The Apocalypse Now Book Review

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The Apocalypse Now Book ReviewTalk about bad timing. After years waiting for a good Apocalypse Now book, Peter Cowie's comes out, right around the same time as "Apocalypse Now Redux." The irony being that Cowie wrote the book in 2000, a full year before Coppola unveiled his reworked masterpiece. This means that, due to how long the publishing process takes, the book has hardly any information about Redux, which is a shame. As Cowie's interview with Coppola took place in 1999, there are no quotes or thoughts from the director about what lead him to create Redux.
That being said, the rest of the book is very informative, in some cases too informative. The background, pre-production detail is nearly staggering. I would have liked to have learned more about screenwriter John Milius' original script idea, "The Psychedelic Soldier," which, after he was inspired by the idea to do a modern tribute to Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," became Apocalypse Now. Cowie, however, does do a great job of mentioning many of the early drafts of the script, even quoting from the rarely-seen first draft, in which the VC speak in goofy subtitles, and Colonel Kilgore is known as Colonel Kharnage.
The level of research Cowie has performed leaves me wondering over many glaring omissions. For example, the highlight of the book is a chapter titled "Buried Treasure," in which Cowie goes over the 5 ½ hour work print. Though he gives detailed descriptions of the major scenes that are in the work print, but were not included in the original version (or the Redux), there's no mention of the Photojournalist's death scene, which is a major revelation of the work print. Likewise, Cowie doesn't mention how deadly Martin Sheen's Willard is in the work print; for example, in it he kills a child in the climax.
Cowie also fails to cover little bits and pieces that are interesting in the film. For example, he doesn't mention that Lee Ermey, who would later make film history as the drill instructor in "Full Metal Jacket," plays one of Kilgore's helicopter pilots, during the beach raid sequence. And there is no detail about what scenes, exactly, Harvey Keitel filmed during the few weeks he spent on the set. But these little matters are trivial. The fact is, the book is a pretty good compendium of information about my favorite movie. There are no color photos, but there are some nice behind-the-scenes shots and stills, including a very nice one of Willard's head coming out of the swamp, enshrouded in fog.
The main thing I found interesting in the book was that cinematographer Storaro advised Coppola to end the movie on a pessimistic note. Watching one of the early edits, Storaro urged Coppola to integrate the scenes of Willard hacking at Kurtz with the caribou sacrifice, as well as the shots of Kurtz's compound exploding. The way Storaro envisioned it, Willard would kill Kurtz at the exact same time as the air strike, which would obliterate all of them. A very dark ending, but Coppola obviously didn't like it. The footage of Kurtz's compound being destroyed, by the way, is included as an extra on the Apocalypse Now (original version) DVD.The Apocalypse Now Book Overview

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