Question for DU Vietnam vets re: Apocalypse Now

OK, so I'm teaching *Apocalypse Now* very soon. I was still in elementary school when the war ended and have no personal experience of it. I know how I feel about the film, and I hope to find out how they feel about it; what I would be interested to know is how people who had actually served in the war feel about it--either when it first came out, or now.

If you were going to teach this movie to a bunch of students who not only do not remember the war but have only vague memories of the Reagan years, what would you want to tell them? What would you want them to get out of it, or question about it, or learn from it?

Thanks in advance,

The Plaid Adder

I'm not a vet, but could you be a litle more specific about what you are teaching, and how you are using the film?

It's certainly not the best film to portray Vietnam, considering that it was an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (first published in 1899, and set in the Belgian Congo).

The film also (in my opinion) was made too soon after the war to have any sort of realistic perspective on it.

See previous post

A lot of Vietnam vets might well say that "Apocalyse Now" and "The Deer Hunter" equate with "no personal experience of it". That is, disparate vignettes ring true (relationships), separate and apart from the whole of it/them.

But too bad for us Patric stewart thought it was too dark.

In the original script Picard would be forced to kill off Data to save abunch of ppl, only to realize that it wasnt nessecery

You'll be interested to know that the scholarly adviser to Apocalypse Now was none other than Michael Herr, author of "Dispatches," the classic grunt's-eye view of the war... which bears more than a little resemblance to the finished film. You should definitely pick up that book, if you have not already (we did it together with Apocalypse Now when I went to college in the '80s).

maybe not as realistically as some recall but still a useful film to teach about the Viet Nam War, in my opinion. The Deer Hunter would be an excellent contrast because the characters are more real and the tragedy and suffering is more real. From my own experiences, I could identify with the characters in Deer Hunter more than any other Viet War movie...

Congratulations!

That might help them with the basic structure of "Apocalypse Now."

eom

...it's a great movie, although not very realistic. I didn't serve in the delta, so I can't comment on the realism of the scenes going up the river, or the 7th Cavalry's (Robert Duvall) attack on the village, but the overall premise of the movie had nothing to do with Viet Nam. As others have stated, it was based on a book written in 1898.(There's a TV movie actually based on the book called Heart of Darkness made in 1994 and staring Tim Roth & John Malkovich)


The Deer Hunter wasn't any more realistic, I really didn't care for the movie, but the scene at the end of the movie completely redeemed it for me. When the surviving friends, a bunch of working class, blue collar Americans, gather to have breakfast after the funeral of their friend, and they just spontaneously start singing "God Bless America", while weeping and mourning thier friend broke my heart. These are my people, who I grew up with, and what I was, and propably still am. It's the average joe like this whose very real, and deep love for their country gets exploited by cynical, calculating bastards like Cheney & Bush for their own private gain.

The most realistic movie made about Viet Nam has been We were soldiers once Based on a true story, some of the combat scenes were realistic enough to scare me into drinking heavy that night.( I don't dream when I drink heavy) The comments of the North Vietnamese commander at the end were chilling, and prophetic.

...and knew quite a few people that had either volunteered or were drafted to fight in Vietnam. I later enlisted in the service in 1976 following college, was picked up for officer candidate school and served as a Naval Gunfire Liaison Officer from 1979-1981 with the Marines at Camp Pendleton, CA.

I was very fortunate to have gotten a chance to talk with a wide range of Marine vets, enlisted men as well as officers, about their experiences in Vietnam. About the best thing to be said about Apocolypse Now is that it portrayed the sheer insanity of the war from the napalm-loving officer to the the CIA op to kill a renegade American. As is true of any Vietnam-era film, there are things you can take to heart and things you can discard.

Here's a list of Vietnam-era films that you may also want to review in terms of how each may relate to the contents of Apocolypse Now. They each have their pluses and minuses:

--Green Berets-1968: very pro-U.S. involvement...basically an Army "recruiting" film

--Deer Hunter-1978: worked for a guy from that area of Pennsylvania that told me that the depictions of the characters were very good. The Russian roulette scenes were pure fanatasy but typified how the grunts felt about Vietnam..."it was a crap shoot"

--Coming Home-1978: the return of a permanently disabled vet and how he and the people around him adjust

--Platoon-1986: dopers versus drinkers & the insanity of Vietnam itself

--Full Metal Jacket-1987: strange film...almost two in one with the boot camp scenes and then the scenes of the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam

--Hamburger Hill-1987: knew a guy that had been in the battle...just as awful and as frustrating as shown in the film

--Good Morning, Vietnam-1987: the insane Robin Williams showing us how insane Vietnam really was

--Dear America: Letters from Vietnam-1988: documentary...very moving

--Born on the Fourth of July-1989: climbing inside the head of another permanently disabled vet who questions why he survived to live in a day-to-day hell and that leads to questioning the war itself

--We Were Soldiers Once-2002: excellent film about the early days and military philosophies of both the U. S. troops and the North Vietnamese regulars. Factually-challenged on some of the details but an overall accurate portrayal...especially the part about the delivery of the telgrams notifying the next-of-kin.