![]() Is this an issue with Storaro? Is it intentional, as part of a warped, distorted aesthetic? If so, it’s too inconsistent to work. This escalates throughout the film but by the final, legendary denouement, it was hugely distracting – so much for the immersive power of big screen cinema here. The visible grain in the lighter sky-filled sequences is distracting and one can’t help wondering if the 4K scan has done this no favours, drawing attention to the limitations of analogue film that is incongruous with the scale of the spectacle and the tone of the movie – it doesn’t look charming and within the context of the scale and bombast of this spectacle there is no scope to appreciate the nuances and limitations of the older medium here.Īgain, it is striking – all the more so on the big screen, and all the more so given that the 4K restoration is part of the raison d’être for this further release – how out of focus many of the key shots are, particularly close-ups, especially of Sheen and Brando. Some of the colours in the more vivid scenes appear to have gained vibrancy and saturation yet it is visually where the film starts to reveal its age. It’s also been processed using Dolby’s HDR (Dolby Vision). This release has been prompted by a 4K scan of the film’s original negative print, whereas previous versions were made from an IP. It also traces key events in Joseph Conrad’s classic novel of contemplative colonialism, Heart of Darkness. Chronicling Willard’s journey up the treacherous Nung River, beset by the incompetence of his conscripted colleagues and the threat of enemies seen and unseen, the film is steeped in moments of rock and roll psychedelia, existentialism, geo-politics and fragments of TS Eliot’s modernism. But for the uninitiated, ostensibly, Captain Willard ( Sheen) has been hired for a classified operation to terminate (with extreme prejudice) Colonel Kurtz ( Brando) who has gone rogue during the Vietnam conflict far up river beyond enemy territory in Cambodia. ![]() ![]() But as the film itself exposed the scorched earth in Willard’s wake, I found the words of another fallen idol and false prophet rattling around in my head: “Has the world changed or have I changed?”įor the same reasons that I initially had no intention of reviewing this film, you are unlikely to need a synopsis of Apocalypse Now, such is its endurance and standing in contemporary culture. Despite having seen the film a couple of times on DVD in the intervening years, I was enticed by the whole package and the prospect of experiencing it again on the big screen. Last night I visited Manchester’s HOME to see Apocalypse Now: Final Cut, preceded by Dutch Angle: Chas Gerretsen & Apocalypse Now (2019) and followed with a 30-minute recorded interview between Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Soderbergh from this year’s Tribeca. ![]() Amidst it all, Apocalypse Now Redux was a wholly immersive experience. As Captain Willard was on his journey, I too was on mine, immersing myself in film. Innovations in digital technology and film making on an epic scale with films such as The Matrix (1999), Lord of the Rings (2001) and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), saw audiences return to the cinema after the onslaught of video and DVD. Lee Ashworth discovers that it would take so much more than a 4K restoration to bring Apocalypse Now into the 21st century.ġ8 years ago, I saw Apocalypse Now burn across the big screen for the first time at the release of the Redux (2001). Cast: Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Marlon Brando, Harrison Ford
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