Apocalypse Now Is The Best War Movie Because It's Really A Horror Movie
There are many common picks for the greatest war movie ever made. Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan opens with an intense, PTSD-triggering recreation of the D-Day Landings and maintains that pace and momentum for nearly three hours. Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter exposes the harrowing effects of war by limiting the actual warfare to around a half-hour of screen time and dedicating the rest of the movie to exploring the psychological impact of those experiences. Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory has been dubbed the ultimate anti-war film, starring an impassioned Kirk Douglas as a colonel who has to defend his decision to save his men from going on a suicide mission as ordered.
Plenty of war films have been called the greatest ever made. But the title that comes up more than any other is Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. There are many things that make Apocalypse Now a masterpiece. The term “every frame a painting” is overused, but the cinematography of Apocalypse Now is so mesmerizing and carefully crafted that it adheres to the old adage. Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando anchor the movie with a pair of captivating performances that are just as raw and intense as one another but in different ways. But above all, the thing that makes it the ultimate war movie is that its surreal visual style transcends the trappings of a standard war film and deviates into full-blown horror. Apocalypse Now is so bleak and unrelenting in its gonzo, psychedelic depiction of the horrors of warfare that it’s as shocking and disturbing as any horror movie.
One Of The Best World War II Movies Was Hurt By Really Bad Timing
The novella that John Milius used as the basis for his Apocalypse Now script – Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness –
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