The 1970s was Coppola's decade. He was involved in a succession of masterly films, as screenwriter on Patton, producer of American Graffiti, director of the first two Godfather films and The Conversation, and finally, in 1979, as true auteur of Apocalypse Now. They illuminated our times, and we can now see that Apocalypse Now is not merely the greatest film to come out of the Vietnam experience but one of the great works about the madness of our times. He immediately followed the early morning preview screening of Apocalypse Now at Cannes with a press conference which he began by saying: "My film is not about Vietnam, it is Vietnam," and he went on to state that during the shooting "little by little we went insane". How brave and prophetic he was.
Coppola took Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad's enigmatic story about the cruelties of colonialism, and turned it into a 20th-century fable about neocolonialism in which the story's eminently sane narrator, Marlow, becomes Captain Willard, the Special Services hitman, as crazy as his assigned quarry, Colonel Kurtz. The difference is that unlike everyone else around him, from the top brass down, Willard knows he's mad. Everything about the Taliban, al-Qaida, the pressures that took us into Afghanistan and Iraq, the assault on Abbottabad and the deadly troubles that lie ahead are to be found here in Willard's journey. It's a work of genius that may falter a little towards the end, though not fatally. This newly released version is more or less the one shown at Cannes and is definitive. The half-hour of material introduced 10 years ago in Apocalypse Now Redux is of no value, it diminishes the film and is to be avoided.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/may/29/apocalypse-now-coppola-sheen-review
How film's one-liners lost their innocence with Apocalypse Now
It didn't take long for Apocalypse Now to add a whole bunch of one‑liners to the movie quote lexicon. Even before the mixed critical reception had coalesced into an iron-clad verdict, phrases from the screenplay by Francis Coppola, John Milius and Michael Herr (with a little help from Joseph Conrad) were already reverberating above and beyond their context in the film: "Saigon. Shit.","Terminate … with extreme prejudice", "Charlie don't surf!", "I love the smell of napalm in the morning", "Never get out of the boat", "The horror, the horror". And so on.
Screenplays are more than just dialogue, of course, yet a well-turned phrase can go a long way towards cementing a movie's cult status. Watching Casablanca nowadays is to experience a little thrill of recognition at every other line, and only partly because, "Play it, Sam" or, "Round up the usual suspects" have been adapted as titles for other movies. Ideally, a good quote is not only specific to its dramatic context, but has universal application. "We'll always have Paris" and "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" are the gifts that keep on giving.
You could say the same about The Wizard of Oz, or Some Like It Hot, or Sunset Boulevard – they're treasure troves for quote collectors. But Apocalypse Now, for me, marks the point at which film quotes became self‑conscious and lost their innocence, divorcing themselves from their dramatic source to become part of the currency of film buffery, a badge of cinematic taste enabling the quoters to trade references with like-minded pilgrims while baffling the uninitiated.
There's a minor character in Diner who does nothing but quote dialogue from Sweet Smell of Success – and not just JJ Hunsecker's catchphrase, "Match me, Sidney." But that always struck me as an idea more in tune with the film‑geek spirit of the 1980s, when the film was made, rather than 1959, when it was set. Because, surely not coincidentally, Apocalypse Now's release in 1979 coincided with the video recorder reaching the mass market, which for the first time enabled fans to hunt for verbal truffles, watch their favourite scenes repeatedly and commit scads of dialogue to memory without having to sit in a cinema.
The 1980s also saw a trend towards the vernacular, spearheaded by Bill Lancaster's dialogue for The Thing, in which characters reacted not with philosophical musings about hills of beans or, "We'll always have Antarctica", but by uttering the sort of banalities you or I might say if we'd just glimpsed a head sprouting spider legs and scuttling across the floor: "You've got to be fucking kidding." It seemed fresh and witty in 1982, but that was before a zillion other sci-fi, horror and action movies got in on the act. There are only so many ways you can say (to quote Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator), "Fuck you, asshole".
We're lucky if a new movie can rustle up a single memorable one-liner, such as There Will Be Blood's "I drink your milkshake" (which though a colourful metaphor for capitalism seems out of character for Daniel Plainview, who never struck me as a milkshake-drinker) or the deceptively mild "That is all" from The Devil Wears Prada. But can you think of any films from the noughties that are as chock-full of quotable dialogue as Casablanca or The Shining? You're more likely to stumble across bon mots "borrowed" from other films, such as The Wizard of Oz. If I hear "I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more" one more time (Avatar and Sex and the City 2 are just two of the recent offenders), I'll scream.
And, regardless of these films' other merits, I can't see buffs quoting the dialogue from The King's Speech or The Social Network in 30 years' time. Indeed, after perusing a list of this year's titles, the only phrase from any of them that has actually stuck in my brain is Rango's: "I found a human spinal chord in my fecal matter once." Which may not match "We'll always have Paris" for universal applicability, but I'm going to try and shoehorn it into my cocktail party chit-chat anyway.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/may/26/anne-billson-film-quotes-apocalypse-now
Doomsdayers put faith in Apocalypse now redux
If you have seen the billboards while driving to work, then you will know today is Judgment Day - well, that's according to US evangelical broadcaster Harold Camping.
He predicts that today an earthquake will strike, triggering the start of the apocalypse. Christians will disappear to safety, leaving sinners behind until the world comes to an end exactly five months later.
Camping and his followers have been spreading the word about the rapture worldwide on thousands of billboards, many of which are on the sides of main roads and highways around Australia.
Despite his previous failed prediction that Jesus would return to Earth in 1994, Camping, from US Christian station Family Radio, is convinced this time he is right.
"We know without any shadow of a doubt it is going to happen," he said.
On his website, Camping claims that not even the most devout Christian will be safe from God's rapture.
"Judgment Day is feared by the world and is the day that God will destroy the world because of the sins of mankind," he said.
"Sadly, you can't turn to your religion or go to your priest or pastor or spiritual leader for help. They, too, should be begging God for mercy for themselves.
"Thank God that in his great mercy he has given you this warning of the destruction that is almost here, and the great hope that you, too, might be one whom God will bring to heaven."
But Centre for Public Christianity director John Dickson is unfazed by Camping's warning, saying he will be enjoying a glass of wine with his wife today, and preaching a sermon on Sunday morning.
And though he is relaxed about his own fate, Dr Dickson is critical of such predictions because they can cause a crisis of faith for some Christians.
"People come up with this every couple of years ... my general feeling is that it's just really sad when pastors come up with these ideas, because they're setting themselves, and everyone around them, up for real disappointment," he said.
"My greatest fear in all of this isn't that I don't want there to be silly Christians out there - there are plenty.
"My real concern is that people's faith is dependent on these kinds of predictions and when they don't come true, as invariably will happen, it just sets people up for a massive crisis of faith that they've never had."
Camping came up with his version of rapture through a series of complex mathematical equations, which he says he used to discover that doomsday will be on October 21, 2011.
Dr Dickson, who has written a book about end times, told ABC News Online Camping's rapture prediction is simply a new theory on an old idea that is not even in the Bible.
"The problem is, the rapture is an idea that was invented only about 200 years ago," he said.
"Christians before the 18th century had never heard of it. It started from a very spurious interpretation about a particular text in 1 Thessalonians Chapter 4."
He says he hopes people are smart enough not to judge the majority of Christians by a few "crackpots" who misconstrue the bible.
"They read it as a kind of secret source book for conspiracies and deep and meaningful things that you can't get out of the text yourself," he said.
"I think it comes right down to us becoming more and more ignorant of how the original text was written, and the more ignorance there is out there, the more gullibility there will be by people doing these ridiculous mathematical equations.
"This particular guy would have a tiny amount of followers when you consider there's 2 billion Christians in the world - it's minuscule. It does need to be put into perspective.
"I would say very firmly, the vast majority of Christians even today do not believe in a rapture."
Enterprising atheists
Despite that, Camping seems to have a lot of people convinced of his theory, which many non-believers out there seem more than happy to capitalise on.
A group of entrepreneurial atheists has set up US website Eternal Earth-Bound Pets. For a fee they are offering to take the family pet off Christians' hands when they ascend into heaven.
"You've committed your life to Jesus. You know you're saved. But when the Rapture comes, what's to become of your loving pets who are left behind?" the website states.
"Eternal Earth-Bound Pets takes that burden off your mind.
"Each Eternal Earth-Bound Pet representative is a confirmed atheist, and as such will still be here on Earth after you've received your reward. Our network of animal activists are committed to step in when you step up to Jesus."
The service has been so popular that the group has expanded its services and increased fees.
Providing Camping is wrong, much of the world will undoubtedly have a good laugh at his expense.
But Dr Dickson will instead feel very sorry for Camping and his believers, because he expects they will suffer a severe crisis of faith when they realise the theory was wrong.
"Jesus said no-one will know the day or the hour [he will return to Earth], it's a much-quoted text. So anyone who comes along and says they know the dates is making it up as they go along," he said.
"It's not that I want to ridicule people like this, I really am sad for them that come Sunday they are going to be incredibly disappointed.
"If they've pinned their faith on this stuff instead of the reality of Christ, then this is just tragic from my point of view.
"We'll all have a good laugh and it'll generate words in the newspapers; I can understand that it generates conversation, but unfortunately there are people who are really going to be damaged by this."
Source:http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/20/3222323.htm?section=world
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