Apocalypse Now Redux is a new edition by the director of his 1979 film Apocalypse Now and includes footage which was cut from the original film.

Of the making of Apocalypse Now, Coppola has said, “My film is not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam. The way we made it is the way Americans were in Vietnam. We had too much money, access to too much equipment and little by little we went insane.”¹

In both the novel and the film a character is dispatched upriver on a quest to rein in a maverick soldier of fortune who has established himself as a demigod among local tribesmen.

Heart of Darkness takes place in the Belgian Congo in the 1890s amid the brutality of colonial exploitation. Charlie Marlow is sent by “The Company” to bring back Kurtz, an ivory hunter who, amid unspeakable rites, is using his own methods for collecting and keeping the treasure. In Apocalypse Now, Captain Willard is sent by shadowy government officials to kill Colonel Kurtz who has crossed the border into Cambodia where he is running his own private war from an empire he has created among the Montagnards. Kurtz (in both stories) is a figure who has learned too well the lessons of imperial power. Unlike the dry company men who were his masters, he undertakes to play them out in person.

The story and film follow Marlow/Willard on the river journey, from the known to the unknown, into the depths of the jungle and to Kurtz’s world of darkness. There is no catharsis in finding Kurtz, no resolution or enlightenment. Both Marlow and Willard glimpse themselves in Kurtz, yet finally decline the chance to replace Kurtz in his world. Kurtz entrusts Marlow/Willard with a manuscript justifying his actions. It only reveals his insanity. In the end, Kurtz is shown as a broken man, with enough self-realization to whisper “the horror, the horror” in remembering what he has done.