Apocalypse Now ^{Final Cut}

Starring Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper. The film and its production have been described as a war in itself. Costs spiralled legendarily out of control and conditions on set were tense. 'This is not a film about Vietnam. This film is Vietnam.' Francis Ford Coppola's verdict on Apocalypse Now may sound like hyperbole, but the statement is not far from the truth. Lead actor Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack, the budget ballooned to 31 million dollars and filming bogged down into four long months of hardship in the jungles of the Philippines. Marlon Brando delivered an unforgettable mumbling monologue as the insane Colonel Kurtz ('I've seen horrors...') who rules over a self-created mini-empire in the jungle, and Dennis Hopper plays a crazed war photographer who stays frighteningly close to Hopper's drug-soaked self. The opening scene with a sweating Martin Sheen under the ceiling fan in a Vietnamese hotel room and the helicopter attack to the beat of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries have by now become part of the collective cinematic memory. And that is not even mentioning Robert Duvall's performance as the napalm-loving Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore. Two Oscars: for the cinematography by Vittorio Storaro and for sound design.