He (Charlie) had only two ways home: death or victory.

That quote is really the best explanation of why invaders don't do so well. You just can't get that kind of dedication out of a visiting army. People have a whole different level of commitment when they're defending their home. In Apocolypse Now Redux they talk about this a bit in relation to the war in Vietnam. But I couldn't help thinking about our current situation in Iraq.

I'd never actually watched all of Apocalypse Now befoere. I'd seen bits and pieces, but not from start to finish. I didn't really do that this time. The Redux version is so long (3 hours, 20 minutes) and dark I didn't really have the heart ot watch it all at once. Instead I did it in parts all week.

My favorite part about this war movie is it's a journey (literatively and figuratively.) It helps that it's based on a literary classic (I'm even tempted to reread Heart of Darkness now.) The journey is such a great way to expose character development, especially in film. It's easy to have the new environments the characters travel to parallel their development (this is also used extensively in one of my favorite books: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintennance.) The Redux version does tend to drag a bit, especially around the scenes with the French, but overall this is a masterpiece that really needs to be watched.

It's also fun to watch some actors we know well in much younger roles. Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Laurence Fishburn, and Dennis Hopper. IMDB tells me Harrison Ford was in it too, but I missed him. The strangest for me was Martin Sheen, both because I see him a lot on The West Wing these days and Charlie Sheen looks a whole lot like his dad did when he was younger.

The difference in feel between the early scenes (the helicopter calvarly attack) and later scenes (around Kurtz) are shocking - and truly a masterpiece of film.

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