Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

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aox
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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#101 Post by aox » Mon Sep 02, 2019 4:06 pm

Just to offer an opinion, but I enjoyed everything added to Redux except the "Willard stealing the surfboard" scenes. It completely destroys Kilgore's character IMO by making him completely ineffectual. If I could get rid of that, Redux would almost be as perfect as the Theatrical Cut, IMO.

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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#102 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Mon Sep 02, 2019 10:52 pm

I love that scene actually because you see Willard and the guys on the boat bond a little by stealing the board. I don't think it makes Kilgore ineffectual but I get that interpretation. In my eyes it makes him a little crazy for broadcasting it later, which doesn't contradict Duvall's performance much either.

I think the extra scene with the Playboy bunnies is a bit too extraneous and doesn't add much to the story. I do like the French plantation scene too, as a means of understanding the historical context of the French involvement leading up to the war.

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Roscoe
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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#103 Post by Roscoe » Tue Sep 03, 2019 9:55 am

aox wrote:
Mon Sep 02, 2019 4:06 pm
Just to offer an opinion, but I enjoyed everything added to Redux except the "Willard stealing the surfboard" scenes. It completely destroys Kilgore's character IMO by making him completely ineffectual. If I could get rid of that, Redux would almost be as perfect as the Theatrical Cut, IMO.
For me the issue with the "Stolen Surfboard" material is that it diminishes Kilgore, making him into much more of a buffoon than a dangerous lunatic ("if that's how Kilgore fought the war, I began to wonder what they had against Kurtz"), and the picture we get of Willard actually laughing with the crew doesn't really jibe with the guy we see, not long afterward, getting furious with a sergeant over not getting immediate service for his mission. By stealing the surfboard, and later on by dealing diesel fuel for time with the Bunnies, Willard's in something of a glass house when it comes to having issues with the way anybody else conducts the war.

I much prefer the leaner and meaner and more disturbed Willard in the original Theatrical Cut -- he's been out too long and seen too much while out there, and his growing identification with Kurtz isn't diluted with folderol about surfboards and Playboy bunnies and opium sex with Frenchwomen.

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aox
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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#104 Post by aox » Tue Sep 03, 2019 12:13 pm

Roscoe wrote:
Tue Sep 03, 2019 9:55 am
aox wrote:
Mon Sep 02, 2019 4:06 pm
Just to offer an opinion, but I enjoyed everything added to Redux except the "Willard stealing the surfboard" scenes. It completely destroys Kilgore's character IMO by making him completely ineffectual. If I could get rid of that, Redux would almost be as perfect as the Theatrical Cut, IMO.
For me the issue with the "Stolen Surfboard" material is that it diminishes Kilgore, making him into much more of a buffoon than a dangerous lunatic ("if that's how Kilgore fought the war, I began to wonder what they had against Kurtz"), and the picture we get of Willard actually laughing with the crew doesn't really jibe with the guy we see, not long afterward, getting furious with a sergeant over not getting immediate service for his mission. By stealing the surfboard, and later on by dealing diesel fuel for time with the Bunnies, Willard's in something of a glass house when it comes to having issues with the way anybody else conducts the war.

I much prefer the leaner and meaner and more disturbed Willard in the original Theatrical Cut -- he's been out too long and seen too much while out there, and his growing identification with Kurtz isn't diluted with folderol about surfboards and Playboy bunnies and opium sex with Frenchwomen.
You articulated it perfectly about Kilgore. As for showing the camaraderie of the crew, that's what the whole movie is about. We are spending 2 1/2-3 hours with them. Getting to know them and their agency is a slow burn, and that's perfectly fine. So, even disregarding the narrative problem that you bring up (out of character Willard before and after the surfboard scene), this "cheap" scene (my opinion) isn't worth it if the main thing it accomplishes diminishes Kilgore's character who we already spend a very limited time with to begin with. In other words: it simply isn't worth having in the film and does more damage than service to the plot.

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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#105 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Tue Sep 03, 2019 4:52 pm

I find the Kilgore character, even in the theatrical cut, as a character that's a little hard to pin down. He comes over to an enemy soldier who is dying and begging for water and lets him drink out of his canteen (even threatening violence to someone who dismisses him as "dirty VC"), but immediately takes it and his attention away once he is told about Lance.

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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#106 Post by greggster59 » Tue Sep 03, 2019 4:58 pm

flyonthewall2983 wrote:
Tue Sep 03, 2019 4:52 pm
I find the Kilgore character, even in the theatrical cut, as a character that's a little hard to pin down. He comes over to an enemy soldier who is dying and begging for water and lets him drink out of his canteen (even threatening violence to someone who dismisses him as "dirty VC"), but immediately takes it and his attention away once he is told about Lance.
Maybe he just forgot to take his Ritalin.

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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#107 Post by DeprongMori » Tue Sep 03, 2019 5:37 pm

For me, the “stealing the surfboard” scene worked quite well. Kilgore is dangerous, effective *and* totally nuts. His derangement manifesting in his broadcasting his search for the surfboard reinforces his madness. The theft itself was consonant with what we had learned about the crew and even Willard, but enriched it.

I am sympathetic however to arguments that it potentially distracts from Willard’s personal journey of identification with Kurtz.

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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#108 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Tue Sep 03, 2019 7:52 pm

The subsequent cuts also do a little more justice to the other guys on the boat, with the exception of when they meet the Playboy girls which goes a bit overboard on what the surfboard stuff just hints at. Milius said in the interview with Coppola on the Blu-rays that despite writing it he was glad to see that cut when it first came out. In terms of the mythological allegories, he felt it really didn't serve the story much purpose that the "sirens" were suddenly made available to them.

I'm sure I said this before but one thing I really disliked about the theatrical cut (I watched Redux first) was how early the "Satisfaction" scene comes in. It gives a more immediate impression that lends credence to what Willard says about them being "rock and rollers with one foot in their graves" and not real soldiers. While the narration is cut and dry and gives you a peek inside his head, I do think there is still room left for interpretation as to what his state of mind really is.

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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#109 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Fri Sep 06, 2019 1:05 am

I finished the new cut. It is, for me, the perfect version of the film. It cuts out the truly unnecessary without making it feel less like the languid journey into madness it borders on in it's best moments.

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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#110 Post by Reverend Drewcifer » Fri Sep 06, 2019 12:03 pm

Just purchased and shelved the AN laserdisc with the Zoetrope Studios banner. I now have every release. To paraphrase Paul F. Tomkins re: smashed pennies at carnivals: "I love you Zoetrope Studios-branded laserdisc copy of a movie I own too many copies of. I'll see you when I move."

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hearthesilence
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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#111 Post by hearthesilence » Mon Sep 09, 2019 12:49 pm

Caught the "final cut" before it left theaters. As mentioned by many viewers, there is egregious degradation from the duping necessary to create the multiple dissolves in the opening sequence. You're going to see a lot more grain, and it's not going to have a fine texture to it either. Once you get past that, the rest will look great.

To be honest, I didn't think this new cut was a welcome bit of fine-tuning like, say, Blade Runner's "final cut." I remember the theatrical cut much better than the Redux revision, and arguably none of the noticeable additions/changes to the theatrical cut really seemed like improvements. The surf board theft felt like a misguided addition, and though the plantation footage was welcome for acknowledging the ignorance, arrogance and imperialist attitudes that laid the groundwork for the war, it probably needed a re-write and not just a re-edit after the fact. And I miss the Redux addition of Brando reading the misleading news reports from home even though his delivery in that scene was pretty shitty (and his improvisation seemed especially bad this time around too).

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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#112 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Sun Dec 15, 2019 12:56 pm

Harvey Keitel on why he quit. I don't know if he's spoken about it before, but it seems a little more cut and dried than the reasons Coppola has given which are vague at least in comparison.

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hearthesilence
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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#113 Post by hearthesilence » Mon Dec 16, 2019 11:32 am

I didn't realize he was more or less in "exile" during the '80s (working primarily on foreign productions with little interest in the U.S.) It makes his '90s resurgence all the more astonishing and explains why that remarkable run was built primarily on arthouse and indie films.

Stefan Andersson
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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#114 Post by Stefan Andersson » Tue Jun 15, 2021 3:19 pm

For the record --

Apocalypse Now, changes between Redux and Final Cut:
https://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=442569

Comparison, Theatrical and Redux:
https://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=769

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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#115 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Sep 30, 2021 5:21 pm

I spent more of the summer over at Letterboxd, where I wrote an incredibly long appreciation, which I am not ashamed to say I am particularly proud of. What accompanied this period, along with seeing it in 4K (if you can and haven’t seen it as such, drop everything you can and check it out), is the feeling I came away with that this was the film that spoke to me the most. And maybe always has, but just the dawning realization intensified the experience watching it again woke up all these things I saw in it now, in historical terms. Of not just the war and of America, but cinema as a whole.

I even rewatched it back to back, maybe 9 times in the span of 3 and a half weeks. I never did that before but I was so overwhelmed I had to come back to it. Paying attention to the depth, which is to say things you normally don’t notice (like how Willard salutes his superiors before being told of his mission, or how deceptively clever the editing is at developing tension between him and Chief) only enhanced my appreciation of every detail I could find this time around.

If could boil it down to just one element, it is that of solitude that permeates throughout. The voice-over narration really hammers this aspect home. Even more than that of Taxi Driver, which is much closer to mind-reading Travis Bickle, then wading through Vietnam dissecting one man’s descent into violence like Willard does reading the dossier and gradually seeing Kurtz’s point of view more clearly as the draw closer and closer up the river.

I found the French plantation sequence far more disquieting now, because of the parallels to colonialism in today’s world, and also specifically of Americans in denial of things in lock-step with the Trump administration that have caused such calamity. I really never knew much about the French involvement in Vietnam when I first saw Redux in 2003, so my understanding by now looks at that scene (especially in how it was laid out in the wonderful Ken Burns doc about the war) much more transparently, and effectively. So for me it’s a far more integral piece of the film that makes it’s high reputation so earned in my opinion.

One question I came away with this time, one maybe worth exploring here, is what is (if any) Kurtz’s relationship to the French contingent. They’re on his side of the river, and considering the hardly veiled revelation there is an opium den on the property, how that fits into the insanity going on up the street makes me think there was more than meets the eye as far as the widow seducing Willard.

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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#116 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Sat Nov 06, 2021 8:28 pm

I think the one scene I grew to appreciate in this reawakening I had with the film the most, is the scene where Willard is given the mission. G.D. Spradlin’s character is sitting on that couch looking at him with the eyes of a hawk, unsure of how good this man will be at both the job at hand and understanding the grave risks associated with what a people would understand to be a doomed objective.

General Corman (Spradlin’s guy, clearly named as a tribute to Coppola’s former boss) talks about Kurtz the way someone would talk about a relative that’s fallen on hard times, or more succinctly causing problems for that family. The fact this whole scene is taking place inside a cozy mobile home and not something more militaristic, while perhaps accurate hits on a deeper level about family and war.

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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#117 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Jan 27, 2022 2:18 am

aox wrote:
Tue Sep 03, 2019 12:13 pm
Roscoe wrote:
Tue Sep 03, 2019 9:55 am
aox wrote:
Mon Sep 02, 2019 4:06 pm
Just to offer an opinion, but I enjoyed everything added to Redux except the "Willard stealing the surfboard" scenes. It completely destroys Kilgore's character IMO by making him completely ineffectual. If I could get rid of that, Redux would almost be as perfect as the Theatrical Cut, IMO.
For me the issue with the "Stolen Surfboard" material is that it diminishes Kilgore, making him into much more of a buffoon than a dangerous lunatic ("if that's how Kilgore fought the war, I began to wonder what they had against Kurtz"), and the picture we get of Willard actually laughing with the crew doesn't really jibe with the guy we see, not long afterward, getting furious with a sergeant over not getting immediate service for his mission. By stealing the surfboard, and later on by dealing diesel fuel for time with the Bunnies, Willard's in something of a glass house when it comes to having issues with the way anybody else conducts the war.

I much prefer the leaner and meaner and more disturbed Willard in the original Theatrical Cut -- he's been out too long and seen too much while out there, and his growing identification with Kurtz isn't diluted with folderol about surfboards and Playboy bunnies and opium sex with Frenchwomen.
You articulated it perfectly about Kilgore. As for showing the camaraderie of the crew, that's what the whole movie is about. We are spending 2 1/2-3 hours with them. Getting to know them and their agency is a slow burn, and that's perfectly fine. So, even disregarding the narrative problem that you bring up (out of character Willard before and after the surfboard scene), this "cheap" scene (my opinion) isn't worth it if the main thing it accomplishes diminishes Kilgore's character who we already spend a very limited time with to begin with. In other words: it simply isn't worth having in the film and does more damage than service to the plot.
I just finished revisiting the Redux version for the first time in nearly 20 years, and I think basically everything except for the French plantation section has merit. While ultimately I agree with Roscoe that Willard's sustained disposition works well for the tone (the theatrical cut still feels like the 'best' iteration), I don't think it's necessarily a problem that we see erratic mood and behavioral shifts in him (after all, did anyone miss the opening scene?)

Kilgore isn't "diminished" either, at least no more than he already was- sure, there's something funny about how he apologizes to Lance and his supremacy is depleted in an instant, but his value was already questioned when he balanced the desire to surf as a priority along with missions holding the lives of his men. Further, it's imperative that we consider how we're engaging with this character-exit from the vantage point of the characters running away from him. Willard gets the surfboard, but Coppola isn't negating Kilgore in this action; for it's futile to tally against the premonition that Kilgore is a winner, will survive this war in spite of his faults, and men like Willard will remain psychologically tormented as Kilgore shrugs off these encounters.

Willard's glee is a faux-win to defend against his own impotence, just as his trade for the playmates has no value outside of a momentary escape from hell. Kilgore may be taken advantage of, and last seen apologizing with some vulnerability- but he likely just turned around and rebounded back into his position of supremacy while the camera follows the others mocking him with delusions of grandeur. If the camera stayed or returned to Kilgore, I doubt anyone would think he was being diminished in totem- but Willard needs to feel that way, and needs to run away with his fingers in his ears and his eyes diverted to do so, because he's so fragile by comparison. It's a child's move, and part of why it 'works' to see Willard 'out of (his serious mission-seeking) character' with this juvenile gag and fuel-trading playmate bit is that Coppola is humanizing Willard as vulnerable and unbalanced.

This directorial decision is a bit more genuine than having him adopt a rigidly stoic and disciplined exterior for an entire river journey after we clearly see his labile emotional capacity from the get-go. That's not to say he should be cracking every five seconds- obviously he's a professional and it's in his character to mostly stay composed, but he isn't 'above' deviations from this role. In fact, they represent the magnetic pull of the disorder from the jungle well, and help inform the felt-risks of the pull he feels towards Kurtz' story. In this longer version, I definitely felt much higher stakes (due to Willard's less centered outward state) and more anxiety, as if he just might crack and be swayed to Kurtz in the end of a movie I've seen nearly every year since I was like ten... will it be different this time?! I still prefer the theatrical cut, but that's certainly praise.

Also, was it just me or did we get a longer time in the chaos when Willard and Lance venture through the 'last post' where no one is in command? What a thrilling sequence. I wish I could make my own cut- maybe one day Coppola will deliver the Final Final Cut and it'll be perfect.

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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#118 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Jan 27, 2022 1:58 pm

The scene I grew not to like from Redux is the fuel-trading stuff. It treads water from the scene with the surfboard and it deglamorizes the girls for no real reason then to have this kind of Animal House-type moment.

I love the French plantation sequence. It gives Clean a proper send-off, and Albert Hall as Chief a great moment during the ceremony to grieve but keep his composure as he hands Willard the torn flag. The scene at the table is also it’s own value in repeat viewings, especially as I’ve become more aware of the French role in the whole thing. And Willard’s encounter with the widow is quite important as it’s really the only time he talks to a woman, and it almost breaks away from how much the story centers around him and concentrating more on the chemistry between these two people as we wind up in the bedroom where they share opium and she just absolutely reads him so perfectly. A great scene.

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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#119 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Jan 27, 2022 2:22 pm

Yeah the bedroom scene works with the French woman, I just think the entire section could use some trimming. For the fuel-trade, the Animal House antics work in service of the sad punchline that the actualizing of these soldiers’ romanticized fantasies of copulation with their idols cannot ascend from the sloppy, desexualized gravitational conditions of the effects of their milieu.

Even the bird gag isn’t so much funny as it is a reminder that unpredictable chaos of nature will infiltrate even the most private and intimate spaces. Covering the playmate’s hair with a wig to replicate an objectified fantasy reveals an actionable awareness as Chef must go to great pains to morph reality into a fantasy, growing more consciously elusive by the minute, especially without this fantasy-concoction being a collaborative effort with the playmate to satisfy him- it’s a form of masturbation.

Lance’s moment with his playmate is even sadder due to her earnest confession mirroring the sensitive cores of these lonely soldiers, and the comedic punchline is clearly intended to reinforce this pathos of existential vacuity, of devaluation by stripping away the one hopeful ear she had to unload and engage with, in an instant. It’s not a great scene and cutting it didn’t hurt the film, but there’s definitely value there that fits in step with the themes of the film.

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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#120 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Jan 27, 2022 3:04 pm

One little thing I noticed about the plantation scene is that in the middle of that meal while the commotion at the table starts to turn heated, Willard takes a moment to check himself out in one of his utensils, a weirdly funny call-back to the scene in the hotel room where he looks at himself in the mirror. The character’s vanity coming through in that curious charming moment added to my appreciation of that sequence and the whole film really.

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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#121 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Jan 27, 2022 6:42 pm

Is it vanity, or is it some depersonalization/derealization symptoms? I always took both moments as reminders of a tangible 'self' in the physical sobering Willard to a constant against the friction of his wandering mind that has frighteningly malleable potential

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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#122 Post by Roger Ryan » Fri Jan 28, 2022 3:52 pm

therewillbeblus wrote:
Thu Jan 27, 2022 2:22 pm
Yeah the bedroom scene works with the French woman, I just think the entire section could use some trimming.
Not sure if you meant just the bedroom scene or the whole plantation sequence, but Coppola did trim it down for his "Final Cut", although not by a lot. I actually was most pleased by a small deletion he made during Willard's initial conversation with the young woman when the response to the question "Do you know why you can't step into the same river twice?" was eliminated. That rather hackneyed bit of scripting is made more tolerable by leaving the question open! Thanks Mr. Coppola.

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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#123 Post by swo17 » Fri Jan 28, 2022 3:58 pm

But what if it was leaving the question open that compelled Wong Kar-wai to answer it?

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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#124 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Fri Jan 28, 2022 6:25 pm

therewillbeblus wrote:
Thu Jan 27, 2022 6:42 pm
Is it vanity, or is it some depersonalization/derealization symptoms? I always took both moments as reminders of a tangible 'self' in the physical sobering Willard to a constant against the friction of his wandering mind that has frighteningly malleable potential
Maybe, I just think it’s funny to see him tuned out of a conversation he literally can’t understand. Learning so much more about the origins of the war from re-watching the Ken Burns series, I also liked the moment where Willard responded in the know when he’s asked about Dien Bien Phu. It demonstrates the deep history trying to be put over, and the crushing similarities in how we didn’t learn from what happened to the French.

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Re: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

#125 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Sat Feb 12, 2022 1:11 am

therewillbeblus wrote:
Thu Jan 27, 2022 2:22 pm
For the fuel-trade, the Animal House antics work in service of the sad punchline that the actualizing of these soldiers’ romanticized fantasies of copulation with their idols cannot ascend from the sloppy, desexualized gravitational conditions of the effects of their milieu.

Even the bird gag isn’t so much funny as it is a reminder that unpredictable chaos of nature will infiltrate even the most private and intimate spaces. Covering the playmate’s hair with a wig to replicate an objectified fantasy reveals an actionable awareness as Chef must go to great pains to morph reality into a fantasy, growing more consciously elusive by the minute, especially without this fantasy-concoction being a collaborative effort with the playmate to satisfy him- it’s a form of masturbation.

Lance’s moment with his playmate is even sadder due to her earnest confession mirroring the sensitive cores of these lonely soldiers, and the comedic punchline is clearly intended to reinforce this pathos of existential vacuity, of devaluation by stripping away the one hopeful ear she had to unload and engage with, in an instant. It’s not a great scene and cutting it didn’t hurt the film, but there’s definitely value there that fits in step with the themes of the film.
To me most of this is best served in just the USO scene, and especially the scene after when Clean and Chef talk about the ARVN officer stealing someone’s porn.

My least favorite part of the fuel trade now was actually one of my favorite moments when I first saw Redux, when Chief asks Willard if there are any “hot mamas” in there or something to that effect. For me the movie works the most if you realize how early on the tension is meant to be subtly heightened between those two characters.

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