Apocalypse Now

Kamala: Uh

Emily: This is one of my all-time favorite movies. Kamala had never seen it before though, and she's still in shock. She generally avoids movies about the Vietnam war. In case you are a loser and you've never seen Apocalypse Now, it's a film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, loosely based on the Joseph Conrad novel, Heart of Darkness. It stars Martin Sheen as a Captain sent on a mission to terminate the command of one Colonel Kurtz, who has gone insane and retreated into the jungle of Cambodia with a small army of Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians and Green Berets who worship him as a god.

Kamala: The entire film was visually striking. I can only imagine what their budget was like. Between the napalm attacks, helicopters, other random stuff that got blown up, and large amount of extras the entire production was of epic proportions. We read on IMDB trivia that the movie was shot over 16 months, mostly in 1976, but not released until 1979 because of the amount of time it took to sort through and edit the over 200 hours of footage that Coppola shot. The editing team's efforts show in the flawless cinematography. There are some films where you are taken out of the story by some weird cut or something that makes you remember you are watching a movie. The only thing that made me remember I was watching a movie was that my Grandma called in the middle.

Emily: Something I hadn't noticed before is that there are no starting credits-no title appears onscreen at the beginning, it just goes straight in with the footage of Martin Sheen's face and jungle burning to The Doors' "The End." At Kurtz's compound, however, the words "Our motto: Apocalypse Now" are seen on a wall. This was put there so the movie could be copyrighted.

Kamala: In terms of cultural importance, this is one of the films (similar to 1941) that made studios want to take some control away from the dirrectors. Coppola took some men into the jungle, subjected them to shooting an emotionally and physically devastating film and came out of the jungle 16 months later with no footage they could use for three years. The actors were genuinely feeling the emotions of their characters. Lawrence Fishburne was actually younger than he should have been during filming, just as he was on the navy boat in the backwoods of Vietnam. Martin Sheen has a scene at the beginning of the movie where he gets drunk, punches a mirror and trashes his room naked was, in actuality, REAL. And there was a real cow sacrificed.

Emily: The dialogue is also something that stays with you long after the movie ends. The voice of Marlon Brando at the beginning of the film ("I saw a snail crawl across the edge of a straight razor. This is my dream. This is my nightmare") haunts the viewer as much as it haunts Sheen's character. Pretty much any scene with Robert Duvall as Captain Killgore is funny in a terrible way- the contrast of the conversation (about surfing, mostly) and the surroundings is absurd. But the movie gets progressively more horrific the farther they get into the jungle. This movie is incredible, and is undeniably the best war movie ever filmed. Nothing even comes close. At the end Kamala and I were silent for about five minutes because honestly what can you say after you've just watched something like that?

Kamala: Oh the horror, the horror.

or schadenfreude, whichever you prefer.

THX 1138

This movie was George Lucas' first. He adapted it into a full length feature from a short film he made in film school. THX 1138 is the story of the titular character's life in a strict futuristic dystopian society. Sex is outlawed, and mind-controlling drugs are administered forcibly. THX, Robert Duvall's character, and his "roommate" LUH fall in LUHve...

Emily: I'd like to let the readers know that Kamala made that joke just now, not I.

Kamala: Anyways, lets strip away the pretensions here, I'm the one who writes the intros so from now on I'll just attribute it to me. THX, Robert Duvall's character, and his "roommate" LUH fall in love and are jailed for drug evasion (they stop taking their required sedatives) and sexual perversion (because they start actually having sex).

Emily: The role of the movie's other main character, SEN, confused me. He is turned in by THX because he hacked into the computer system to try and switch roommates. He wants THX to be his roommate and it's never really made clear why. In the 2004 re-mastered DVD release of this film, George Lucas made the ties of the three characters (LUH, THX and SEN) more obvious by having LUH and SEN work in the same place monitoring camera footage of houses, and adding footage of SEN and LUH exchanging a meaningful glance when they catch a couple engaging in illicit sexual activity. He escapes from prison with Robert Duvall but they get separated and SEN completely loses it and goes to pray to the state-sponsored deity OMM. I did not get him...

Kamala: The religious aspect was quite interesting. There were numerous scenes where THX would go to one of these confessional booths that had a portrait of Jesus and a recorded voice that spouted platitudes such as "yess...goood....everything will be fine...you are a true believer" etc. I also want to talk about the overall look of the film. I thought it was awesome. The set was white and geometric, with little color. All the regular people wore white and were bald. Their entire society was based on dehumanizing its constituents, through drugs, suppression of sexual instinct, lack of names, and homogeneity. George Lucas did an excellent job of creating this dystopian world. The only strange thing was that about halfway through we noticed some of the special effects were very very very good for 1971. Turns out that the version we watched was the Directors Cut, and Lucas had re-mastered a lot of the special effects.

Emily: Kamala really dislikes the ending. The police stop chasing THX because they've gone too far over the "budget" for re-capturing a felon. Robert Duvall emerges from the shell surrounding the city into a setting sun, with choral music playing over the scene. She said it was corny and cliche. It didn't bother me as much, but it did seem somewhat anti-climactic since the whole rest of the movie was so great.

Kamala: It was cool to see the development of Star Wars in Lucas's earliest film. Some of the very geometric shots of people walking through white hallways looked just like the hallways in Lando's Cloud City.

Emily: Also they called something a Wookiee. I didn't catch exactly what it was referring to but the word was definitely used.

Kamala: Basically this was an awesome sci-fi movie, a beautiful film, and gave you a little something to think about afterwards. I am a huge fan of dystopias of any genre, and THX 1138 reminded me a lot, of course, of some of my favorite dystopias: We, Brave New World/Island, 1984, and Brazil, a film that EVERYONE should see. I would highly recommend THX 1138 to anyone.