I definitely hear what you're saying on the missed responsibility/opportunity to be courageous enough to make a statement about war, and I agree, but I don't think it's fair to lump Apocalypse Now into that category as it wasn't a war movie. It was a film adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness set during the Vietnam War for a modern setting instead of 19th century Africa, keeping the same story, same character names, river as means of travel / metaphor etc with the same literary objective to explore the inevitable baseness that is humanity, no matter what level of civilization trying to mask it
Obviously Heart of Darkness was a major influence, but...of course it's a war movie! It's pretty much *the* war movie!
I'd recommend Viet Thanh Nguyen's Nothing Ever Dies, an amazing survey of Vietnam war films which talks about the (extensive!) problems with Apocalypse Now, including with the way it uses its tropes from heart of darkness to reduce Vietnam to a "primitive" culture which it was not at all (you'd never know from the film that Vietnam was heavily urbanized.)
We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. It was not at all "the" war movie because it was using Conrad's story hook, line, and sinker, and Conrad's novella was not a war story. Also, you can give the same "primitive" culture argument about Central Africa. It wasn't using tropes as much as following the story. It's like calling Macbeth a war story. Anyway, I can go on, but we won't convince each other, so I lay my case to rest. Like I said, I agree with what you said otherwise about directors/producers/actors using their opportunity to relate their historical depiction to today's repeated events.
Macbeth is a war story! And Conrad’s novel is very racist, and yes, part of that is the way it frames the people of the Congo as primitive and subhuman.
Taking a Warren and turning it into Star Wars makes it science fiction. When you adapt something to a diffeeent genre, it’s a different genre, in part. Apocalypse Now is a Vietnam War movie and colonial fiction, per heart of darkness; it’s both, not either or:
Oppenheimer sucked. I walked out. Which is hard to do when you've invested $15...
I've seen it twice, believe it or not. to my sorrow...
I definitely hear what you're saying on the missed responsibility/opportunity to be courageous enough to make a statement about war, and I agree, but I don't think it's fair to lump Apocalypse Now into that category as it wasn't a war movie. It was a film adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness set during the Vietnam War for a modern setting instead of 19th century Africa, keeping the same story, same character names, river as means of travel / metaphor etc with the same literary objective to explore the inevitable baseness that is humanity, no matter what level of civilization trying to mask it
Obviously Heart of Darkness was a major influence, but...of course it's a war movie! It's pretty much *the* war movie!
I'd recommend Viet Thanh Nguyen's Nothing Ever Dies, an amazing survey of Vietnam war films which talks about the (extensive!) problems with Apocalypse Now, including with the way it uses its tropes from heart of darkness to reduce Vietnam to a "primitive" culture which it was not at all (you'd never know from the film that Vietnam was heavily urbanized.)
We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. It was not at all "the" war movie because it was using Conrad's story hook, line, and sinker, and Conrad's novella was not a war story. Also, you can give the same "primitive" culture argument about Central Africa. It wasn't using tropes as much as following the story. It's like calling Macbeth a war story. Anyway, I can go on, but we won't convince each other, so I lay my case to rest. Like I said, I agree with what you said otherwise about directors/producers/actors using their opportunity to relate their historical depiction to today's repeated events.
Macbeth is a war story! And Conrad’s novel is very racist, and yes, part of that is the way it frames the people of the Congo as primitive and subhuman.
Taking a Warren and turning it into Star Wars makes it science fiction. When you adapt something to a diffeeent genre, it’s a different genre, in part. Apocalypse Now is a Vietnam War movie and colonial fiction, per heart of darkness; it’s both, not either or: