Summary
- Apocalypse Now faced numerous challenges during production, leading to a chaotic filming process.
- Despite containing the most onscreen mistakes in film history, the greatness of Apocalypse Now remains undisputed.
- Technical errors in the film provide a fascinating context to the overall production and the story it tells.
Before judging it from an artistic perspective, the cast and crew of Apocalypse Now deserve recognition for even finishing the film. Between inclement weather, the ailing health of the cast and crew, unruly stars, and a delayed shoot, Francis Ford Coppola's ambition almost got the better of him. As we know, he ended up crafting one of the finest achievements in film history. If he could have it all back, one would assume that Coppola would not let his production run completely off the rails. However, the frenzy and chaos are powerfully captured on the screen, complementing Coppola's nightmarish portrayal of a soldier's odyssey into the underbelly of humanity. Due to the boatload of headaches and crises, the director had a lot on his plate, leaving room for sloppiness during shooting and in post-production. Data shows that, while its greatness can never be disputed, Apocalypse Now contains the most onscreen mistakes regarding continuity or technical errors of any film in history.
- Release Date
- August 15, 1979
- Runtime
- 147 minutes
- Director
- Francis Ford Coppola
- Writers
- Joseph Conrad, John Milius, Francis Ford Coppola, Michael Herr
WHERE TO WATCH
A U.S. Army officer serving in Vietnam is tasked with assassinating a renegade Special Forces Colonel who sees himself as a god.
Francis Ford Coppola Had Unlimited Creative Power During 'Apocalypse Now'
Countless media, in essay, book, and film form, have documented the hellish disaster that was the filming of Apocalypse Now. After defining the 1970s with The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II, Coppola was the preeminent filmmaker of Hollywood. The director feasibly could have had any project greenlit, but he chose to fill in as director for an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. With a script by John Milius, the film was intended for George Lucas, who became preoccupied with developing a peculiar space opera called Star Wars. In turn, Coppola did not make a film about Vietnam--the film itself was Vietnam, to quote his infamous line at the Cannes Film Festival. The director's egoism is slightly more understandable considering the near-fatalistic result of the film, which experienced a typhoon, a heart attack from star Martin Sheen, clashes with stars Dennis Hopper and Marlon Brando, an unforgiving jungle environment swarming with helicopters, and psychological turmoil. The film turning into a masterpiece, let alone a completed motion picture, is nothing short of a miracle.
Overall, nitpicking is by no means a valid measurement of artistic quality. A certain generation of moviegoers raised on web series dedicated to mocking and ridiculing technical errors are more scrupulous and unforgiving of movie "mistakes." Because we have the technology to zoom in on a shot and backtrack and fast-forward with precision, everyone can pose as a continuity judge. Truthfully, if continuity errors (when one shot doesn't match what follows in the next shot) motivate your dissatisfaction with a film, then you are not likely an avid connoisseur of the medium. Arguing that Apocalypse Now's 563 mistakes, according to moviemistakes.com, diminish Coppola's achievement is a fraught proposition. When removed from the big picture of what the film says about the Vietnam War and how it expresses Captain Willard's (Sheen) harrowing nightmare, the mistakes provide a fascinating context to the film's production.
Continuity Errors and Visible Crew Members are Prevalent in 'Apocalypse Now'
Image via United Artists
Image via United Artists
Image via United Artists
Image via United Artists
Image via United Artists
One might be surprised by just how many mistakes appeared in the final cut of Apocalypse Now, especially since the film was directed by a master of the form in Coppola. 536 mistakes look like an inordinate number of errors, but across a lengthy runtime with scene after scene containing hundreds of extras, slip-ups are natural. The vast majority of the mistakes are related to continuity. When helicopters come into play, with the film containing an abundance of them, the editing room is in for an arduous task. During the playboy bunny scene an hour into the picture, the main rotor of the helicopter spins in one shot and is idle in subsequent shots. These vehicular stunts call for exact precision, but oftentimes, nothing can be done to absolve continuity issues in post-production. Following the awe-inspiring Ride of the Valkyries air attack scene, a chopper drops a patrol boat in the water, with the boat's canopy and antenna breaking. The next time it's shown on screen, the ship is in perfect condition. These innocuous editing mistakes are prevalent throughout Apocalypse Now: soldiers randomly appear and disappear in the background and helicopters shift between being damaged and untouched across various shots. In one example, a band-aid suddenly appears in Captain Willard's hand for one shot. When watching Apocalypse Now, due to its hallucinogenic imagery, we're not entirely sure what we're watching is even real, so we can certainly be forgiving of continuity errors.
For a major Hollywood production, one might be surprised by how many instances of visible crew members and equipment occur in Apocalypse Now. You must be incredibly meticulous to notice them in real time, so these errors are not too egregious. In the preliminary meeting with Colonel Lucas (Harrison Ford), a camera operator's reflection moves in the background to the left of Lucas' head. If you look closely, shadows of crew members can be identified in the background of numerous scenes. Inside his helicopter during the Valkyries sequence, Colonel Kilgore's (Robert Duvall) sunglasses reflect a silhouette of a crew member. As a story of a soldier submerging in a hellish environment, shadows are everywhere, so any brief instance of a crew member's shadow faintly appearing on-screen fits the visual tone. There are a handful of other errors besides continuity and visible crew members. In one shot, Colonel Kurtz's (Brando) uniform tag reads "Leighley," the character's original name. The infamously combative Brando insisted that "Leighley" was a more suitable name for the haunted rogue colonel.
What The Mistakes in 'Apocalypse Now' Say About Its Troubled Production
By looking at the final product, no one expected Apocalypse Now to be a light and breezy production. However, the chaos and never-ending drama that ensued in the jungles of Cambodia speak to an unprecedented level of dysfunction. As was the case for many auteurs of New Hollywood with unfettered creative control, Francis Ford Coppola simply had too much on his hands, which likely contributed to the sloppiness of production. On the contrary, these mistakes could indicate Coppola's inflated ego and disinterest in allowing others to take a second pass at the film's rough cut. Coppola notably did not receive cooperation from the United States Army, and as a result, production was left on its own to obtain authentic military equipment and vehicles.
As a visionary, Coppola is a maximalist who never compromises his audacious vision. Anyone who has read reviews of the noisy premiere of Megalopolis at the Cannes Film Festival knows that the director shows no signs of slowing down, for better or worse. While the jury is still out on his new film for the mainstream public, Apocalypse Now was an all-around triumph. For Coppola, who put the lives of his crew and himself on the line while making the film, any result less than a masterpiece would've been an underachievement.
Apocalypse Now is available to rent on Amazon in the U.S.