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Apocalypse Now: Final Cut - Fiction & Science

Brilliant Vietnam film about Captain Willard who must find and liquidate the insane Colonel Kurtz in the jungle. Starring Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando, among others.

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Deze voorstelling maakt deel uit van Rialto Filmclub met als gastspreker deze maand Ernst-Jan Pfauth.

The film will be introduced by professor Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte.

Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte (1963) obtained his PhD degree in Leiden (1995) and has held the chair for New Testament Studies at VU since 2008. Among other topics, he specializes in the study of apocalyptic literature and the influence of apocalyptic texts throughout history. One of his points of interest is how religious motifs interact with modern cultural phenomena, such as movies. He co-chairs an international research group within the Society of Biblical Literature on the reception history of apocalyptic expectation, together with Dr. Ana Valdez of Lisbon.

Apocalypse Now: Final Cut

"This is not a film about Vietnam, this film ís Vietnam," Francis Ford Coppola himself said of this masterful war film, an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness. Not only does the film contain many scenes that have etched themselves forever in our collective memory (the helicopter attack to Wagner's music, I love the smell of napalm in the morning, ... the horror, the horror), the way this insanely complicated production came about is also legendary. For instance, the budget was far exceeded, lead actor Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack and actor Marlon Brando was impossible to work with.

During the Vietnam War, Captain Willard is ordered by the army command to find and liquidate the deserted and brilliant Colonel Kurtz. In the middle of jungle, Kurtz has founded a private army embroiled in a war of his own. The quest, which leads across the Nung River, increasingly takes on the character of hell ride full of hallucinatory and apocalyptic scenes. Besides Sheen and Brando, the cast includes Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper and Laurence Fishburne.

Different version

As early as 1979, people thought the film was too long, which forced Coppola not only to omit scenes, but also to cut in scenes that had been included. In 2001, the version he had envisaged was still released: Apocalypse Now Redux, which was 49 minutes longer than the original. But in 2019, even this version was shortened again to the (probably) final version: Apocalypse Now: Final Cut.