Apocalypse Now : The Ultimate A-Z

This is my favorite all time Vietnam war movie - so naturally I would have to read something like this on the background of the movie. This is of course, a cult favorite even for us Vietnam veterans. The orginal film left out some important elements in the telling of the story - so it was great to see the later version come out in DVD and video. I still love the smell of naplam in the morning and I love this book as well. It works. Although there is a mis-quote in the book (or two) - over-all, I rate this as good and entertaining information. It is not enlightening or profound nor does it deliver some words of wisdom - but it is what it is and that is very much okay!

On page 7 French quotes Kilgore as saying `I've been trying to forget about you' to Willard, but I am sure he actually says `Na Trang forget all about you?' He is implying that Willard's superiors have forgotten about him and his mission. I think this misquoting is important - French implies that Kilgore doesn't care about Willard or his mission but in fact Kilgore is trying to emphasise that their military superiors don't care about them, or anyone in the field really. This is why he cares more for surfing than war.

Apocalypse now (BMG #1) is an excellent choice for Bloomsbury to kick off their line of movie guides. It's also good in that it'll tide us over and give us a glimpse into Apocalypse Now Redux (I'm refering to the restored scenes). While the encyclopedic method employed here may turn off some, i find it a novel approach to tackling one of my favorite movies. If nothing else, it'll be easier to look something up at a later date. The 8 pages of color and b & w pictures here were nice but i'm glad to see that Bloomsbury doubled that number by the time Blue Velvet (bmg #3) came out. All in all, this book is a good companion to Peter Cowie's the Apocalypse Now book and Eleanor Coppola's Notes.

I strongly disagree with one reviewer who said this is hardly worth buying. My advice is: buy it - you'll love it.OK, I'm probably biased in that I tend to enjoy the 'encyclopaedia' format of books like this. I read one entry, then follow the links to another, and another until I'm totally immersed in the arcane and amazing information on offer. Linear readers might find it a bit annoying, I guess. However, even for them, this book is well worth reading. It's an essential companion to Apocalypse Now, and has certainly enhanced my viewing of the film. I love Karl French's terse, opinionated style.My only complaint is that with a tiny bit more effort the references could have been complete enough to make this a useful academic work as well as the popular paperback it already is. For example, I would have loved to follow up Nguyen Khac Vien's essay 'Apocalypse Now Viewed by a Vietnamese', quoted on p. 230, but couldn't since it doesn't appear in the bibliography. Having said that, there are plenty of leads here that I *am* going to follow up.

This first book in Bloomsbury's movie guide series is, so far, the best of the lot. Full of interesting and often hilarious insights and observations, this A to Z guide to the film actually works fairly well as a straight-through read. I particularly enjoyed the references to the place of water buffalo in classical dramatic structure.