VFX VAULT
“There was a group of French people who had gone up to the world-famous rapids. They thought the temple set [which was part of the Kurtz compound] was real. I said, ‘We’re going to blow that up in a couple of days.’ They replied, ‘What are you talking about?’ I said, ‘It’s a movie set.’ They said, ‘You can’t blow that up. It’s like thousands of years old!’” —John Frazier, Special Effects Supervisor
TOP: Scott Glenn is seated in the foreground while Dennis Hopper stands at the top of the stairs at the Kurtz compound, which was mistaken by tourists as being an ancient temple. Glenn gave up the role of Roach in order to have the opportunity to be around and learn from the great American actor Marlon Brando.
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the bathrooms. The people in Manila weren’t even sure we were alive at that point.” Another dangerous situation arose after the bulk of the storm was over. “The helicopter pilot didn’t know if he could fly Francis back to Manila,” recounts Glenn. “The rain was coming down so hard and it was so windy that they were afraid that water would get mixed in with the jet fuel when refueling the helicopter. I’ve been around that more times than I would like to remember. I said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll fill it up.’ Later, Francis took me aside and said, ‘I want to reward you for your behavior. I can write you a better part anywhere in this movie.’ I thought about it and said, ‘I want to be in the end of the film.’ He said, ‘Scott, that’s the one part of the film that I can’t bring in a new character. You could play the part of Lieutenant Richard Colby [who was sent upriver ahead of Willard to kill Kurtz], but you’d be like a glorified extra.’ I said, ‘That’s what I want to do.’ I got to be around Dennis Hopper and the greatest American actor who ever lived, Marlon Brando.” “When the typhoon disaster hit Apocalypse Now in the summer of 1976, Francis came back to San Francisco for six weeks and showed me some of the dailies that had been shot up to that point,” remarks Murch. “I wondered, how is this all going to come together?’ Then we talked about the story and the script. He asked, ‘Do you have any suggestions?’ I said, ‘First of all, it’s a little weird that Willard is taken upriver in a boat to do this thing. They could have airdropped him 10 miles below Kurtz [Marlon Brando] and he would have gotten up there.’ The boat is a device to allow us to see the war, which you wouldn’t if it was a helicopter. They stop occasionally to look for mangos or at Playboy Bunnies, but nothing really happens. They’re tourists. I told him, ‘What it needs is a scene where the patrol boat does something it’s supposed to be doing. They’re supposed to stop other boats and inspect them.’ Francis said, ‘Okay, then write it.’ I sat down in his office for a week and wrote the puppy sampan scene. It’s like a mini Mỹ Lai Massacre where something bad happens accidentally.” “The beginning of Apocalypse Now was too flatfooted for Francis and he got excited by two accidental things – the slow-motion shots of the napalm exploding with the helicopters and Marty Sheen freaking out in his hotel room, which was shot as an acting exercise,” reveals Murch, who co-won an Oscar for
“[The opening sequence featured “The End” by the Doors.] There was a period where we were going to have nothing but songs by Jim Morrison. The idea collapsed quickly, because no matter where you were in the story and what Jim Morrison song you used, it was like Jim was looking at the movie and describing what he was looking at. It was too on the nose.” —Walter Murch, Sound Designer and Sound Engineer Best Sound Mixing and received a co-nomination for Best Film Editing for Apocalypse Now. “Francis had shot some additional material, like the famous shot of the fan and some upside-down shots of Marty under more controlled circumstances. Francis also said to me, ‘Ransack the film for other images.’ I pulled the Cambodian head and the big close-up of Marty’s eye with flames flickering on it. Those all come from the end of the film.” It was predetermined that the opening sequence would feature “The End” by the Doors. “There was a period where we were going to have nothing but songs by Jim Morrison,” Murch says. “The idea collapsed quickly, because no matter where you were in the story and what Jim Morrison song you used, it was like Jim was looking at the movie and describing what he was looking at. It was too on the nose.” The napalm explosion remains one of the largest practical explosions ever ignited for a movie. “Today, we would not do that,” admits Murch. “We might shoot some seed explosions to begin the process and then digital would takeover from that. That’s the origin of the material that you see at the beginning of the film. The slow-motion is a sixth camera that [Special Effects Coordinator] A.D. Flowers wanted in order to get a record of the explosion. Everything is real. Robert Duvall is really in a helicopter flying through the air.” Working on Apocalypse Now for Frazier was special effects 101. “We did everything in-camera. At that time there were only a few special effects people, like Joe Lombardi, who could have pulled that off and had the stamina to keep up with Francis. These guys set the bar. I was a young guy and they were like mentors to me. I learned a lot about life.” The special effects have not become dated. “For some of the stuff, like the napalm run, nobody has come up with anything better than putting the gasoline in a PVC pipe,” adds Frazier. “That’s what makes those movies so great – there’s no CGI in them. It’s real. I remember one time sitting down in the water when we were doing the firefight. I nodded off, woke up, and there’s a cobra looking at me! Apocalypse Now had a big impact on me. Not so much in techniques, but in how you make movies.”
TOP: Francis Ford Coppola and crew take a break shooting at the Kurtz compound. MIDDLE: Walter Murch developed the 5.1 surround sound mix for Apocalypse Now that went on to become an industry standard. BOTTOM: Brando shares a tender moment with an Ifugao child.
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