Apocalypse Now: Final Cut

“This is the end / My only friend / The end.” Francis Ford Coppola’s famous Apocalypse Now starts with this song by The Doors and the sounds of bombs falling on the jungles of Vietnam. Inspired as much by Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as by the stories of Vietnam veterans, it became a legendary film right away and is considered one of the most important works or even, according to many, the best work in the history of cinema. Coppola finished the 1979 version of the film in a hurry in order to make it to the Cannes Festival, where he received his second Palme d’Or (following The Conversation from five years earlier). Years later, he decided to complete and refine the film; as a result, we will see the director’s cut of Apocalypse Now in Wrocław on the 40th anniversary of the film’s premiere. The screening will give viewers a chance not only to see several new elements that were previously left on the cutting-room floor but, above all, we’ll have a chance to admire Marlon Brando as Colonel Kurtz on the big screen.