Film Forum

U.S., 1979
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Inspired by Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
Starring Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Martin Sheen
Cinematography by Vittorio Storaro
WINNER Cannes Film Festival – Palme d’Or, 1979
Approx. 182 min. DCP.

“Francis Coppola’s long-awaited film starts with what proves to be a nightmare: a stand of pale green palm trees, ominous air-beating chops, the fleeting blurs of attack helicopters, a sudden rush of flame engulfing the trees as, in magically perfect rhythm, Jim Morrison’s high, thin voice croons, ‘This is the end...’ Then the dreamer of this recurring vision appears mingled with his own demonic images, in a Saigon hotel room during the Vietnam war, drunk, stunned, virtually deranged—an American captain named Benjamin Willard (Martin Sheen). Soon afterwards, his superiors send him upriver to Cambodia on a secret mission to find and kill a Green Beret colonel, Walter Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who is rumoured to be running amok there with a private army of Montagnard tribesmen and renegade Americans.” – Sight and Sound

Reviews

“A STUNNING WORK. IT'S AS TECHNICALLY COMPLEX AND MASTERFUL AS ANY WAR FILM I CAN REMEMBER.”
– Vincent Canby, The New York Times

“More clearly than ever one of the key films of the century.”
– Roger Ebert

“A TOWERING LANDMARK IN FILM HISTORY.”
– Los Angeles Times

“The best action and war film of all time”
“It had established itself as a modern classic, with young adult audiences in particular revelling in the hallucinatory visuals and quotable one-liners such as 'Saigon... shit!', 'Charlie don't surf!' and 'Never get out of the boat!'”
– The Guardian