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James Clive Matthews is the author of two books of film criticism, a reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement and blog editor for the BBC's Pocket Films site. Here he picks five classic war films every home should have. Click to view Top 5 Greatest War Films.
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Best Modern Classic (Apocalypse Now - 1979) |
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 The most stylish war film ever made is also the most unsettling, encapsulating within its meandering running time all the horror and madness and psychological impact of military conflict. Apocalypse Now has a power and depth that make it an essential addition to any DVD collection. |
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From the subdued strains of The Doors’ “The End” that rise out of the jungle mists through to the downbeat, utterly anti-heroic conclusion, Apocalypse Now’s majesty lies in its almost overpowering sense of depression and despair. This is the antidote to every war film that glorifies conflict, to every movie in which the main characters are selfless heroes, where doing one’s duty is honourable and good. It is the perfect expression of the senselessness and confusion of the Vietnam war, and of America’s continuing inability to come to terms with her failure to make a difference.
Based on Joseph Conrad’s equally depressing novella The Heart of Darkness, this tale of a secret mission to bring down Marlon Brando’s mysterious Colonel Kurtz, above, who has lost the plot and set up his own twisted regime in the heart of the jungle, is unrelenting in its portrayal of war as impossible to understand. Nothing makes sense, at any point. |
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 As Martin Sheen’s Captain Willard tries to fathom the motive behind Kurtz’s apparent breakdown, the closer he gets to his goal the more it becomes apparent that none of the notes he has on his target can explain how our minds work while at war. As Brando’s Colonel makes clear, “It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means.”
Until Apocalypse Now, although there had been anti-war war films like Robert Altman’s wonderful 1970 satire MASH or the classic 1930 adaptation of All Quiet On The Western Front, the sheer horror of war had never been convincingly portrayed on screen. Since Apocalypse Now’s release, many have tried to capture some of the incomprehensibility of conflict, but none have managed as convincing and unsettling a job as director Francis Ford Coppola and his crew, who themselves almost lost the plot innumerable times during the chaotic and drug-addled 16 month shoot.
And, of course, the film also works as an analysis of America’s own attitude to the war that the country rejected. The Viet Cong barely feature – the real enemy is internal. It is other Americans; it is America’s own self-doubt and self-loathing. |
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 And it is all shot in achingly beautiful technicolour widescreen with a gloriously psychadelic soundtrack that heightens yet further the fact that, despite the explosive-packed action of the film’s most famous sequence, for huge chunks of the nearly three hour running time (more than three hours if you opt for the extended “Redux” version), very little actually happens. Though not quite Waiting For Godot, this is about as close as any war film has got to encapsulating that Beckett classic’s sense of futility and confusion.
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 Captain Willard’s search for a wider meaning and a point to his mission is ultimately futile – because his mission is an allegory of war itself. He is sent to kill someone for reasons he doesn’t understand, when plenty of others deserve death just as much if not more. The assassination itself will make little or no difference, and Willard, above, knows it. But, like war, it has to be done because someone, somewhere, has decided that it has to be done – and once that decision has been taken there is no escaping it, no matter how much pain and suffering will have to be endured, and no matter how small the impact. If you only add one war film to you collection, make it this one. |
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