Apocalypse Now Redux

Buena Vista HE Dir: Francis Ford Coppola, 194 minutes, 1979

When Coppola's new cut of Apocalypse Now was screened out of competition at Cannes, with additional material at the beginning and end, it was difficult to imagine anything new being able to compete with it. I include the film in my 100 DVDs as a tribute to Coppola, and to Marlon Brando, who died last week.

Perhaps Coppola's The Godfather contained Brando's greatest performance, as old Don Corleone, but in the finale of this film - even though you can hardly hear some of his lines because, as so often was the case, he mumbles them - he remains an extraordinary presence.

In this latest version of the film, which includes more footage of Brando, his portrait of Kurtz holds you like a vice. If he wasn't necessarily the greatest movie actor ever, he was certainly up with the best. And Apocalypse - made with blood as well as money, exhausting almost everybody connected with it - is one of the best films made about the futility and absurdity of war.

It is unlikely to be equalled as a metaphor for a whole nation's confused aspirations, and the dogged obstinacy with which it pursued a cause it couldn't win.

Someone once called it a dumb movie made by an intelligent man. If it is that, then bring on more dumb movies. For all its flaws, and there are plenty, what a piece of filmmaking this is, particularly unforgettable in its 70mm format.