If you’re a film fan, you’re probably looking at another cut of “Apocalypse Now” and thinking, “Why do we need this?” After the original film was nominated for eight Oscars (including Best Director and Best Picture), winning two, you would assume that a filmmaker would be pleased with the results. However, Francis Ford Coppola is no typical director, and he likes to tinker. So, years later, film fans were greeted with a new cut, dubbed “Apocalypse Now Redux,” which again, was interesting and felt like the “definitive” version of the film. But alas, Coppola is back with yet another cut of the film, and this time, he promises, it’s the ‘Final Cut.’
Speaking to Deadline, Coppola explained the thought process that went into wanting to make one more ‘Final Cut’ of his Oscar-winning film. And from the sound of things, it appears that the filmmaker is going into it with pure intentions, wanting to make the best product (closest to his original vision) and not just another cash grab to sell more discs.
“By having a record of all old cuts on Betamax, I was able to see what steps had been made toward the final version released,” he said. “Interesting, even though I’ve had ‘final cut’ since ‘Godfather‘s’ success, I always tried to be reasonable about ideas or suggestions made by the ‘finance’ partners, distributors or studios.”
He continued, “However, their unanimous comment of ‘too long’ often led to trimming things out, whereas in retrospect the solution can often be to put more in. Also, changes often beget other changes and you don’t quite realize then the road you are following.”
So, what led to this third, and hopefully, definitive cut of the film? According to Coppola, it was a variety of factors, all of which led to his displeasure at how the film turned out:
“Given that the ‘Apocalypse’ original was not only long, but also unusual in style and substance for a film at that time, we tended to cut whenever possible not only in time but also in what then was considered ‘weirdness.’ Maybe 15 years later I happened to catch a TV viewing of it in a hotel, and as I always enjoyed seeing the beginning, started watching and ending up seeing the whole film. I realized that just with that time elapsed, that the film was not as weird as I had thought, and had become more ‘contemporary.’ The avant-garde art of the present often becomes the ‘wallpaper’ (mainstream) art of the future. That plus many people’s (including distributor’s opinion) that so much great stuff had been cut out, led to what was later called ‘Apocalypse Redux,’ which actually had a successful theatrical distribution thanks to Harvey Weinstein. But that version had all that had been cut out, restored. Later on, once again, when asked which version I personally wanted to be shown, I often felt that the original 1979 was too abruptly shortened, and Redux was too long, and settled on what I now felt was the perfect version, which is what we’re showing at Tribeca later this month, called ‘Apocalypse Now: Final Cut.’”
As of now, the only time we know for certain fans can see “Apocalypse Now: Final Cut” is at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, which will hold a special 40th-anniversary event for the film (featuring an interview with Coppola moderated by Steven Soderbergh). But, if it’s well-received, it’s likely you’ll have another “Apocalypse Now” Blu-ray coming to your collection soon enough.
