However, Coppola also paid a price. The US government blocked the release of the film by various means until Coppola agreed to cut a considerable part of the material. Nevertheless, the 153-minute version released in 1979 is already a masterpiece. Even so, among many "believers" who are obsessed with the film, this book of Revelation is incomplete, and they have been calling on Coppola to give them complete enlightenment. So in 2001, this sensitive node in American history, Coppola re-edited and produced a 196-minute 2001 replay version, which was 43 minutes more supplementary shots than the original version. After glancing at these shots, we can watch It shows the changes that have taken place in American society and politics in the past 21 years.
one. The Song of the Mekong
Margaret Duras often emphasizes nostalgia in her novels and movies: these descendants of Gauls grew up drinking the milk of the Mekong, but were abandoned by Asia and Europa and became memories. As my only hometown. A large part of the content added to the 2001 edition of "Apocalypse Now" is the description of the descendants of these French colonists who clung to their "land".
The original work of the film, Conrad's "Dark Heart", did not emphasize this issue, because the background of the "Dark Heart" story is the tropical African hinterland overgrown with rainforest. The white people did not try to domesticate this land by the government. It is merely plundering ivory resources. However, "Apocalypse Now" did not simply portray the white colonists. While exposing the essence of American aggression, it also raised this embarrassing question: How do we colonists who have indeed developed the land in the advanced Western methods?
Among the supplementary clips, a large part of the content is about these French colonists. These colonists, like the mysterious Viet Cong members, all appeared in the fog. And the next dialogue scene can actually be regarded as a very good commentary for the film. During the dialogue, the Frenchman stated his reasons for sticking to it for two reasons. One is that this manor was cultivated by his ancestors, and his home is this manor. The second is to maintain the dignity of "France". At the same time, he directly exposed the lie of the American Vietnam War to Colonel Willard: The Viet Cong was supported by the United States from the beginning, and the Americans did not have a home here, and the American war was unreasonable. Another thing hidden behind this message is the irony of the spirit of the "1968 Left". The French said a paragraph: The French army in the bloody battle in Dien Bien Phu opened the grenade, and what fell was a note: Make peace. , Don't war. In the entire dialogue, the film used a lot of pros and cons to tell us that Villad did not listen to the French rumors seriously, but went with the French widows. Sure enough, the next one was an existentialist coloring. Passion play. Under the stimulus of marijuana commonly used by hippies, Willard had a relationship with the French widow. In the process, the French widow uttered a line that could almost be called an existential manifesto: "You are still alive, Captain."
From this passage, we can see that "Apocalypse Now" and his original text "Dark Heart" are still different in terms of content. If "Dark Heart" is a pungent mockery of colonialism , Then "Apocalypse Now" obviously focuses more on exposing the lie of capitalist logic: the government's deception of the people. Therefore, "Apocalypse Now", strictly speaking, is not an anti-war movie, but a war against the Vietnam War, which is not known for what it is fighting for. You know, Coppola once participated in the screenwriting of the famous American war movie "General Patton".
It should be said that this paragraph in 1979 can be said to be not very timely, because at that time France and the whole of Europe were an era when center-leftists were in power. Although the radicals failed in 1969, the steadily reforming Socialist Party or Labor Party succeeded in governing and launched a series of reforms. Class contradictions in Europe have been eased to a certain extent, Europe has moved towards unity, and its colonial policy has also tended to be enlightened.
So, from the perspective of the international environment, this paragraph is obviously not pleasing to European audiences, especially politicians on the left. On the other hand, for domestic purposes, his satirical comparison was too excessive, so in the 1979 release version, this paragraph was deleted.
two. Ten minutes of feminist veterans to
look at the feminist movement in the 20th century, the Vietnam War can be regarded as a dividing line. Before the Vietnam War, the feminist movement was concentrated in the political and cultural fields. Objectively speaking, as women became more and more involved in politics, overall feminism was still a trend of development. The sexual liberation movement that started in the Vietnam War tried to liberate women physically: female college students chanted: "Make love, don't war", and the pros and cons of this vigorous sexual liberation movement in the United States today are still very different. It's a big controversy, but Jenny in "Forrest Gump" provides us with a biased sample of women: she is devastated and is suffering from AIDS.
In the deleted fragment in "Apocalypse Now", there is also such a ten-minute paragraph reflecting on the feminist movement: Willard and the others encountered the downed "labor girl" plane. Willard gave the team a chance to have a spring night with the two labor girls at the cost of a few boxes of fuel. The incomparable new wave style in which this piece of skin and flesh trade was edited: Two pairs of heroes and heroines are talking to themselves. Sex is painful and desperate, not only attacked by birds, but also impatiently urged by comrades outside the window. From the narration of the girls in the film, we find that these girls who are regarded as angels by American soldiers are nothing more than ordinary American girls. Coppola used a commodity-like lens to photograph these girls: the "Playboy" trademark and the dull mirror image of the girl who tamed circus animals. All this implies a materialized theme: in Vietnam, these American sweethearts are consumed as consumer goods. And this American soldier who wrote like a wolf could not distinguish the symbol of "May girl" and "December girl". For them, these girls are just like Marilyn Monroe or Lily Marilyn. It's just a symbol of desire. It seems that men are longing for these girls, but in fact, men are only for the satisfaction of their desires-this verifies the failure of feminism on a certain level: in an environment of sexual liberation with no rules at all, it has lost the protection of traditional family values. Women will be traumatized to a greater degree, and they will be used by the state apparatus as a tool for venting to maintain social order and dissolve the impulses of the lower classes.
In 1979, sexual liberation, the biggest disaster released by Pandora's Box-AIDS, has not yet fully revealed. After the intense AIDS panic in the 1980s and 1990s, the United States in the new century began to look at the relationship between the sexual liberation movement and feminism more dialectically. Until this time, the proposition that Coppola put forward twenty years ago is still not out of date.
three. Fahrenheit 1967
When the remake of the film was re-released in the United States on August 3, 2001, just a month later, smoke billowed from the towering twin towers in New York, and all American television stations were repeatedly broadcasting the backs of people running in panic. , The horrified greetings on the phone, and the panicked expressions of politicians-September 11 broke the eternal dream of neoliberal America. Coupled with the government's hardline attitude towards terrorism, Hollywood and other American value machines have also begun to adjust their propaganda calibre, filming "Independence Day" and other films, making US President Bush the leader of the global fight against aliens. When the media people calmed down, they suddenly realized that many of their freedoms had been banned in the name of patriotism. A not-so-sophisticated film "Fahrenheit September 11" began to try to expose the truth: the source of the so-called terrorism, like the source of the Vietnam War, is a product of capitalist greed.
And "Apocalypse Now", which was reproduced a month ago, is like an accurate prediction, adding a segment of the dialogue between Koz and Willard. Koz took the newspaper and showed it to Willard. Although the Vietnam War had reached a stalemate at the time, the mainstream media in the United States stated that the situation in the Vietnam War was excellent and that the victory of the United States was just around the corner. This is in sharp contrast with the American soldiers moldy in the Vietnamese rainforest shown in the film, forming a sense of absurdity and expressing Coppola's irony of the United States, which advertises "freedom of the press." And this kind of irony seemed dazzling at the time, but in the context of September 11, 2001, it seemed particularly prescient. National security and media freedom have become an important proposition in the American media industry in the post-September 11 era. In the recent popular American drama "News Room", for the sake of freedom of the press, journalists have to maintain professional ethics between business and politics.
From a simple comparison of the two editions of Apocalypse Now, we can probably find that American liberalism still has various problems, but overall it is still moving forward. Although the United States does not have such a domestic film censorship system that emphasizes ideology, the commercial culture under the studio system no longer restricts the expression of American film values at all times. Especially in the ten years into the new century, with the development of high technology promoted by high capital, few filmmakers are willing to invest in a Kubrick-style anti-system film. Martin Scorsese made a film of "The Kingdom of Heaven" in 2005. The difference in this film is that he did not demonize Islamic civilization. On the contrary, this film shows the internal disputes and borrowings of the Crusaders in the Middle Ages. The essence of the war of aggression in the name of religion. Therefore, the film underwent major revisions when it was released. The overall artistic level was very different from the director's cut version, and the final box office was dismal. But at the same time, this is also an era in which the media has developed and Internet terminals have emerged. We have reason to believe that film and television creators in the new era will find suitable channels to continue the careers of Oliver Stone and Coppola, and bring truth to life. The way is passed on, and it is endless.
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