'Apocalypse Now' (1979)

This Guy Edits: Podcast

In this episode:

How to control your algorithm, how to enhance the cut by not making the obvious choice and how to keep one small, exciting and impactful scene from affecting the overall story arc.

SCENE: https://youtu.be/Nf8RY88NGkE

Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American epic war film about the Vietnam War, directed, produced and co-written by Francis Ford Coppola. It stars Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Martin Sheen, Frederic Forrest, Albert Hall, Sam Bottoms, Laurence Fishburne and Dennis Hopper. Harrison Ford also makes an appearance in a small role. The screenplay, co-written by Coppola and John Milius and narration written by Michael Herr, was loosely based on the 1899 novella Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. The setting was changed from late 19th-century Congo to the Vietnam War (1969–70). The film follows a river journey from South Vietnam into Cambodia undertaken by Captain Benjamin L. Willard (a character based on Conrad's Marlow and played by Sheen), who is on a secret mission to assassinate Colonel Kurtz (Brando, with the character being based on Conrad's Mr. Kurtz), a renegade Army Special Forces officer accused of murder and who is presumed insane.

Milius became interested in developing Heart of Darkness into a Vietnam War film. Coppola expressed interest and eventually decided to take on the project, with the filmmaker taking influence from Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972).^[4] Initially set to be a five-month shoot, the film became noted for the problems encountered while making it for over a year, as chronicled in the documentary