UNIT 52 DPS Article Draft & Magazine Pitch: Presentation

Magazine pitch from MatthewTulip

The finalized version of my double-page spread can be viewed here. Below is my feedback for my presentation.

Here is my initial draft for my DPS magazine article: 

Headline: Timeless Movie Reviews

Subhead: Apocalypse Now

Slug: From the heart of darkness to the jungles of Vietnam, we review Francis Ford Coppola’s epic war masterpiece.

Standfirst: In Vietnam in 1970, Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) takes a perilous and increasingly hallucinatory journey upriver to find and terminate Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), a once-promising officer who has reportedly gone completely mad. In the company of a Navy patrol boat filled with street-smart kids, a surfing-obsessed Air Cavalry officer (Robert Duvall), and a crazed freelance photographer (Dennis Hopper), Willard travels further and further into the heart of darkness.

Apocalypse Now is more than just a war movie. It goes above and beyond it’s temporary time period, and creates a whirlwind of both history, culture and literature. Considered to be one of the best Vietnam War movies of all time, as well as one of the best movies ever made, famous movie critic Roger Ebert considered it to be a masterpiece, with Ebert placing it on his list for the 2002 Sight & Sound poll for the greatest movie of all time.

Defined as an epic war movie in the same vein as Saving Private Ryan and Full Metal Jacket, what sets apart this particular movie from its predecessors (and even its successors) is the angle it takes when it comes to studying the themes surrounding war and beyond, and not just particularly the war in Vietnam. Coppola himself said "My film is not about Vietnam, it is Vietnam", talking about the toll the production took on the cast and crew. In his original review, Ebert wrote, "Apocalypse Now achieves greatness not by analyzing our 'experience in Vietnam', but by recreating, in characters and images, something of that experience".

Though the backdrop of the film is Vietnam and the war, it is not necessarily about the war itself, but as Ebert put it, re-creating the experience. The director said that he wanted to take the audience "through an unprecedented experience of war and have them react as much as those who had gone through the war". One of the best examples of this technique was the movies use of fog, which is prevalent throughout.

The use of fog is reminiscent of the term “the fog of war”, which refers to the lack of situational awareness experienced by individuals during military operations. This is reinforced by both the characters and plot, as Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) and the boat crew both experience the fog of war; the former not truly knowing what he’ll do when he finds his target, the latter kept in the dark as to why they are sailing up river. Introduced by the Prussian military analyst Carl von Clausewitz, he says the following about the fog of war:

“War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty. A sensitive and discriminating judgment is called for; a skilled intelligence to scent out the truth.”

Coppola’s description of the production process suits that of the American war effort in  Vietnam. "We had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane". This was almost like art in motion in terms of what it brought to the film. Martin Sheen experienced a mental breakdown on set and also suffered a heart attack.

The film takes inspiration from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, a novel Conrad wrote based off of his experiences in the Congo Free State in 1890, where he witnessed first hand the slave trade occurring in the region. At the time many contemporary people praised Conrad’s work as progressive, as it critiqued imperialism; however, as times went on many have begun to question the elements of racism in the book, as the story portrays a white man being corrupted by “savages” and “tribals” native to the Congo. Thus, it dehumanizes Africans while indirectly raising the appeal of predominantly white-European values.

In Apocalypse Now, Coppola takes the theme of imperialism and applies it to the Vietnam War, showing the flaws of America’s attempts to takeover Vietnam and implement “democracy”. An excellent example from the film however would be when Captain Willard is briefed on his mission.

The commanding officer, General R. Corman (G. D. Spradlin), speaks of Colonel Kurtz (Brando), the antagonist of the film, saying he was good man. However, time among the so-called “natives” tempted him to become a “God” in their eyes. In the eyes of the military, a good man was corrupted by the savages, much like in Conrad’ novel; however, is the civilised people of the United States military any better? The attempts to dehumanize the enemy are prevalent throughout the movie, most notably when Robert Duvall’s character is introduced.

Col. Kilgore (Duvall) is the Commanding Officer of an air cavalry unit in the US army, and his actions point out the hypocrisy of America’s operations in Vietnam. In the aforementioned briefing scene, the General Corman remarks how Kurtz’s ideas and methods became “unsound”. But how is this any different to how Kilgore operates? When his men swoop in an area they kill almost indiscriminately, and Kilgore labels the dead Vietnamese with kill cards so the Viet Cong know who killed them. Furthermore, Col. Lucas (Harrison Ford) remarks how Kurtz’s followers obey his every command, no matter how ridiculous. Again, how is this any different to Kilgore ordering two of his men to surf in a warzone, with bullets and bombs flying overhead? The hypocrisy is real.

Also, it is important to note the use of The Heart of Darkness in Apocalypse Now, as well as the “The Hollow Men”, a poem by T. S. Elliot. The poem itself, recited by Kurtz to Willard, was inspired by the novel, which itself inspired Apocalypse Now. This is literature and art literally falling in on itself, coming full circle. It makes the effort put in fulfilled and is what really makes the movie timeless. Apocalypse Now is a storm of history, art, literature and contemporary portrayals.

This is a brand new feedback sheet courtesy of Nicole, who makes a point of being sure to reference what is wrote with images. She thinks the sentences would be best compacted into larger paragraphs as well. Overall, she thought well of it, praising the informative nature of the piece and saying there was a good use of words.