Coppola's Monster Film: The Making of Apocalypse Now by Steven Travers

Author:Steven Travers [Travers, Steven]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2016-06-08T16:00:00+00:00

13

“Kill ... gore”

After Sheen is brought to Nha Trang and advised of his mission, he meets Colonel Kilgore (“kill … gore”), based on someone Milius actually knew. The part was played by Robert Duvall. In the early Milius script he was given a similarly metaphorical name (Kharnage). Duvall delivered a brilliant portrayal.

At first, larger than life, Kilgore regally presides over all he surveys; the aftermath of a massive U.S. helicopter attack he spearheaded. But amid the carnage is a scene in which Kilgore saves the life of a little Vietnamese boy.

“To this day I don’t know why he cut it,” Duvall said, obviously miffed. Duvall was and remains an anomaly in Hollywood; a conservative and a Christian. “Here was a guy who saved the life of a baby … we had heard from certain technical advisors how these interesting contradictions happened … maybe it was pressure from his liberal friends in San Francisco, we have to make this guy all one way, a guy like that wouldn’t save a baby’s life, people aren’t black and white. Maybe the character was getting too much emphasis on that one guy, that was the implication, it stopped a little bit there, maybe you don’t give as much emphasis to Kilgore, but as long as you’re emphasizing him I don’t know why, it didn’t make sense to me. He said, ‘I’ll put it in when we put it on television,’ but I never got any kind of answer as to why he cut it out, there was no reason why it was cut, it was not ugly visually or logically.”1

In a 2010 Napa Valley symposium, Coppola asked John Milius where he got the idea of using Richard Wagner’s “The Ride of the Valkyries” for the helicopter attack.

“I love Wagner,” replied Milius. “It lends itself to helicopters…. I knew the Wagner worked, and I knew they had psy-ops [psychological operations] where they placed speakers, they didn’t play Wagner, they played rock and roll, but I thought the Wagner worked, and it works so well that you can’t do helicopter assaults anywhere in the world without using Wagner today. During Desert Storm, when the 101st landed behind the Iraqi lines, they had the helicopters playing the Wagner, so everybody would run away when they heard ‘Ride of the Valkyries,’ and the same thing in 2003 when they invaded, every time the Apaches went overhead they played the Wagner.”

Of the many iconic scenes in Apocalypse Now, the operatic helicopter attack of a VC village remains the highlight of the film. It was also Homeric. Once the helicopters land, Kilgore—a huge surf fanatic—orders Lance and several of his own men, also surfers from Southern California, to ride swells.

“It was a combination of not just Heart of Darkness, but The Odyssey,” said Milius. “Kilgore was like the Cyclops, something that had to be overcome, it had to be tricked, and then the Playboy bunnies were the sirens, you know….

“The war was taking on an interesting turn. It was a psychedelic war, you know, and the culture, the influence was sort of seeping into Southeast Asia.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.