Apocalypse Now - The Complete Dossier (Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition) | 
 enlarge | Actor: Apocalyspe Now
Studio: Paramount
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  689 reviews
Sales Rank: 711
Format: Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), Vietnamese (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Number Of Items: 2
Running Time: 355
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.6
MPN: D070684D
UPC: 097360706840
EAN: 0097360706840
ASIN: B000FSME1A
Theatrical Release Date: August 15, 1979
Release Date: August 15, 2006
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Shipping: International shipping available
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Amazon.com essential video
In the tradition of such obsessively driven directors as Erich von Stroheim and Werner Herzog, Francis Ford Coppola approached the production of Apocalypse Now as if it were his own epic mission into the heart of darkness. On location in the storm-ravaged Philippines, he quite literally went mad as the project threatened to devour him in a vortex of creative despair, but from this insanity came one of the greatest films ever made. It began as a John Milius screenplay, transposing Joseph Conrad's classic story "Heart of Darkness" into the horrors of the Vietnam War, following a battle-weary Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) on a secret upriver mission to find and execute the renegade Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who has reverted to a state of murderous and mystical insanity. The journey is fraught with danger involving wartime action on epic and intimate scales. One measure of the film's awesome visceral impact is the number of sequences, images, and lines of dialogue that have literally burned themselves into our cinematic consciousness, from the Wagnerian strike of helicopter gunships on a Vietnamese village to the brutal murder of stowaways on a peasant sampan and the unflinching fearlessness of the surfing warrior Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall), who speaks lovingly of "the smell of napalm in the morning." Like Herzog's Aguirre: The Wrath of God, this film is the product of genius cast into a pit of hell and emerging, phoenix-like, in triumph. Coppola's obsession (effectively detailed in the riveting documentary Hearts of Darkness, directed by Coppola's wife, Eleanor) informs every scene and every frame, and the result is a film for the ages. --Jeff Shannon
Amazon.com
I love the smell of a collector's edition in the morning. Everyone's favorite Joseph Conrad adaptation gets the fancy packaging and extras treatment with this release of Apocalypse Now - The Complete Dossier. Both the original theatrical cut and the 2001 Redux version are included, with enough extras to keep one occupied on a long boat trip. Calling this the "complete" dossier is sure to raise hackles among fans who insist that Eleanor Coppola's lauded documentary, Hearts of Darkness, which chronicled husband Francis's harrowing experience making the film, should have been included. (As of this review, Hearts of Darkness has yet to be released on DVD, so battered VHS copies will have to suffice.) Packaged in a cardboard "dossier" sleeve, the two-disc set includes Marlon Brando reading T.S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men," new production featurettes, and cast member interviews. Owners of previous editions of either of the cuts might consider how much they want all the officially sanctioned information on this edition. For newcomers to the Vietnam epic, this is an edition worth going crazy for. --Ryan Boudinot Apocalypse Now
In the tradition of such obsessively driven directors as Erich von Stroheim and Werner Herzog, Francis Ford Coppola approached the production of Apocalypse Now as if it were his own epic mission into the heart of darkness. On location in the storm-ravaged Philippines, he quite literally went mad as the project threatened to devour him in a vortex of creative despair, but from this insanity came one of the greatest films ever made. It began as a John Milius screenplay, transposing Joseph Conrad's classic story "Heart of Darkness" into the horrors of the Vietnam War, following a battle-weary Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) on a secret upriver mission to find and execute the renegade Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who has reverted to a state of murderous and mystical insanity. The journey is fraught with danger involving wartime action on epic and intimate scales. One measure of the film's awesome visceral impact is the number of sequences, images, and lines of dialogue that have literally burned themselves into our cinematic consciousness, from the Wagnerian strike of helicopter gunships on a Vietnamese village to the brutal murder of stowaways on a peasant sampan and the unflinching fearlessness of the surfing warrior Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall), who speaks lovingly of "the smell of napalm in the morning." Like Herzog's Aguirre: The Wrath of God, this film is the product of genius cast into a pit of hell and emerging, phoenix-like, in triumph. Coppola's obsession (effectively detailed in the riveting documentary Hearts of Darkness, directed by Coppola's wife, Eleanor) informs every scene and every frame, and the result is a film for the ages. --Jeff Shannon Apocalypse Now Redux
Digitally remastered with 49 minutes of previously unseen footage, Apocalypse Now Redux is the reference standard of Francis Coppola's 1979 epic. A metaphorical hallucination of the Vietnam War, the film was reconstructed by Coppola and editor Walter Murch to enrich themes and clarify the ending. On that basis Redux is a qualified success, more coherent than the original while inviting the same accusations of directorial excess. The restored "French plantation" sequence adds ghostly resonance to the war's absurdity, and Willard's theft of Colonel Kurtz's beloved surfboard adds welcomed humor to the film's nightmarish upriver journey. An encounter with Playboy Playmates seems superfluous compared to the enhanced interplay between Willard and his ill-fated boat crew, but compensation arrives in the hellish Kurtz compound, where Willard's mission--and the performances of Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando--reach even greater heights of insanity, thus validating Redux as the rightful heir to Coppola's triumphantly rampant ambition. --Jeff Shannon
Description
Nominated for 8 Academy Awards, this classic and compelling Vietnam War epic stars Martin Sheen as Captain Willard, who is sent on a dangerous and mesmerizing odyssey into Cambodia to assassinate a renegade American Colonel named Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who has succumbed to the horrors of war and barricaded himself in a remote outpost. Also stars Robert Duvall, Laurence Fishburne, Dennis Hopper and Harrison Ford.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 495 more reviews...
 Love this movie May 8, 2008
This is one of the best movies I've ever seen. When it first came out my parents wouldn't watch it. Though when I became an adult I had to see this movie and thought it was excelent. THe acting and casting in this movie was spot on. This is one of the best movies of all time in my mind.
Redux-An Overall Improvement On The Original Cut & DVD April 23, 2008
Whenever filmbuffs compile a list of the best films of the Vietnam era, Apocalypse Now usually ends up between the 1 and 5 placing. Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece, based on the book Heart Of Darkness (even though the book actually doesn't take place in Vietnam, but West Africa), is a startling story of an Army Captain (Martin Sheen) on a secret mission to "relieve" an AWOL Colonel (Marlon Brando) who has gone powerhungry and mad deep within the jungle of Cambodia, all awhile traveling up the Mekong River with four crewmen, encountering shellshocked soliders and the horrors of the War all around.
However, behind the scenes of making this film was a horror all of it's own. Budget problems, cast becoming as insane as their characters, and Coppola, well, trying to "cope" with it all. Still, for it's time of 1979, the film turned out to be an amazing visual as well as audio expierence (it's actually the first film to be premiered in the then new 5.1 audio sound). But in 2001, Coppola decided to re-edit his film to include more than 49 minutes originally edited out due to time & plot pacing reasons. Thus "Apocalypse Now Redux" was born.
This was the first time I've seen Redux, having seen the original 153 minute numerous times, but at a now whopping 202 minutes the film didn't seem to drag or be filled with unneccesary filler. The new scenes, most notably the encounter with the French family and their rubber plantation still standing tall within the war-torn area, was a plot point understandably cutable, but now gives more insight to the views of the American involvement there. All the newly added footage blended perfectly with the original, and makes Redux worthy of any upgrade.
On to the "Dossier" release itself, it's mighty impressive. Packaged in an classified envelope with a beautifully decorated Digipak inside that holds the two disc set firmly, Dossier also gives you fully remastered versions of both films, but be warned, they have spread the presentation on two discs meaning halfway through either version you are going to have to change discs. Special features are plentiful with hours of footage showing behind the scenes of the making of the film as well as interviews with most of it's stars (minus strangely Martin Sheen & predictably Brando). However, to give this release the title "Complete Dossier" is somewhat misleading because the 1991 documentary "Heart Of Darkness" which truly showed the complete process of the film from start to finish was not included in this set. This is a major ommision, somewhat making the hours of doc's given on it sort of lackluster compared to what it would be with a third disc included with "Heart" on it. Coppola does give an excellent insightful commentary here (for both versions), so it's not a total loss.
But does the movie stand the test of time? In my opinion, mostly. After fifteen or so years of Hollywood cheating special effects with CGI, the once amazingly impressive scenes of the beach attack ending with the Napalm bombing, while still visually stunning, now seems commonplace in action film. But younger generations should understand that that scene is actually happening, those are real helicopters in the air and those explosions are really burning, not something most of today's CGI-fests can boast. Another somewhat dated aspect of the film is it's soundtrack score. While the percussion tracks are fitting, the keyboard/Moog based ones seem out-of-place and extremely dated. And an odd choice due to not being a part of the late 60's (it was the mid-70's where it rose in popularity), and today just sounds, well, cheesy. However, it's title track "The End" by The Doors is a monumental addition, truly showing the landscape culture of the times (also bonus points for the original vulgar lyrics version that at the time hadn't been heard by most of the public). But these aside, the film is a great, yet strangely different view on the Vietnam war that movies like say Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, and even Forrest Gump don't show. It's really in a league of it's own in that sense.
Overall, there's really no Vietnam-era movie quite like it. Though at times it reaches levels of almost black-humor (a surfer-obsessed Lt. Colonel, a decorated solider suddenly becomes a God, and Dennis Hopper as an over-the-top photographer), it still remains as one of most pivotal cinematic points of the 1970's. Even if your not a fan of wartime films, everyone should see this to know just how hard it used to be to show the genre as realistic as possible.
 Messed Up Version of the Original April 18, 2008
This movie ought to go down in history as a perfect example of a "director's cut" that should have stayed on the cutting room floor. The original film is a masterpiece. This is a mess. I would recommend this movie ONLY to film students-- in order to learn how you can take the same footage and turn it into a masterpiece, or a mediocrity
The basic problem with "Redux" is that it just moves too far into "surrealism." The original film was surreal, but, hey, to any G.I. in Vietnam, everyday reality was "surreal." But this version of the same film adds a bunch of very, very surreal stuff that completely destroys any suspension of disbelief.
It's like Coppola lost a bet and had to "ruin his movie" to pay up. What a mess! Reading some of the reviews here reminded me just how bad this is. The whole thing about the missing surf board? Goofy. The Playboy models as prostitutes? Silly and salacious. It takes the best part of the whole "Playboy" idea and destroys it-- the fact that there is no actual sex but plenty of commercial "Sex." Well folks, now there is actual sex-- not healthy, maybe, but there it is in full color. Dumb.
Then there is a visit with some French "settlers" who provide us with some completely inappropriate whining about losing some prime real estate in Southeast Asia. Cry me a river!
I could go on and on about the flaws-- what a waste of fine film. The original "Apocalypse Now" is a five-star landmark in the history of film. This ought to be made into a permanent memorial of what NOT to do.
a great 2 for 1 deal March 15, 2008
I think the original version of Apocalypse Now is vastly superior to the needlessly long Redux, although the additional scenes of the latter (the French plantation, Playboy bunnies, Willard stealing the surfboard) are interesting in and of themselves. So now we can have both, in a single, bargain-priced and handsomely packaged edition. As with most DVDs, the bonus deleted scenes are pretty much a waste of time, although they do help a person understand the choices Coppola made in editing, and in that sense, it really drives home the magnitude of his achievement in creating the original masterpiece. I don't like that the movie is broken into two parts; why couldn't they have put the original on one disc, and Redux on the other? But then again, in a long movie most people have to take a bathroom break at some point anyway, and the sampan massacre is an appropriately dramatic scene with which to end part one. All told, The Apocalypse Now Complete Dossier 2-disc special edition is well worth buying.
Still magnificent! March 9, 2008
The movie stands up wonderfully -- indeed, it is even better than I remembered. Watching it brought the whole miserable Viet Nam experience back to life. Performances are super -- not just Marlon, either. It's a hoot to see Harrison Ford in a bit part, and Martin Sheen's character surely provides rich back-story for Jed Bartlett, rather the way John Wayne's previous roles made True Grit so persuasive.
Just one reservation: the Redux version is slower, due to self-indulgent editing, and less effective than the original.
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