APOCALYPSE NOW redux (1979/2001; d. Francis Ford Coppola, w. FFC + John Milius)

I think war is a dangerous place.
George W Bush

Begins w/ "The End" (The Doors to Perception, film seeing self thru death experience to re-evolution in anti-2001), similarly upside-down Captain Willard (going stir-crazy in hotel room à la coffin; cf similar winding-camera perspective on Tobe Hooper’s CW Colonel Carlsen in Now-riposte Lifeforce]) regarding ceiling fan like ’copter blades (room/box transport; Tracks w/o the mindfuck ending, he also already i/t realm of metaphor) voiceovering his isolation (from wife/civilization [1 + same, this 2B – another – masculine apocalypse]) while awaiting mission (psychic agent 2B dispatched in service to soul; CIA assassin, target man/war itself), breaking mirror w/ hand (beyond looking-glass) + collapsing naked on floor (preparing for re/birth); escorted to General’s office (conscious HQ) + debriefed on quarry, Maj Walter E Kurtz (introduced via tape recording: gradual coming-into-being welling-up f/t Unconscious aka Cambodia; "exterminate the brutes" rant Warrior Man’s desire for self-immolation, he ultimate attractor calling Willard to duty), wanted for executing double agents (eliminating ambiguity/ambivalence, resulting in gorge btwn un/consciousness) + being worshiped à la King Kong (myth o/t White Man’s "native" superiority; jungle formerly freewheeling America’s realization of own irrational Heart) at end of Nung River ("that snaked thru the war like a main circuit cable," as thru man h’self: history of violent conflict, each apocalyptic War to End All; "plugged into Kurtz" à la song’s "ancient lake," journey à la Jonathan Harker’s to similarly removed + phantasmagorical Castle Dracula [whose 1st line "The warlike days were over"] + Rusty James’s away from violence to redemptive Rumble Fish mother [ntm w/d’s own quests to destroy/reshape obsolete old Hollywood]).

Intro shipmates (self divided into several constituents death-breakup of ego, structure owing to Citizen Kane) Chef (machinist/body from downunder New Orleans), surfer Lance Johnson (survivor/soul [only non-C initial], à la later kindred untouchable Col Kilgore; both 1st + last names double entendres, he board-hopping img of phallic proficiency) + young Mr Clean (w/ fellow AfricanAmerican navigator Chief [whose boat/body this is] the divided mind; last escort Spec Operative who blew his brains out); studies Kurtz’s dossier (mirror he broke in opening [again, dispersing Self] releasing Him into world/consciousness): groomed for top till ’64 break (year of Tonkin Resolution/war-escalation, K’s trajectory America’s own) + started going own way (war getting out of Officers’ hands – K becoming "Airborne"), Wil’s B-52 escorts/angels arriving 30 kilos ahead of schedule (harbingers of chaos, insanity pouring from K’s head into reality/vice versa) + directing them to middle of siege (cameo Coppola emphasizing reality slippage, his documentary "Don’t look at the camera!" keeping troops from questioning "roles") orchestrated by Kilgore (nuts name à la Jack D Ripper [entering Strangelovian irreality] film’s lunacy winking at self, they've gone so far beyond).

Copter arrives w/ Kilgore (daemon ex machina), who bonds w/ Lance (fellow surfers, his superior/removed attitude riding waves of ridiculousness all around in Fellini-in-hell pageant of horrors + absurdities) at night camp (travesty of contemporary Beach Party films, scenario later cfd to Disneyland: film theme-ride thru military-entertainment "complex"), next day airlifting boat to next destination (arrogance pulling ego thru, Wil noting Kg wd come out w/o scratch) to "Ride o/t Valkyries" (who conducted souls of slain heroes to Valhalla), where Wil steals his 'board/phallus during napalm raid (similarly stripping foliage) + crew bolts (pursued by Colonel: tape-loop voice in sky phoning-it-in God, they mischievous children hiding from Him in savage Eden); make way to PX (Hau Phat Transport/ation Co, where different kind of "transport" due via visiting PLAYBOY Bunnies; everywhere btwn Kilgore + Kurtz lacking commanding officers) in time for USO show (wmn arriving via copter gun-humpin’ cowboys+Indians dei ex machina to cf Kg’s entrance) cut short when men breach stage (animals overrunning circus, brutes Kurtz wants "incinerated" only inflamed by deprivations/depredations of his method).

Boat skims thru Torture Chamber of Dr Sadism phantasmagoria (heading into verboten Cambodia troubled sexual infraction reflecting dir’s contemporaneous adultery) to another disarrayed camp (unreachable by radio, after Wil reads of Kurtz’s similar disengagement from military: sleeping mind w/drawing beyond outside contact) where PLAYBOY copter docked + Wil procures services (living out mag-fantasy of availability [Miss May in chopper w/ bird unappreciated angel Chef remodels as centerfold while ignored mythbusting Miss Dec in barracks similarly disdained reality]) in xchg for gas (erotic diversion fuel itself; Chief declining + staying w/ boat mind reserving discipline), Clean’s disruption of "Lance" + Miss D disgorging nude corpse in trunk (mortifying sex + sexualizing death as psyche penetrates further into latter); back on board (episodes on land series of probes down mental errores - sidetracks), Lance camouflages face (disappearing into environment; characters’ actions while Wil reads Kurtz's dossier visualizing printed pages) as boat approaches sampan (junk boat; cf Transportation Co, both containing suspected contraband items of interest), Clean overreacting to investigating Chef’s overreaction to cautious Chief (uneasy replay of Kilgore’s "Valkyrie" raid, where wmn’s lobbed grenade sparks firefight) + opening fire on passenger’s rush on Chef (protecting puppy: valuable cargo on minor vessel w/i - new life - innocent "brute" nature), everyone dead but her (till Wil finishes off: severing sentiment/al ties to physical world).

Lance drops acid on approaching Do long Bridge (last Army [rational] outpost before Kurtz, Lance ego already crossing into hypnagogic state – putting self in proper frame of mind) bombed + rebuilt daily (à la Prometheus/Sisyphus, ie mind passing btwn un/consciousness), where crew receives mail (bridge conduit btwn states, allowing influx of new material from rational world), Willard’s informing him of previous, identical expedition (cf It! The Terror from Beyond Space, Attack o/t Crabsters, Planet o/t Vampires, Queen of Blood, et al: dream reiterating daylife + archetypes, + Vietnam [itself already fought by French] as monster movie) month before (he in hotel room egg released from ovary up fallopian river), Chef’s about Charlie Manson (1st name slang for VC: war coming home to ’States) + Clean getting cassette from ma (cf Kurtz tape: fem attraction homewd vs masc to danger/world) minutes before getting killed (1st such: crew losing "virginity" [he missing out on Bunnies]); come upon ruins of dock (area of psyche having little xchg w/ outside world anymore) where they hear French voices in mist (originators of conflict, ie nature of trauma), who welcome them in (plantation owner Hubert de Marais, last name à la star of thematic Cocteau Beauty + Beast) + bury Clean (Tyrone Miller: death defining us), during which Wil spies ethereal wmn on balcony (boy’s risen spirit).

At supper (communion of elusive, "lost" parts of self), Roxanne descends (as from heaven, everyone there white-dressed wraiths aka "spiritual" meaning of situation) + diners hold forth on history (now only "ghost" of reason for war/their presence) + America’s involvement ("Yesterday Korea, today Vietnam, tomorrow Thailand, Philippines, Europe?" insular unconscious’s wariness of intrusive consciousness + ego’s imperviousness to outside influence, rubber plants imported for plantation organic growth/change from w/i), each leaving in huff till Wil alone w/ Rox (mind filtering out noise to focus on redemptive heart), who has lost her husband (connection to physical world); takes him to bed (opium pipe substituting for wine he sez he doesn’t drink - à la Dracula 13 yrs later) + describes his divided nature ("animal + god," she Beauty to Kurtz-Beast [cut out à la Play-mates from original version, leaving film all-monster], she wisdom/objectivity gained from world-removal) as he touches her thru bedding veil (membrane btwn masc + fem selves he also contains, + uterus/caul around incubating man) + scene dissolves to white (clean slate on uniting w/ fem-egg [oedipal other man’s wmn aka mother] + conceiving new self).

Fog (à la veil, not-seen coition "piercing") shrouds boat during siege by ARROWS! (toys, Wil explains – Don’t shoot: mind descending to deeper level of unreality), by which Chief shot thru chest (real spear: even dream-simulacra can have impact), killing him (loss of last vestige of navigating dream-consciousness [boat spinning in stream of un-consciousness shades of Aguirre], leaving mistaken Wil unreliable leader; about point at which similarly guiding co-scrw Milius disappears + FFord Apocalypse takes over in major 2001 "stargate" riposte [Redux’s year of completion] reportedly based on former USC + Roger Corman cohort Jack Hill [who added key scenes to FFC’s maiden-voyage Dementia 13]’s student film "The Host"), after which Wil reveals mission (unconscious disgorging contents now consc'ss gone, Chief set adrift à la 2001 Poole) + Chef takes wheel (body at helm; dreamer "on automatic"); arrive at Kurtz compound (possible only after leaving rational guidance behind) heralded by ashen "natives" (vs African-American Chief + Clean, they inversion of traditional black-man-as-body/soul) + greeted by "American!" PhotoJournalist (Dennis Hopper, ohboy – welcoming them into same tropical mire own Last Movie ran into), who urges them not to judge K (as he h’self admonishes later – "judgment defeats us": not i/t realm o/t rational), Wil recognizing predecessor Colby in multitudes (earlier version of self, having denounced car/kids/wife – world).

Turned upside-down (film/life beginning again again), tossed in (primordial) mud + taken thru necropolis (outpost center of Orphic river-labyrinth, out of which one dies back into life [following Roxanne’s birth] awa Cretan maze at center of which resides Minotaur/ambiguous Self) to Kurtz (baldheaded Moon emerging from shadows + the phallus in eclipse; lumbering à la Xanadu Kane [Rosebud replaced by Kurtz’s anti-nostalgic "horror"] or white-god Kong + inspiration for redemptive ’82 Tarzan the Ape Man’s Ivory King), who tells him he once went down Wil’s Ohio river (W replaying flipside K experience: America’s heart/land rotted by VN) + stopped at plantation there ("heaven," of which W’s French is ruined similar, own setup hell), Wil telling him his methods not "unsound" – nonexistent (he embodiment of nation’s strategy, as in contemporary Iraq), which gets him locked in slammer (w/ harpy PhotoJournalist for company: time to contemplate comment - to see method in madness/psyche); Chef rouses on boat (pilot-light of consciousness in body-vehicle) to summon air strike (return Self to consc’ss; not effected), Kurtz stopping by Wil to deposit his head in lap (separation of mind + body deepest level of dream; cf horse’s-head Godfather [both the logic-destroying unconscious void à la Milius’s Conan Thulsa Doom + fellow USC mate George Lucas’'s Darth Vader], elided decapitation one of Hill’s infamous 13 additions [K bad-Roger who ordered shot]).

Kurtz opens door (as PhotoJournalist has said he’s "expanded my mind") to read TIME clippings on how well war going (reality’s alien version of Reality; Time irrelevant here) then frees Wil (as Truth will do; still not his final rebirth), carried to K’s + anointed (like newborn) while K reads "The Hollow Men" (poetic truth to cf state/corporate; as PJ harangues W on "dialectics", then exits "w/ a whimper" [mind’s 1st mvmt out of insanity]) + recounts his turning point facing savagery ("the genius!" seeing order of chaos) – acknowledging enemy unbeatable ("the will!" - evil inevitable + inseparable from human nature), his response removal from either side (immersion in ambiguous realm, he embodiment of trauma) + w/drawal into self (repressed into subconscious, where it’s made kingdom of own [wielding undue influence over personality, command over PJ distorting perception]); as natives prepare for ritual outside (mvmt in primal, pre-verbal psyche inspired by K’s revelations), W – back on boat (unanswered radio stirrings of reestablishing contact w/ outside world) – declares independence from army (potentially becoming K; acting not on dictates of rationality but doing K/irrational/necessity’s will) then rises camouflaged from river (communing with nature/instinct, as K also "took orders f/t jungle"; rebirth now re-evolution) to strains of "The End" (as at The Beginning: time starting over – another function of ritual).

Finds K dictating to cassette absurdities of commanders/morality (mundane atrocities on level w/ VC’s – kind that really make one crazy), his slaughter intercut (film editing serving ritual purpose as well, to connect realities awa epochs, + same function as condensing/associative unconscious) w/ bull sacrifice (transcending the physical at dream-nadir to prepare for re-embodiment); outside (reborn again), villagers drop weapons after Wil’s example (assassin putting down his arms fulfilling "mission" sent into psyche for, tho not one commanders had in mind [their object to quash independent will(ard), his to stanch abject violence]) + he leads gone-native Lance (phallus returned to original, primal function: to promote life; actor Sam Bottoms saved from catastrophe "brother" cd not in Last Picture Show climax at top of decade) to boat, where he shuts off radio (disconnecting from murderous HQ) + pushes off from shore (heading back upriver à la sperm cell anticipating conception [assumed reunion w/ wife-feminine self]), his img blending w/ enormous statue-head (becoming godhead; vs Copp’s career-making Godfather) + film fading to black (mind descending into dreamless sleep during which revelations filter down into unconscious soil to seed new growth; vs post-plantation fade to white) + sound of rain (grief, vs heroism - true response to "the horror").