Bob Schwartz

Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979) is regarded as an all-time great movie. Thought to be the best of many movies about the Vietnam War. To some, as great as his masterpiece Godfather movies.

It is more than a movie about the Vietnam War or about war. Inspired by Josef Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness (1899), it is about how lost we can get on missions, no matter who we are or think we are, no matter how well or ill conceived, well or ill intentioned those missions are.

We are just people. As people we are irresistibly and inevitably prone to forces, inside and outside, seemingly controllable but ultimately uncontrollable, that drive us as we drift into terra incognita, unknown territory.

That is why to watch Apocalypse Now now. Right now.

One famous scene is the Air Cavalry descending on a Vietnamese village. The surfing colonel in charge blasts Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries from the helicopters as they attack.

The soundtrack for the opening scene is The End by the Doors:

Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain