The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

Apocalypse Now
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Boyle: The film’s use of voiceover, along with Goodfellas, is probably the
greatest use of voiceover I’ve ever experienced. Because voiceover is normally
criminal in a film, in a way, because it actually robs you of what you’re
meant to do. You’re meant to be experiencing a visual journey. But it’s so
perfect, “Never get out of the boat, absolutely goddamn right.”
It’s the greatest use of voiceover.
I wanted to take a moment to step back and talk a little bit about the
history. The film was originally called The Psychedelic Soldier and written
by John Milius for George Lucas to direct.
Boyle: Really?
Yes. Lucas abandoned it to go off and do Star Wars.
Boyle: Yeah, in the [Peter] Biskind book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Lucas is
a bit pissed off about that. [laughs] If George actually ended up directing it,
what would have happened?
It is the peak and the end of directors’ cinema, without a doubt. All that
flush of it that was the ’70s. That’s an obvious thing to say and it’s so true
because Star Wars introduced producer cinema. That’s a role that George
obviously took upon himself.
I was about to say that Apocalypse is the opposite of product, but it’s
not; that’s what’s extraordinary about it. It is product and it’s the opposite
of product as well, because it is unclassifiable. It is about delivering certain
feelings to the audience just as certainly as George was delivering them in
Star Wars. And yet, it’s also its antithesis as well. Jung says that, doesn’t he?
The two-face thing?
Duality is very much what this film is about. Much has been made
about this. There was a whole documentary called Hearts of Darkness
about the making of Apocalypse Now. . . .
Boyle: My favorite moment in that is when Coppola just starts ranting about
how terrible the thing is and how he doesn’t know what he’s doing. [laughs]
The subtitle of the documentary is A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse. We
alluded to it before, but let’s talk about it now. It went way over its