You smell that?
I saw again "Apocalypse Now", but this time the Redux version, with the dead cows and happy bunnies.
At the beginning it is easy to get all political about it, and have an antiwar feeling about the whole enterprise. But then the madness takes hold of you, and if as in a dance you partake of the absolute lack of direction, the unsound methods and the complete journey to the hell that is Kurtz; Kurtz is all the trip up river, Kurtz is the whole mind of Willard.
And then you have to confront what you see with what you know – the mind becomes a nuisance, getting in the way of the experience, and thinking about the actors instead of the roles – Sheen is no Green Beret, and Fishburne has this very Morpheous look to him. The famous Duvall's "Napalm" lines have a new contemporary meaning, and the whole war is itself a reminder of where we are – "Time Magazine - Sounds familiar?". Brando is himself; hell is us.
A few years ago people used to tell me that I looked like Marlon Brando in "Streetcar named desire." Now I look like Brando in Apocalypse Now.
The horror.