Category: Marlon Brando

APOCALYPSE NOW

By Marc S. Sanders

Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam War masterpiece, Apocalypse Now from 1979, focuses on a madman assigned to find another madman and assassinate him.  I look at the film as a spiral into a dark, demented psychosis.  Each section of Coppola’s film appears like some variation of insanity within an environment and period of time where there was no end in sight for a war that was going out of control.

Captain Benjamin Willard (Martin Sheen) is first shown in a hotel room that he has ransacked during a drunken rage, going so far as to smash his fist into a mirror.  His voiceover explains the horrifying experiences he has already endured.  Now he is at a point where killing is all he is capable of performing. He is summoned to a General’s lunch where he is assigned to seek out a highly decorated Special Forces soldier named Colonel Walter Kurtz (Marlon Brando).  Kurtz has taken his squad over to Cambodia without authorization.  It is believed that he has gone insane with his will to harbor people over there into a cult that he controls while engaging in his own actions against the Vietcong.  The army needs this problem contained and Willard has been selected to terminate Kurtz.

Apocalypse Now is primarily about the journey, rather than its destination.  Willard is to be escorted by patrol boat up the Nang River to find Kurtz and complete his mission.  Along the way he will encounter a variety of scenarios and characters. 

The standout character is Lt Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall) the commander of a helicopter calvary battalion.  Willard meets up with Kilgore early on as he will provide an opening on the river for the long journey to begin.  This is the most memorable section of Coppola’s film.  Robert Duvall is truly maddening as he relishes in the destruction he commands.  Kilgore is amused to blare Wagner’s The Ride Of The Valkyries as his choppers blast the shore line where Vietnamese villagers and farmers reside.  Duvall almost seems god like during this sequence because he does not even flinch as explosions and armory are set off mere inches away from him.  He’s crazed enough to even send his troops out into the ocean to surf while the mayhem is still occurring.  When he takes off his shirt while proudly wearing his calvary hat, sunglasses and yellow scarf around his neck, he utters the famous line “I love the smell of Napalm in the morning.”  There is no hint of sarcasm in that line.  Kilgore truly means it.  The commands of war are his absolute pleasure.  The only human feeling that Kilgore shows is when his personalized surfboard turns up missing.  Otherwise, the carnage he leaves behind is a job well done.

Why do I focus on this sequence so much?  First, it is a perfect construction of filmmaking and acting combined.  Coppola’s clear daylight shots of the choppers advancing on the surf are an amazing sight to behold.  To have that much control of so many vehicles in the air so that a select number of cameras can take in the sequence amazes me.  It is feats like these that show why I love movies so much.  The moment is more enhanced with Wagner’s piece accompanying it.  This could all be appreciated as simple documentary style filmmaking.  However, when you combine the mayhem Coppola stages with the proud march of The Ride Of The Valkyries, and Duvall’s crazed glee of commanding this episode of mass destruction, you start to see a pretense.  The hypocrisy of all the elements contained in this sequence tells the story. This country and its people are being obliterated by a crazed individual arriving from the heavens above.  As the scene progresses, my mind returned to the overall plot of the film; the mission of the protagonist which is to kill a lunatic.  At this point in the picture, I have yet to meet Colonel Kurtz.  So, how much of a madman must Kurtz be when compared to a maniac like Kilgore?

Later sequences carry on the insanity theme.  A trio of Playboy playmates are brought in to entertain the troops during one of Willard’s stop overs.  Yet, the crowd of soldiers gets out of control and the entertainers are forced to flee by helicopter with some of the men grasping on to the chopper as it takes flight.  My thoughts were you must be insane to continue hanging on while it gets higher into the air.  Let go for heaven’s sake before you plummet to your death.  Nevertheless, these half naked women are the purest, most angelic thing that these boys have ever seen since being recruited into this hellish nightmare. 

Willard’s crewmen on the patrol boat seem too green with the impacts of war.  They are not as battle weary as Willard.  There’s a guy named Lance (Sam Bottoms) who seems happy go lucky to play the Rolling Stones.  There’s a chef by trade (Frederic Forrest) and a young kid who goes by the name of “Clean” (Laurence Fishburne).  Chief Phillips (Albert Hall) drives the boat.  Willard must keep his mission classified.  These men are only supposed to get him to his destination no matter how far up the river it takes them.  These soldiers are riding into the unknown, escorting a crazed fellow who knows that a positive outcome is not likely.  Coppola provides moments where the men lose control of their senses.  These boys don’t come as informed about what is right and wrong within the parameters of war.  Innocent lives are taken as the patrol boat continues its horrifying tour.  Their lives might be taken as well.  The question is what is the worse cost?  Death, or the horrors they encounter, act upon, and live with thereafter?

It’s notable to watch Frederic Forrest’s performance as he transitions into a mindset with no other option but to slaughter as he dons camouflage makeup later in the film.  Albert Hall’s performance lends some sensibility to the picture.  However, how does Chief Phillips’ receptivity measure up to the crazed obsession that Willard has for completing his assignment?  It’s all quite tragic as the film moves from one moment to the next.

As expected, the third act of the film focuses on Willard’s encounter with Kurtz.  Before all of this, we follow along as Willard reads through the extensive files of Kurtz’ history and career.  This man seems like a giant among giants and in 1979 it seems only befitting that a giant of an actor portrays the mysterious Colonel.  So, that actor had to be none other than Marlon Brando.  Oddly enough, this portion of the film is where the film starts to wear out for me.  Kurtz is insane in a quiet and dark way.  Coppola shoots much of Brando’s performance in darkness.  I’m aware of the purpose with that kind of filmmaking, but it is a long section of film to watch an actor move in and out of the light.  Brando comes off mysterious with lines of dialogue that make little sense at times.  Some allegories work as he describes Willard’s purpose as that of a clerk delivering groceries.  Yet, Kurtz seems the least crazed of all the crazies provided within Coppola’s film. 

A babbling, hippie photographic journalist (Dennis Hopper) greets Willard upon his arrival.  He’s talking in circles with envy for Kurtz, his leader, who resides within the tomb like structure along the banks of the river.  The natives also seem to heed towards Kurtz’ influence.  Willard is taken captive and tormented.  Still, when Kurtz speaks he doesn’t come off so kamikaze like the others we’ve seen before.  I can only presume there are levels to insanity.  Madness is not a well-defined ailment.  I find it ironic that Kurtz, the great soldier and decorated war hero, is deemed the greatest threat to the armed forces’ image within this conflict.  Kilgore, on the other hand, has free reign to slaughter helpless women, children, and farming communities all in the name of victory while commanding his underlings to surf along the coastline. 

What is so mystifying about Apocalypse Now is how thematic the movie seems to be.  It follows this common pattern demonstrating how crazed the effects of war can have on people.  The killing and bloodshed are the most apparent of course.  However, the military declares early on that there is a loose cannon within their ranks that must be contained.  The only option is to kill this man, who has done his bidding for the progress of its army for so long.  This man, Colonel Kurtz, has sacrificed promotions in ranking and a return to a quiet life with his wife and children, so that he can continue with carrying out the agendas administered by his government.  Yet somehow, he crosses a border, and he no longer kills the way his superiors want him to, and now he must be terminated.  The hypocrisy is to send a madman to do a madman’s bidding, as if that will preserve some sort of sanity within this out-of-control conflict.

I could not get away from that impression during the whole three-hour running time of the film.  Practically every caption, scene, expression, or scenario is rooted in madness.  Francis Ford Coppola wrote the script with John Milius and it’s been said that much of the filmmaking was done on the fly.  Still, with Coppola’s direction along with a strong cast, particularly from the quietly, reserved Martin Sheen, the message comes through clearly.  War begins with a difference in politics and a need for further control.  Pawns are the collateral damage used at will to settle the argument.  Rules of engagement may appear formally on paper.  However, is anyone with a gun in his hand or facing the end of a loaded barrel going to pause and consider what’s just and appropriate before taking action? 

Apocalypse Now speaks to an end of days where the soldiers sent to do the bidding of others respond by doing what they ask of themselves.  Therefore, I’ll end this piece on a vague note. 

There is no organized effort when it comes to war.

NOTE: This article is based on my viewing of Coppola’s third iteration of his film, entitled Apocalypse Now: The Final Cut.

SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE

By Marc S. Sanders

Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie is one of the best biographical films of a fictional character ever made.  Yes.  It absolutely is a biography.  How can you call it anything but?  The visitor from the planet Krypton is embedded so deeply within the lexicon of worldwide pop culture and historical significance that he rests within all of our subconsciousness.   When we think of ongoing problems in the world from natural disasters to destructive wars or famines and disease, or to even kittens stuck in trees, for a split second we all consider how simple we could go on with our lives if only Superman were here to rescue us. 

By 1978, forty years after Joel Siegel and Joe Shuster created the character, visual effects were at a more than adequate level to convince us that a man could fly. Thus, the man with the red cape was ready to appear on the big screen.  With creative input from writer Mario Puzo, Donner’s film goes through various stages of life from when the extra terrestrial is a new born baby, to a toddler, then a teenager and on to a thirty something adult.  While living on the planet Earth, his powers may make him virtually invincible, but he’s far from godlike.  He cannot prevent the unforgiving nature of death.  He can’t be everywhere all at once.  He can’t even perform on the same level as his colleagues or friends, who are skillfully beneath him.  It would be unfair to have Clark Kent on your football team.

To watch Superman is to see a mini-series over a span of nearly two and a half hours.  We begin on the white crystal planet of Krypton featuring one of the greatest actors of the twentieth century, Marlon Brando, cast as the father of the superhero to be.  Brando is Jor-El.  He serves the planet as a prosecutor and a political leader with an expertise in science.  He’s championed for his knowledge, but he’s also challenged by his peers when he is certain of his planet’s demise. Thus, he must release his newborn son, known as Kal-El, into the far reaches of space to survive.  The script here takes an almost Shakespearian approach in debates of facing inevitability.  Brando’s authoritative screen presence is perfect here. 

Kal-El moves on to Earth, particularly Smallville, Kansas, and the nature of the film changes personality.  1950s Americana becomes our main character’s environment with endless plains of crop fields and farm land as Kal-El becomes identified as Clark Kent, the teenager who develops a crush on the high school cheerleader and gets bullied in the process while he must deliberately withhold all that he’s capable of by influence from his adoptive parents (Glenn Ford and Phyllis Thaxter).  Life for any of us is never complete until we experience the death of a loved one and Donner showcases that here to demonstrate that Kal-El/Clark can not prevent what’s meant to happen when biologically our bodies shut down.  Not even a super man can save us. 

Clark reaches age 18, usually perceived by most as a turning point into adulthood and through a means of Krytonian process he’s educated until his thirtieth birthday upon the rules and boundaries he must function within while on Earth.  He learns of his ancestry and then Donner changes the setting of his film once again into the furthest extreme from quaint Smallville. 

We have transitioned to sprawling Metropolis where Clark works as a mild-mannered reporter at The Daily Planet.  Christopher Reeve plays Clark/Superman and there was no one who could have filled the role better.  Physically, Reeve is the example by which all super human character portrayals still look towards.  Yet, the Julliard trained actor performs the dual personality so well.  When he dons Clark’s glasses you feel as if you are looking at another actor from when he’s dressed in the blue and red costume of Superman.  His posture and voice inflections are so distant from each character he’s playing.  Christopher Reeve was a stellar actor of versatility. 

In Metropolis, we are also introduced to an impure villain, Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman, who never got enough praise for this role) focused on greed and individual power for him to consume at the expense of everyone else on Earth. 

As well, just as life must bring us towards the experience of loss, it also must introduce us to love in the form of Lois Lane. Margot Kidder does a magnificent job of the hustle and bustle career woman with a sense of romance and need for ongoing adventure.  A reporter’s life will only give you that some of the time.  Superman will let you live that every day.  In life, we all start with valuing one person in our lives beyond our immediate family, and Lois serves that purpose to Clark’s perspective. 

Donner takes advantage of comedy and slapstick when Metropolis comes into play.  It’s not as polished as Krypton.  Nor is it as calm and reserved as Smallville.  Again, the personality changes.  Reeve plays Clark as a persona of the inept and gullible newcomer nerd to hide his powerful alter ego.  Hackman’s Lex is accompanied by Ned Beatty as a bumbling sidekick to play off of. (This same actor was a frighteningly powerful and intimidating corporate CEO in Network just a few years prior!) Valerie Perrine holds her own against Hackman as Lex’ alluring dame to have a tete a tete of sarcasm with. Kidder is the leader of Metropolis’ populace always on the go so much that she’s not even aware of her insensitivity to poor Clark.  A great gag is that as a good as a reporter as she is, Lois has terrible skills in spelling.  (There’s only one p in ‘rapist’.)

Maybe you’ve never seen Superman from 1978, or maybe it’s been too long since you last took it in.  It remains a watch that’s worthwhile.  Donner’s film covers so much of this one individual’s life that also includes two separate ancestries.  I get hot and cold on biographical films, sometimes.  It’s a tough scale to measure.  Sometimes filmmakers don’t show you enough.  I thought the film Ray, ended too suddenly on its depiction of Ray Charles.  Sometimes, it’s an overabundance of material.  The Last Emperor and Chariots Of Fire seemed to never end, and became mired in long, drawn-out, sleep-inducing pieces of dialogue.  Superman allows just the right amount of time to live within these different parts of Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman’s life that you get familiar with who the main character encounters and how he responds to those around him. You also witness how these environments respond back to him.  You get a sense of what he stands for and where he feels insufficient and where feels strong and secure, as well as valued by others. 

It might be crazy to believe, but biographical writers and filmmakers should turn towards Richard Donner’s film for an outline that perfectly establishes every scene and moment that’s cut into its mold.  Superman: The Movie?  When I want to tell the life story of Golda Meir, or Barack Obama or Joseph Stalin or Jesus Christ?  Yes, Superman.  If we are crazy enough to follow the exploits of a man who wears a cape and flies through the sky, then why can’t we believe he can provide the answers to the great mysteries of life better than any of us?

THE GODFATHER

By Marc S. Sanders

Probably the greatest character story arc in all of film is of Al Pacino’s portrayal of Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather based upon Mario Puzo’s best-selling novel. (The film is a thousand times better than the book.)

Michael is the youngest of three sons intended for a legitimate life separate from his Mafia family. The masterful opening sequence of his sister’s lavish wedding show him courting his eventual wife, Kay (Diane Keaton), and never feeling proud of the actions of his notorious father, Vito (Marlon Brando), nor his brother Sonny (James Caan) or their consigliere, Tom (Robert Duvall). He’s an innocent war hero in uniform with an open mind of an untarnished future. It is only when bad blood circumstances are tested that he feels forced to strike with the same intent that the Corleone family is infamous for.

Coppola presents quiet, subtle moments of expression in Pacino on camera. You see the change in Michael sneak up on you and you see a character develop into something else entirely. What starts as a false impression to appear as if he’s carrying a gun in his pocket, soon after leads to murder, by means of nothing personal but “strictly business.” From there, he retreats and hides until he is blessed with carrying on an evil legacy.

Yes, the first chapter in the operatic trilogy of crime, is mostly known for a grandstanding performance by Marlon Brando but the story relies on Pacino as Michael. Michael Corleone at least must be one of Al Pacino’s greatest roles. He arguably has one of the most impressive resumes in all of film. Here is where it jump started.

The direction by Coppola is a film student’s required studying. With Puzo’s script, the best idea was to open the film with a wedding. As the film offers so many characters and much back story among all of the guests, the interaction and workings of the family are efficiently condensed into this 25 minute opening sequence. Don Vito meets with people needing favors while outside the home, the crew is dancing, doing their jobs and minding who is watching. By the end of this opening you have a full grasp of the family tree and who works for who and what their characters are like. Sonny is the hot head. Michael is the innocent. Fredo (the middle son played by John Cazale) is not doing much but being a cut up, Momma Corleone is the valued matriarch and Tom is the well managed advisor. You even get a glimpse of some “very scary guys,” some competing hoods, who’s cheating on who, and some people who need help with citizenship and film casting.

Art direction from Alex & Dean Tavoularis is magnificent, depicting a post WWII New York, and a historical Sicily stagnant in open plains, romance and murderous pasts.

The cinematography is better today than it was originally. Gordon Willis returned decades later to (for lack of better word) lighten up the picture. The interiors remain dark in secret and comfort, but the characters are more illuminated. The Blu Ray restoration is a fantastic return to the classic film and its two sequels.

The Godfather is endlessly quotable and never dull no matter how many times you watch it. Puzo’s screenplay plays like the biography of a real person and family, much like his adaptation for the screen of 1978’s Superman: The Movie. It is an American classic rich in a history we believe has been told and carrying on the tradition over the course of a 10-12 year period.

I return to praise Pacino to remind you how his appearance even changes as he gradually builds his strength and accepts his title of Don. I feel like I’m looking at two physically different people from the beginning in his Marine uniform with boyish looks, to his independent walkabout way during his Sicily retreat, to a more broad shouldered, slicked back hair, dark suit tailored appearance during the film’s third act. It’s an uncanny transformation that is built on performance and expert direction and writing from Coppola and Puzo. I still get chills as Michael in his college boy sports jacket volunteers himself to satisfy a family vengeance. Coppola zooms in on him slowly as he sits in a leather arm chair, arms at his side, legs folded. We are seeing a new man in charge for the first time. It’s chilling.

The Godfather is one of the greatest pictures that will ever be made. It’s a perfect chemistry of technical achievement, attentive storytelling and sensitive, yet powerful performances from probably the best cast ever assembled.

I’m amazed that I know of some friends who still have yet to see it.

The Godfather is the film that everyone should see before they die.