Every week at JOE, we’re going to showcase some of our favourite easygoing cinematic heroes or chill-out movie picks. This week, it’s the turn of Apocalypse Now.
When we think of easygoing icons, we don’t think of people lying on a couch and throwing grapes into their mouth for 120 minutes. For one thing, that would make for an appalling movie (even in 3D) and secondly, it’s far outside the parameters of JOE’s ideal movie heroes.
For us, we want movies to create immortal characters who personify the ultimate masculine quality – to let absolutely nothing faze you. Take the the fiery Lieutenant Bill Kilgore (Robert Duvall), he of the infamous “I love the smell of napalm in the morning line”.
He knows it’s risky to attack a heavily fortified position held by the Viet Cong, but dammit, it’s got excellent surfing conditions, so off he goes. And when all around him cower – quite justifiably – while the beach is barely secured, he’s too busy ordering his surfer crew to take the waves.
Or how about “Mr Clean”, the 17-year-old crewmember of protagonist Martin Sheen’s team send to find the AWOL General Kurtz (Marlon Brando)? The actor playing “Mr Clean” is actually an unrecognisable Laurence Fishburne, who was just 14 at the time of filming.
Should Fishburne have to told the truth and rendered himself unable to take the role due to his young age? Morally, yes, but thankfully he didn’t worry himself with such concerns.
Did Martin Sheen let a heart attack stop him from shooting the film? Of course not
Without doubt, the real easygoing star of Apocalypse Now is the actor playing the protagonist Captain Willard, a young Martin Sheen. As you may be aware, the shooting of the film is nearly as famous as the end product, as the film took an astonishing 3 years to shoot and inspired the lauded making-of documentary Heart of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse.
Of the incredible events that occured on that set, actors witnessed director Francis Ford Coppola threated to commit suicide multiple times, 230 hours worth of footage were eventually filmed and controversially, a water buffalo was slaughtered on film by a jungle tribe.
What else? Well how about the fact that the film’s opening scene, which depicts a drunken and defeated Sheen was actually performed by the actor when he was actually drunk? That mirror he punches? Real glass. In fact, the entire scene was entirely unscripted and Sheen attacked Coppola when filming was over.
To become a true iconic actor that is unfazed by simply nothing, we must mention the fact that while on location for the film, Sheen also suffered a heart attack and crawled a quarter of a help in search of help. Did he go home afterwards and quit the film for good? Of course not – he hadn’t yet completed what was to become the greatest war movie of all time.
For all these reasons and more, Apocalypse Now is a startling achievement, both on-screen and off. And it’s most memorable characters and actors made it all possible by refusing to let Viet Cong attacks, age restrictions and premature heart attacks get in their way.
For more cult films, check out the Jameson Cult Film Club.
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