00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:16.719
The uh looking directly at camera.
00:36:16.960 --> 00:36:23.119
But yeah, because it's already established that the general is sitting directly across from Captain Willard.
00:36:23.199 --> 00:36:23.360
Yeah.
00:36:23.599 --> 00:36:30.000
So him looking at the camera is it's almost like a POV shot of the general.
00:36:30.320 --> 00:36:33.199
Right, but it doesn't function that way to me at all.
00:36:33.519 --> 00:36:44.719
It's Sheen looking right at us, but with the with the audio that we're hearing, it's it may it turns it into we're being spoken to.
00:36:45.760 --> 00:36:51.760
You know, and it's because it's it's uh yeah, I again I should have I did a bad job.
00:36:51.840 --> 00:36:58.480
I should have written all of this stuff down, or at least got some uh I just kind of got sucked into it.
00:36:59.360 --> 00:37:01.519
So I didn't take the notes down.
00:37:01.679 --> 00:37:08.639
But yeah, he just he kind of lays lays it out on I mean because he it even is like I can read it.
00:37:08.719 --> 00:37:30.320
I can read it because he talks he talks a little bit about becoming a god or something like that, and yeah, may like almost questioning to himself like I guess that would be enticing to a person if they got that amount of power or something like that, you know?
00:37:30.559 --> 00:37:32.719
And yeah, that the general, yeah.
00:37:32.800 --> 00:37:50.960
So the general's whole purpose in this scene is to not lay is to participate in introducing the orders to Captain Willard, but he doesn't provide the context of the orders.
00:37:51.199 --> 00:37:55.679
Context of the orders is provided by the colonel, like the subordinate.
00:37:56.000 --> 00:38:14.320
The general participates in the introduction of the orders by providing moral context and like philosophical context for that scene, and then what you're saying ultimately the whole movie.
00:38:15.039 --> 00:38:22.400
You know, he says Well, you see, Willard, in this war things get confused out there.
00:38:23.440 --> 00:38:28.320
Power, ideals, the old military and practical military necessity.
00:38:29.840 --> 00:38:34.239
But out there with these natives, it must be a temption temptation to be God.
00:38:35.039 --> 00:38:39.840
Because the rational and the irrational between good and evil.
00:38:41.199 --> 00:38:43.519
And good does not always triumph.
00:38:44.480 --> 00:38:50.800
Sometimes the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature.
00:38:51.760 --> 00:38:53.760
Every man has got a breaking point.
00:38:55.280 --> 00:38:56.800
You have and I have them.
00:38:57.360 --> 00:38:59.440
Walter Kurtz has reached his.
00:39:00.400 --> 00:39:03.840
And very obviously he has gone insane.
00:39:05.119 --> 00:39:14.639
So that kind of speaks to that conflict that gets touched on in these in the dream sequence introduction, the very first scene.
00:39:14.800 --> 00:39:14.960
Yeah.
00:39:15.360 --> 00:39:26.480
Where Martin Sheen is conflicted about being here or there, you know, being in the bush, getting stronger or being here and getting weaker.
00:39:26.719 --> 00:39:36.800
You know, there's a conflict within him to be there, to be stronger, to directly grapple with what the general's talking about.
00:39:37.440 --> 00:39:39.199
You know, for whatever reason.
00:39:40.559 --> 00:39:49.440
I'm not sure it's really I clearly identified why Captain Willard wants these types of missions.
00:39:50.239 --> 00:39:55.440
It's it it's just presented as he wants them and he's struggling.
00:39:55.840 --> 00:40:05.920
You know, his the angels of his better nature are struggling, just as the angels of Colonel Kurtz's better nature is gone.
00:40:07.519 --> 00:40:21.599
Yeah, it's a great delivery and it's a great it's a great context set of the moral conflict and the moral choice that Captain Willard has to make.
00:40:22.400 --> 00:40:25.920
You know, is he going to be like Colonel Kurtz?
00:40:26.159 --> 00:40:32.079
Is he going to go in that direction and l lose the better angels of his own nature?
00:40:32.719 --> 00:40:37.360
Or is he going to prevent that?
00:40:38.320 --> 00:40:49.840
It's almost presented as if if you kill this guy, that's a good thing because he's completely insane and evil and has no redeeming value.
00:40:50.320 --> 00:40:52.000
So we have to eliminate him.
00:40:52.400 --> 00:40:54.239
If you do that, that's a good thing.
00:40:54.559 --> 00:41:08.079
That means that you are preventing that because ultimately you don't want to be that, but you have to murder him in order to do that.
00:41:08.960 --> 00:41:13.920
Yeah, so it um he wants missions.
00:41:14.559 --> 00:41:15.039
He wants missions.
00:41:16.719 --> 00:41:24.000
I'm trying to go back to you you you were mentioned about how it's not really clear why he wants these missions and stuff like that.
00:41:24.079 --> 00:41:33.119
But I think he he wants missions, um, but this one is different.
00:41:33.760 --> 00:41:38.239
Because this is one of their own, basically.
00:41:38.800 --> 00:41:39.599
Yeah, yeah.
00:41:39.760 --> 00:41:44.079
And he does say once he after this mission, he'll never want another one.
00:41:44.239 --> 00:41:44.480
Right.
00:41:44.639 --> 00:41:46.320
He wants this to be his final mission.
00:41:46.480 --> 00:41:46.880
Yeah.
00:41:47.119 --> 00:41:53.840
It's a be careful what you wish for type of thing in that in the beginning sense.
00:41:54.079 --> 00:42:11.679
But it's also, you know, I watched it a couple times, and the evidence that they give for him having to buy in that Colonel Kurtz is insane is a pretty short audio clip.
00:42:13.039 --> 00:42:23.599
And it's, you know, it's like, I if that was me, I don't know if I would buy in to obviously he's insane if he's just going.
00:42:23.920 --> 00:42:28.079
I had this dream about the snail going on razor.
00:42:28.320 --> 00:42:30.960
That's my dream, that's my nightmare.
00:42:31.199 --> 00:42:33.119
And then you go, check that out.
00:42:33.280 --> 00:42:34.719
We gotta kill this dude.
00:42:34.960 --> 00:42:40.239
I mean, I know they got intel that he wants to kill, like well, he went rogue.
00:42:40.480 --> 00:43:00.079
He went rogue and he killed some uh what I think they describe as South Vietnamese army officers who he thought were working with the North Vietnamese, and so he on his own made the decision to have them killed.
00:43:00.239 --> 00:43:00.800
Right, right, right.
00:43:01.039 --> 00:43:02.239
Without with a without order.
00:43:02.400 --> 00:43:10.239
So he's he's operating entirely on his own without any, you know, whatever they say, guidance.
00:43:11.280 --> 00:43:12.159
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:43:12.320 --> 00:43:14.239
I mean, I'm sure it's legit.
00:43:14.480 --> 00:43:15.840
I'm just saying.
00:43:17.840 --> 00:43:23.840
And it's a long, it's a long movie, so you gotta get that buy-in quick so we can get out there.
00:43:24.480 --> 00:43:33.039
It is a bar, it is a bizarre thing to contemplate a snail crawling on the edge of a straight razor.
00:43:33.199 --> 00:43:33.440
Yeah.
00:43:33.760 --> 00:43:41.199
And he describes it as crawling, slithering along the edge of a straight razor and surviving.
00:43:41.440 --> 00:43:42.000
Yeah.
00:43:42.320 --> 00:43:59.760
And you know, and that's kind of like they kind of every all the information they lay out about Colonel Carrotz, it's like it is like on the edge of right and wrong, you know, and they're ultimately.
00:44:00.159 --> 00:44:04.559
Making the choice that, like, he stepped over the edge.
00:44:05.440 --> 00:44:08.880
And it's like if you step over the edge, you risk survival.
00:44:09.119 --> 00:44:14.000
But this is weird because it's a snail on the edge, slithering straight on the edge.
00:44:14.159 --> 00:44:18.320
It should just sl the edge should just slice the snail in half.
00:44:18.800 --> 00:44:21.039
But for whatever reason, it survives.
00:44:21.119 --> 00:44:23.519
So the snail is on either side.
00:44:23.760 --> 00:44:24.320
Right.
00:44:25.039 --> 00:44:31.440
And you could possibly make the argument that Colonel Kurtz is on either side.
00:44:31.679 --> 00:44:44.400
You know, he's been employed by the United States government to conduct war, and he's just not participating in the way he was ordered to participate.
00:44:44.719 --> 00:44:49.760
He's making his own decisions outside of the hierarchy of decision makers and control.
00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:56.079
So um I think that's a I think that's a theme in a lot of Coppola's movies.
00:44:57.440 --> 00:44:59.920
It's there in The Godfather, for sure.
00:45:00.079 --> 00:45:00.480
Mm-hmm.
00:45:01.840 --> 00:45:24.000
You know, when Mark Michael Corleone ultimately justifies participating in his father's business to Kay, his love interest, he explains to her that her father, his father is no different from any other powerful man who has responsibilities to others.
00:45:24.960 --> 00:45:25.199
You know?
00:45:25.599 --> 00:45:40.800
Ergo, according to Michael Corleone, it's okay to put a gun to somebody's head and demand that they sign the contract by assuring them either your signature or your brains will be on this contract.
00:45:42.239 --> 00:45:45.920
You know, in an effort to get a deal done.
00:45:46.559 --> 00:45:54.079
So it's definitely something that it's definitely a conflict that Coppola grapples with in a lot of his movies.
00:45:54.480 --> 00:45:58.719
And the interesting thing about Apocalypse now is it's so subtle.
00:45:58.960 --> 00:45:59.760
Everything.
00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:01.599
Everything is so subtle.
00:46:01.760 --> 00:46:04.079
It doesn't really beat you over the head.
00:46:04.159 --> 00:46:07.840
It seems like even the general is struggling to articulate it.
00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:08.639
Yeah.
00:46:08.960 --> 00:46:18.159
You know, because it's no, the general looks like he's actively contemplating if what he's saying is true or something like that.
00:46:18.320 --> 00:46:23.199
Like he seems like he's wrestling with what he's talking about while he's talking.
00:46:23.280 --> 00:46:30.239
So I yeah, it's yeah, and part of that context of his grapple, he's he's grappling with the old morality.
00:46:30.559 --> 00:46:32.639
It must be a temptation to be God.
00:46:32.719 --> 00:46:45.039
The old morality is religious morality, it's also a current morality because it's employed by billions of people, even in the 70s, even during the Vietnam War.
00:46:45.360 --> 00:46:55.199
In that traditional morality, at least the Catholic tradition rooted in the Old Testament.
00:46:55.599 --> 00:46:59.199
We have the Ten Commandments, thou shalt not kill.
00:46:59.519 --> 00:47:04.719
And then in the New Testament, you have Jesus Christ saying, turn the other cheek.
00:47:05.760 --> 00:47:09.119
You know, if somebody physically assaults you.
00:47:09.599 --> 00:47:13.920
Apply that to the context of war, everything you're doing is wrong.
00:47:15.280 --> 00:47:16.960
Everything you're doing is immoral.
00:47:19.519 --> 00:47:30.719
And so the moral conflict is laid bare, but there is a root of the conflict in religious morals.
00:47:31.119 --> 00:47:33.119
But they don't beat you over the head with that.
00:47:33.519 --> 00:47:35.840
You know, they just kind of ask the question.
00:47:36.159 --> 00:47:38.079
And then just grapple with it.
00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:42.000
And that's ultimately what the movie is.
00:47:42.159 --> 00:47:46.480
It's just a grappling with the idea of killing.
00:47:48.320 --> 00:47:49.360
Taking life.
00:47:52.320 --> 00:47:55.760
And that being horror.
00:47:57.199 --> 00:47:59.119
The taking of life is horror.
00:48:00.800 --> 00:48:02.960
So right on.
00:48:04.559 --> 00:48:05.840
Any final thoughts?
00:48:06.159 --> 00:48:07.440
So yeah, yeah.
00:48:07.519 --> 00:48:18.159
So that's that's basically the 15 minutes because they offer him the mission or whatever, and he accepts and then we're off.
00:48:18.239 --> 00:48:38.000
So and that's where I'm thinking that's generally what a first act would be getting to know who what characters you're gonna deal with, and then presenting a choice, and then once the decision is made on that choice, then you're off done on to act two.
00:48:39.119 --> 00:48:41.280
Is that what you feel like?
00:48:42.239 --> 00:48:42.559
Yeah.
00:48:42.800 --> 00:48:43.360
Okay, yeah.
00:48:43.519 --> 00:48:45.280
So I I Yeah, you I look at it.
00:48:45.599 --> 00:48:49.760
You're off to act two, or as um Aristotle would say, the complication.
00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:50.320
Okay.
00:48:50.480 --> 00:48:56.880
And then or the middle of the movie or story, where it just gets more and more complicated.
00:48:57.119 --> 00:48:57.679
Right.
00:48:58.159 --> 00:49:02.480
And the tension builds until you get to the next point.
00:49:02.639 --> 00:49:02.800
Yeah.
00:49:02.960 --> 00:49:04.159
The next plot point.
00:49:04.400 --> 00:49:07.519
Which we will not discuss today, perhaps on a future episode.
00:49:07.760 --> 00:49:07.920
Yeah.
00:49:08.079 --> 00:49:10.079
We'll do 15 minutes at a time.
00:49:10.320 --> 00:49:12.960
It'll take us four weeks.
00:49:16.400 --> 00:49:19.280
Well, 15 minutes at a time of Apocalypse now.
00:49:19.440 --> 00:49:22.639
I think that movie's two hours and 45 minutes.
00:49:22.880 --> 00:49:24.000
That would take us.
00:49:24.800 --> 00:49:25.920
Redux, baby.
00:49:26.800 --> 00:49:27.679
345.
00:49:29.199 --> 00:49:30.960
That'll take four months.
00:49:34.800 --> 00:49:35.360
All right.
00:49:35.840 --> 00:49:39.360
So do you have any final thoughts?
00:49:40.639 --> 00:49:43.119
No, I think we covered covered everything.
00:49:43.199 --> 00:49:46.000
Um, oh, uh, this is dumb to bring this up.
00:49:46.079 --> 00:49:53.519
I I think I always have like some random other thought to just throw in at the very end to just blow up the transitions.
00:49:53.679 --> 00:49:53.840
Yeah.
00:49:54.079 --> 00:50:10.559
But um one one other thing I I took note of in that scene is when Harrison Ford, I think, lays out uh about taking out Colonel Kurtz.
00:50:11.119 --> 00:50:11.360
Yeah.
00:50:11.599 --> 00:50:13.119
I think that's where where he says it.
00:50:13.280 --> 00:50:19.119
But he he clears his throat twice in the saying of this line.
00:50:19.440 --> 00:50:22.800
And I just wrote that down to take note of it.
00:50:23.119 --> 00:50:32.320
I haven't really unpacked all that might be gone on there, but it's I I would assume it's super intentional.
00:50:33.280 --> 00:50:37.360
You know, so I didn't know if you noticed that or had any thoughts about that.
00:50:38.079 --> 00:50:38.719
Oh yeah.
00:50:39.519 --> 00:50:49.360
I haven't thought too deeply about that, but it it typically that might be considered like a nervous tick.
00:50:49.440 --> 00:50:50.079
Yeah.
00:50:50.800 --> 00:51:03.360
And so he is, I think, either approaching the moment or has started expressing the actual order, which is to terminate the colonel's command.
00:51:05.840 --> 00:51:19.840
And then Captain Willard turns then to the general for clarification and goes, terminate the colonel.
00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:23.199
Because he just said Harrison Ford just says terminate the colonel's command.
00:51:23.840 --> 00:51:25.599
And he's like, terminate the colonel.
00:51:26.079 --> 00:51:48.000
And then that civilian who's in the room who hasn't said anything up to this point, says the one and only line in this scene, and the final line, which is not the final line, but the most impactful line of the whole scene, which is terminate with extreme prejudice.
00:51:48.480 --> 00:51:50.239
And offers him a cigarette.
00:51:50.639 --> 00:52:09.920
Offers him a cigarette, and then he stuck, which he takes, and he starts and then the civilian lights it for him, and he's just taking this in, and then in the background you can hear Harrison Ford's character saying that standard scripted language was like saying, like, there, you know, can't talk about this mission.
00:52:10.079 --> 00:52:15.440
Yeah, you know, you are not, this is not an official mission, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:52:15.920 --> 00:52:19.119
You know, basically talking about the top secret nature of the mission.
00:52:19.280 --> 00:52:19.920
Yeah.
00:52:20.159 --> 00:52:22.800
So that cough was cool.
00:52:22.960 --> 00:52:39.760
The one thing I did notice about Harrison Ford also was when the general starts pun kind of pontificating and contemplating the deeper philosophical implications of Colonel Kurtz's behavior and presenting the moral conflict of the movie.
00:52:40.079 --> 00:52:54.239
Harrison Ford's character does this eye movement, kind of like back and forth from like from Captain Willard to the general, going like almost as if, like, what the fuck are we talking about?
00:52:54.639 --> 00:52:57.519
Like, oh, like, well, we're going there.
00:52:59.280 --> 00:53:01.119
I thought I was just delivering these orders.
00:53:01.199 --> 00:53:07.599
So there's like definitely this nervous quality to the Harrison Ford character that comes out.
00:53:07.760 --> 00:53:13.760
And he's the he's under orders too, and he's the one primarily voicing the orders.
00:53:13.920 --> 00:53:14.079
Right.
00:53:14.159 --> 00:53:14.320
Yeah.
00:53:14.480 --> 00:53:21.119
You know, so it's like to some degree, it's like he's on the hook as the guy going, like, you just you presented these orders.
00:53:21.280 --> 00:53:26.239
You know, the rest of the guys have kind of like plausible deniability to some degree.
00:53:26.400 --> 00:53:31.039
You know, definitely the general does, because he never orders him to terminate anyone.
00:53:31.840 --> 00:53:37.440
You know, it's just the colonel and this, you know, civilian.
00:53:37.760 --> 00:53:38.960
Whoever that guy is.
00:53:39.280 --> 00:53:39.920
Yeah.
00:53:41.599 --> 00:53:47.119
So I'm glad you brought that up because I love that reaction from Harrison Ford's character.
00:53:47.760 --> 00:53:54.000
Do you remember what I'm talking about where he kind of has to be a little bit more than a reaction where he kind of looks back and forth real quick?
00:53:56.239 --> 00:53:57.440
I think it's hilarious.
00:53:57.519 --> 00:53:59.760
It's so well well done.
00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:00.960
So yeah.
00:54:01.199 --> 00:54:04.159
So, but that's you start noticing.
00:54:04.639 --> 00:54:13.840
I mean, once you start watching the first 15 minutes over and over, you just you can't help but start noticing every detail, I think.
00:54:14.320 --> 00:54:31.440
Each each time you watch it, because you you internalize all the stuff that you've seen the first time, and then you're on the lookout for new stuff because you already know the other stuff that you know, and then you just keep building on that, and then just all these all these details show up.
00:54:32.000 --> 00:54:49.760
Yeah, I think that's one of the interesting things that I may have already known, but I kind of learned talking about it in this episode, having you having brought up the shadow of the fan in the wide shot, wide overhead shot looking down at Colonel Kurtz.
00:54:50.320 --> 00:54:52.239
I don't recall seeing that.
00:54:52.559 --> 00:55:04.480
So again, the first seven and a half minutes of the movie is so busy with so many layers of superimposed images, it's easy to miss something.
00:55:04.639 --> 00:55:14.800
There's also voiceover and the epic musical track, the end from the doors is playing, and their sound design coming in.
00:55:14.960 --> 00:55:17.440
There's a lot going on, so it's easy to miss things.
00:55:17.599 --> 00:55:22.239
So um I gotta say, too, that just when I thought, go ahead.
00:55:22.400 --> 00:55:42.400
Oh, just the the superimpositions and all of that stuff really hits hard for me because the time period that this was made, all of those ideas have to be so meticulously thought out ahead of time.
00:55:42.960 --> 00:55:43.280
Yeah.
00:55:43.519 --> 00:55:56.960
And the way that they would achieve them through like doubling film strips on top of each other and then reshooting that, or however they would do that stuff back in the day.
00:55:57.280 --> 00:55:58.719
It's so amazing to me.
00:55:58.800 --> 00:56:08.800
Where now you can just shoot a bunch of stuff and put it in the computer and just like put it together, change opacities, and just look at it and move shit around and all this stuff.
00:56:08.880 --> 00:56:19.679
It's like it's it's the craft of coming up with those ideas back in those days is so different to me than seeing it done nowadays.
00:56:19.840 --> 00:56:23.039
And that and that's maybe why you don't see it that much anymore.
00:56:23.360 --> 00:56:26.559
I think a lot of those principles still hold.
00:56:26.719 --> 00:56:33.199
There are still things that you have to do in order to pull off a superimposed sequence like that.
00:56:33.360 --> 00:56:33.679
Yeah.
00:56:33.840 --> 00:56:44.800
And I discovered that making my first short film in film school because I had a similar um, well, we made that movie.
00:56:44.880 --> 00:56:49.920
Um, we had a similar introduction to that movie, but I shot and edited that movie.
00:56:50.000 --> 00:57:15.199
And what I learned was you need to be very particular about what is in the shot, because certain shots will have varying degrees of detail and texture, and those are all those are, and if so, if there's something that you want to stand out, it really has to be superimposed against a background that does not have a lot of detail.
00:57:15.760 --> 00:57:40.320
And so one thing that I noticed after breaking down the shot list of the introduction is that close-up upside down overhead shot of Martin Sheen's face, that shot comes back at the later in the sequence when the dream sequence is over.
00:57:40.880 --> 00:57:46.000
And you actually see the right side of the frame, because his face is in the left side of the frame.
00:57:46.239 --> 00:57:55.760
But in the superimposed introduction, they so let me figure out the best way to explain this.
00:57:56.000 --> 00:58:02.079
So without all the superimposed images, and you just have the overshot of his face, that's on the left side of the screen.
00:58:02.159 --> 00:58:15.519
On the right side is a shadow of his face, and you can see the light on the right side of the image that makes up the contours of his face.
00:58:15.920 --> 00:58:28.079
But they use that exact same shot in the superimposed section, and they bring that face statue in the right side of the frame.
00:58:28.480 --> 00:58:33.840
And when they do that, the in the entire right side of the frame is black.
00:58:34.079 --> 00:58:49.920
Now, I don't know if they created some sort of mat in post-production to create that side of the frame to be all black, or if they just flagged the shot to get rid of the shadow of his face on the right side of the frame.
00:58:50.559 --> 00:58:59.760
But they did something to create a solid color of black on the right side of the frame so that they could superimpose an image with a lot of detail.
00:59:01.119 --> 00:59:03.119
And so that's one of those principles.
00:59:03.280 --> 00:59:15.679
If you're layering like a detailed shot, a shot with a lot of detail and nuance to the image, you want to, as best you can superimpose that over a background that is a solid color.
00:59:17.119 --> 00:59:19.039
Because that'll help details pop.
00:59:19.280 --> 00:59:30.480
So whether or not you're doing that in film or whether you're doing that in the digital era, that's a principle that you may or you may need to apply depending upon you know the nature of the sequence.
00:59:31.519 --> 00:59:34.639
So I thought that was interesting.
00:59:34.800 --> 00:59:35.440
Yeah.
00:59:37.199 --> 00:59:41.360
Um anything else important to know about this?
00:59:41.840 --> 00:59:42.880
About this movie?
00:59:43.119 --> 00:59:43.599
Nah.
00:59:43.760 --> 00:59:57.039
I think we covered, I mean, we broke down 15 minutes over the course of an hour, so I think that's all all you really are paying all your money for.
00:59:58.239 --> 01:00:07.360
But um, no, I think uh just in the future, I think we'll be continuing to do this every once in a while, right?
01:00:07.760 --> 01:00:14.559
Just going I don't know if we'll maybe we've already done a couple other movies like um what do we do?
01:00:14.719 --> 01:00:22.239
Breakfast of Tiffany's Badlands, Amelie, uh Amongst of The Abyss.
01:00:22.559 --> 01:00:23.039
Yeah.
01:00:23.599 --> 01:00:24.000
Yeah.
01:00:24.320 --> 01:00:29.920
So um Yeah, so I think we'll just continue to do that every once in a while.
01:00:31.440 --> 01:00:33.039
Because it's cool, it's fun.
01:00:34.320 --> 01:00:35.280
Yeah, and it's important.
01:00:35.360 --> 01:00:49.599
So it's important to uh exemplify what you mean by an inciting incident so that you solidify it in your brain what that is in an effort to watch and critique storylines.
01:00:50.559 --> 01:00:57.679
Because often errors and stories are errors in the plot, plot holes, they call them.
01:00:58.159 --> 01:01:07.199
Or if you're trying to write a screenplay, you know, identifying and exemplifying those examples will reinforce it in your mind.
01:01:07.440 --> 01:01:14.320
And if you're just a cinephile, well, it may help you understand more why you love the movies that you love.
01:01:14.639 --> 01:01:14.960
Right.
01:01:16.159 --> 01:01:16.719
All right.
01:01:18.639 --> 01:01:25.440
I am officially a copalophile.
01:01:26.639 --> 01:01:32.639
I think I probably always have been, but I've never explicitly stated that.
01:01:32.960 --> 01:01:33.280
Yeah.
01:01:33.519 --> 01:01:35.360
Gotta see Megalopolis.
01:01:36.159 --> 01:01:38.000
I think it's gotta see megalopolis.
01:01:38.239 --> 01:01:41.599
I think it's out or something now.
01:01:41.840 --> 01:01:42.480
I can't.
01:01:42.880 --> 01:01:46.000
I I he's always doing stuff with it.
01:01:46.239 --> 01:01:51.920
Um I think late the latest thing is it's a graphic novel now.
01:01:52.880 --> 01:02:04.960
So I mean he's he's just gonna keep cranking the handle on this and and whatever comes out, he's gonna keep rolling with it until he makes makes his money back, probably.
01:02:05.360 --> 01:02:08.079
Which he'll do, I think.
01:02:08.880 --> 01:02:10.079
But I can't wait to see it.
01:02:11.119 --> 01:02:12.000
Time will tell.
01:02:12.079 --> 01:02:12.239
Yeah.
01:02:13.039 --> 01:02:20.239
If there's one thing to be said about Coppola, he is focused on doing it, doing whatever he's doing the way he wants to do it.
01:02:20.400 --> 01:02:20.719
That's right.
01:02:20.880 --> 01:02:23.280
And that is that is to be commended and respected.
01:02:23.360 --> 01:02:23.519
Yeah.
01:02:23.760 --> 01:02:31.039
He is a true tour and uh independent thinker and filmmaker.
01:02:31.280 --> 01:02:33.280
So that's why I love the guy.
01:02:33.440 --> 01:02:35.119
So I believe that was a wrap.
01:02:35.199 --> 01:02:35.360
Yeah.
01:02:35.519 --> 01:02:36.000
Is that a wrap?
01:02:36.239 --> 01:02:38.800
Yeah, man, pencil me in as a Copa Lephile.
01:02:40.000 --> 01:02:40.559
All right.
01:02:41.199 --> 01:02:47.679
Well, all you need is a streaming service to watch this movie.
01:02:47.760 --> 01:02:52.960
All you need is a DVD or Blu-ray and a DVD player, Blu-ray player.
01:02:53.039 --> 01:02:53.280
Yep.
01:02:53.440 --> 01:02:54.639
And all you need is love.
01:02:55.119 --> 01:02:56.480
So go file it.
