The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

Apocalypse Now
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much. I wanted to proselytize it to him. I remember sitting there, before it
began. I do remember them running the porn trailers for what was going to
be on in the following weeks. I was so embarrassed. [laughs] But then the
film began and all was forgiven and forgotten.
And was your dad a World War II vet?
Boyle: He was.
And what was his reaction?
Boyle: I don’t think he saw it in the way that I saw it. I think it’s a really different
depiction of war. It is about modern pop culture as much as it is about
war and that first excitement and visceral stimulation. It’s as much about
that as it is actually about war. So he would personally find Saving Private
Ryan a more appropriate picture of war, I think.
Whereas for us, that’s why Apocalypse Now is so extraordinary, really.
It’s our war. The war we fight now, which is a battle between ourselves—in
ourselves, between stimulation and yet somehow feeling morally you must
condemn it.
Is there a particular scene or sequence that’s remained powerful for you?
Boyle: Well, I suppose, for any director, it’s got to be “Ride of the Valkyries.”
Because it’s too well known in a way; it’s not the subtle one you should
really point out. For me, it’s a great washing machine scene. I call it a
washing machine because he just throws all these ingredients into it: the
savagery of what the Americans did, American culture, the surfing.
The Vietcong are holding a beachhead, and U.S. air cavalry raid it with
dozens of helicopters. Robert Duvall commands the unit and plays this
Wagner music to intimidate the Vietcong—which is an extraordinary idea,
this fascist German composer being blasted out at the Vietcong as these
twentieth-century machines ride in with destruction.
Duvall does take the beach, and he takes the beach partly because it’s
military imperative, but principally because on this beachhead the surf is
really good and he loves to see his boys surf. Everybody is suddenly on
the ground in the middle of the washing machine rather than protected
by these swooping insects of destruction. Suddenly, when they are actually