''Apocalypse Now Redux'' is a 2001 American extended version of

Francis Ford Coppola Francis Ford Coppola (; ; born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the major figures of the New Hollywood filmmaking movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Coppola is the recipient of five ...

epic Epic commonly refers to: * Epic poetry, a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation * Epic film, a genre of film with heroic elements Epic or EPIC may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and medi ...

1979

war film War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about naval, air, or land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been strongly associated with the 20th century. The fateful nature of battle scenes means that wa ...

Apocalypse Now ''Apocalypse Now'' is a 1979 American epic war film produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The screenplay, co-written by Coppola, John Milius and Michael Herr, is loosely based on the 1899 novella '' Heart of Darkness'' by Joseph C ...

''. Coppola, along with editor/longtime collaborator Walter Murch, added 49 minutes of material that had been removed from the initial theatrical release. It is a significant re-edit of the original version.

Production

began production on the new cut with working-partner Kim Aubry. Coppola then tried to get Murch, who was reluctant at first. He thought it would be extremely difficult recutting a film that had taken two years to edit originally. He later changed his mind (after working on the reconstruction of

Orson Welles George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...

' ''

Touch of Evil ''Touch of Evil'' is a 1958 American film noir written and directed by Orson Welles, who also stars in the film. The screenplay was loosely based on the contemporary Whit Masterson novel '' Badge of Evil'' (1956). The cast included Charlton He ...

''). Coppola and Murch then examined several of the rough prints and dailies for the film. It was decided early on that the editing of the film would be like editing a new film altogether. One such example was the new French plantation sequence. The scenes were greatly edited to fit into the movie originally, only to be cut out in the end. When working again on the film, instead of using the heavily edited version, Murch decided to work the scene all over again, editing it as if for the first time. Much work needed to be done to the new scenes. Due to the off-screen noises during the shoot, most of the dialogue was impossible to hear. During post-production of the film the actors were brought back to re-record their lines (known as A.D.R. or dubbing). This was done for the scenes that made it into the original cut, but not for the deleted scenes. For the ''Redux'' version,

Martin Sheen Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez (born August 3, 1940), known professionally as Martin Sheen, is an American actor. He first became known for his roles in the films '' The Subject Was Roses'' (1968) and ''Badlands'' (1973), and later achieved wi ...

Robert Duvall Robert Selden Duvall (; born January 5, 1931) is an American actor and filmmaker. His career spans more than seven decades and he is considered one of the greatest American actors of all time. He is the recipient of an Academy Award, four Gold ...

, Sam Bottoms,

Albert Hall The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London. One of the UK's most treasured and distinctive buildings, it is held in trust for the nation and managed by a registered charity which receives no governm ...

, Frederic Forrest, and

Aurore Clément Aurore Clément (born 12 October 1945) is a French actress who has appeared in French and English language movies and television productions. Early life She was born Marie-Thérèse Aurore Louise Clément in Soissons. Following the death of her ...

were brought back to record ADR for the new scenes.

Music

New music was recreated and recorded for the remade film by

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

-based composer Ed Goldfarb, specifically the added tracks "Clean's Funeral" and "Love Theme".Ken Hughes, "Ed Goldfarb: Synthesizing the Apocalypse" (2001), ''Keyboard'', Vol. 27, No. 9, pp. 54-56, 58. Available at https://openmusiclibrary.org/article/959386. Article reprinted at https://edgoldfarbmusic.com/portfolio/apocalypse-now-redux. For example, it was thought no music had been composed for Willard and Roxanne's romantic interlude in the French Plantation scene. To make matters worse, composer

Carmine Coppola Carmine Valentino Coppola (; June 11, 1910 – April 26, 1991) was an American composer, flautist, pianist, and songwriter who contributed original music to ''The Godfather'', ''The Godfather Part II'', ''Apocalypse Now'', '' The Outsiders'', a ...

had died in 1991. However, the old recording and musical scores were checked and a track titled "Love Theme" was found. During scoring, Francis Coppola had told Carmine, his father, to write a theme for the scene before it was ultimately deleted. For the remake, the track was recorded by a group of

synthesist An analog (or analogue) synthesizer is a synthesizer that uses analog circuits and analog signals to generate sound electronically. The earliest analog synthesizers in the 1920s and 1930s, such as the Trautonium, were built with a variety of va ...

Cinematography

Vittorio Storaro Vittorio Storaro, A.S.C., A.I.C. (born 24 June 1940) is an Italian cinematographer widely recognized as one of the best and most influential in cinema history, for his work on numerous classic films including '' The Conformist,'' ''Apocalypse Now ...

also returned from Italy to head the development of a new color balance of the film and new scenes. When ''Redux'' was being released, Storaro learned that a

Technicolor Technicolor is a series of color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films running through a special ...

dye-transfer process Dye transfer is a continuous-tone color photographic printing process. It was used to print Technicolor films, as well as to produce paper colour prints used in advertising, or large transparencies for display. History The use of dye imbibition ...

was being brought back. The dye-transfer is a three-strip process that makes the color highly saturated and has consistent black tone. Storaro wished to use this on ''Redux'', but in order to do it, he needed to cut the original negative of ''Apocalypse Now'', leaving ''Apocalypse Now Redux'' the only version available. Storaro decided to do it, when convinced by Coppola that this version would be the one that would be remembered.

New scenes and alterations

The film contains several alterations, and two entirely new scenes. One of the new scenes has the boat meeting the Playmates once again, farther up the river; the other has them meet a family of holdout

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

colonists on their remote rubber plantation. There are also a few additional scenes with Colonel Kurtz.

Cast

Christian Marquand Christian Marquand (15 March 1927 – 22 November 2000) was a French actor, screenwriter and film director. Born in Marseille, he was born to a Spanish father and an Arab mother, and his sister was film director Nadine Trintignant. He was often ca ...

as Hubert de Marais *

as Roxanne Sarrault *

Roman Coppola Roman François Coppola (born April 22, 1965) is an American director, screenwriter, producer and the son of Francis Ford Coppola and Eleanor Coppola. For the 2012 film '' Moonrise Kingdom'', he and co-writer Wes Anderson were nominated for the ...

as Francis de Marais * Gian-Carlo Coppola as Gilles de Marais * Michel Pitton as Philippe de Marais * Franck Villard as Gaston de Marais * David Olivier as Christian de Marais * Chrystel Le Pelletier as Claudine * Robert Julian as The Tutor * Yvon Le Saux as Sgt. Le Fevre * Henri Sadardiel as French soldier #1 * Gilbert Renkens as French soldier #2

Reception

''Apocalypse Now Redux'' originally premiered at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. The screening marked the anniversary of the original ''Apocalypse Now'' screening as a work in progress, where it won the

Palme d'Or The Palme d'Or (; en, Golden Palm) is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festival's highest prize was the Grand Prix du Fe ...

. Coppola went to the festival, accompanied by Murch, Storaro, production designer Dean Tavoularis, producer Kim Aubry and actors Bottoms and Clément.

Box office

The film was given a

limited release __FORCETOC__ Limited theatrical release is a film distribution strategy of releasing a new film in a few theaters across a country, typically art house theaters in major metropolitan markets. Since 1994, a limited theatrical release in the Unit ...

in the U.S. on August 3, 2001, and was also released theatrically around the world in some countries, grossing in the United States and Canada, and in other territories, for a worldwide total of .

Critical response

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, the film holds a "Certified Fresh" 93% rating based on 84 reviews, with an average rating of 7.80/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "The additional footage slows down the movie somewhat (some say the new cut is inferior to the original), but ''Apocalypse Now Redux'' is still a great piece of cinema."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 92 out of 100 based on 39 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Some critics thought highly of the additions, such as

A. O. Scott Anthony Oliver Scott (born July 10, 1966) is an American journalist and cultural critic. He has been chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' since 2004, a title he shares with Manohla Dargis. Early life Scott was born on July 10, 1966 in ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', who wrote that it "grows richer and stranger with each viewing, and the restoration of scenes left in the cutting room two decades ago has only added to its sublimity." Some critics, however, thought the new scenes slowed the pacing and were too lengthy (notably the French plantation sequence) and added nothing overall to the film's impact.

Owen Gleiberman Owen Gleiberman (born February 24, 1959) is an American film critic who has been chief film critic for '' Variety'' magazine since May 2016, a title he shares with . Previously, Gleiberman wrote for ''Entertainment Weekly'' from 1990 until 2014 ...

wrote "''Apocalypse Now Redux'' is the meandering, indulgent art project that rancis Ford Coppolawas still enough of a craftsman, in 1979, to avoid." Despite this, other critics still gave it high ratings.

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

wrote: "Longer or shorter, redux or not, ''Apocalypse Now'' is one of the central events of my life as a filmgoer."

Accolades

Soundtrack

A soundtrack was released on July 31, 2001 by Nonesuch. The soundtrack contains most of the original tracks (remastered), as well as some for the new scenes ("Clean's Funeral", "Love Theme"). The score was composed by

Carmine Carmine ()also called cochineal (when it is extracted from the cochineal insect), cochineal extract, crimson lake, or carmine lake is a pigment of a bright- red color obtained from the aluminium complex derived from carminic acid. Specific code ...

and

(with some tracks co-composed by

Mickey Hart Mickey Hart (born Michael Steven Hartman, September 11, 1943) is an American percussionist. He is best known as one of the two drummers of the rock band Grateful Dead. He was a member of the Grateful Dead from September 1967 until February 19 ...

and Richard Hansen). The first track is an abridged version of The Doors' "The End". All songs written by

and

, except where noted: # " The End" –

The Doors The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential rock acts ...

# "The Delta" # "Dossier" # "Orange Light" # "

Ride of the Valkyries The "Ride of the Valkyries" (german: Walkürenritt Ritt der Walküren, links=no) refers to the beginning of act 3 of ''Die Walküre'', the second of the four operas constituting Richard Wagner's '' Der Ring des Nibelungen''. As a separate piec ...

" –

Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...

# " Suzie Q" (

Dale Hawkins Delmar Allen "Dale" Hawkins (August 22, 1936 – February 13, 2010) was a pioneer American rock singer, songwriter, and rhythm guitarist who was often called the architect of swamp rock boogie. Ronnie Hawkins was his cousin. Biography He b ...

) – Flash Cadillac # "Nung River",

# "Do Lung", Richard Hansen # "Letters From Home" # "Clean's Death", Mickey Hart # "Clean's Funeral" # "Love Theme" # "Chief's Death" # "Voyage" # "Chef's Head" # "Kurtz' Chorale" # "Finale"

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Apocalypse Now Redux Apocalypse Now 2001 films 2000s adventure drama films 2000s war drama films Alternative versions of films American adventure drama films American epic films American war drama films American Zoetrope films Anti-war films about the Vietnam War Films about assassinations Films based on works by Joseph Conrad Films directed by Francis Ford Coppola Films produced by Francis Ford Coppola Films set in 1969 Films set in Cambodia Films shot in the Philippines 2000s French-language films Khmer-language films Miramax films Films with screenplays by Francis Ford Coppola Films with screenplays by John Milius Films about United States Army Special Forces Films about the United States Navy Vietnam War films Vietnamese-language films War adventure films War epic films 2001 drama films Works based on Heart of Darkness 2000s English-language films 2000s American films