Freeze Frame: APOCALYPSE NOW

Once again, I find myself choosing a film for this post series where it’s difficult to settle on just one still image. Better yet, I wager this is a film where most others would choose a completely different still image. For me though, this image plays to an idea in APOCALYPSE NOW that I really love:

Sometimes, we are horribly and undeniably outmatched.

I’ve seen APOCALYPSE NOW on a big screen twice (and couldn’t recommend it any higher). On those occasions, I noticed that the film is deceptively epic – a detail that gets lost when we watch it on or TV’s and PC’s. Besides the glorious sound design, and all of the amazing acting (and over-acting), there are bits of visual splendour that really dwarf you when you see it unfurl in a theatre. case in point, the moment above when Chef and Willard go trekking into the jungle in search of mangoes.

Apologies in advance for not being able to source a hi-res version of that image, but take a moment and gather it in. That’s Chef and his bucket at the top right, and that’s Willard looking up at the bottom left. In between them is one of the biggest trees one could imagine. Each of its individual roots are the size of a full-grown man, and these two nuts are scaling over them to get further into the jungle. I don’t know about you, but if I ever had to climb over a tree that was some twenty times the size of me wide to get to what I wanted to get – that’s probably as good a sign as any that I really shouldn’t be trying to get it.

In a way, the very size of this natural phenomenon mocks the soldiers that pass it by. It virtually says to them “Go ahead and kill each other with your tiny guns for your petty reasons. I’ve been here a lot longer than you, and I’ll remain here for longer yet.” It doesn’t matter what these soldier do to one another, in the end this “heart of darkness” that is the Cambodian jungle will keep beating.

And yet such warning signs don’t prevent Willard and his crew from attempting the mission. They are hunting a man who seems both brilliant and insane…they are unprepared for the dangers they will face…and yet there they go, continuing to scale the proverbial roots of the trees to go further into the jungle. if you look closely at Willard’s face, you can even see how awestruck he is by where he’s perched. It’s as if he realizes just how far away from reality he truly is.

Pity he never seems to apply that realization to the insanity of his mission.

Here’s three more from APOCALYPSE NOW for the road…

This series of posts is inspired by the “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” series at The Film Experience. Do check out all of the awesome entires in their series so far