Intro Analysis - Apocalypse Now (1979)

Apocalypse Now (1979)

The introduction to Apocalypse Now is a very well constructed sequence, it shows imagery to symbolise the impact of the Vietnam war on soldiers in a calm but moving way.

The film opens on a backdrop of a Vietnam jungle, instead of an immediate cut to the shot it fades in from black into a silent and calm image of the palm trees blowing in the wind.

A helicopter passes with a low sound of the propeller, it is the first sign of disruption on the calm backdrop. The music starts quietly with breaks in between a quiet guitar and a tambourine.

The singer begins singing at the moment the jungle is firebombed symbolising the intervention of the military/man. The sound of flames is non-existent and the feeling of the sequence is still calm, this is done to show how the war normalises this image for the soldiers. The camera also starts panning, showing the extent and the scale of the damage.

The scene is faded with a shot of a man's face, filmed upside down and a ceiling fan spinning around implying that the man is looking up at the ceiling fan, which is juxtaposed against the helicopters flying past. It shows us that he has been changed by the war and cannot forget the things he has seen in everyday life. His face is filmed upside down because it is a metaphor for how his view on the world has been flipped.

The camera cuts to a new position and is moving across his room, starting at the possessions on his bedside table and panning across his face to the other table, revealing the bottles of alcohol and cigarettes and the gun on his bed.

The scene closes on the same shot of his face and the ceiling fan, the propeller noises that have quietly played throughout the sequence now increase in volume leading to a single shot of the fan as the only thing in the frame.

The final shot shows how throughout the sequence he has been trying to distract himself from the visions of the war and now that he has, it still shows up in everyday objects, showing us that he cannot escape what he has seen.