Apocalypse Now: Both presentative and textual

Even though many scenes in Apocalypse Now are filmed with deep focus, allowing the audience to feel present as if they are actually in Cambodia amongst the jungles or small little villages, this film keeps it's audience distanced as well. There are many scenes that the director of this film, Francis Ford Coppola, present things for what they are, but he also adds images and music that make the scene textual or hard to relate to. The fact that this movie takes place during Vietnam portrays the tradition of presence in general. War is emotional and occurring all the time, but Coppola wants his audience to focus on the psyche of the soldiers instead and in order to do this he uses textuality.

A scene that displays both traditions is the helicopter attack towards the beginning of the movie. This scene starts off with six soldiers abroad a helicopter that is headed to attack a little Viet Cong village in order clear an entrance onto the Nung River. The beginning of the scene shows a realistic close up of the soldiers boarding the helicopter followed by a zoomed out image of eight or nine helicopters flying towards the camera with a breathtaking sunset behind them. If it were not for the mystical music that accompanies this scene I would say it portrays the tradition of presence, but this music decreases the intensity of the coming attack, thus portraying the tradition of textuality. The next image is more personal and again more realistic showing all the soldier's preparing for the attack. The audience is given a chance to connect emotionally to the soldiers, but just when we begin to feel connected to them, Lieutenant Bill Kilgore turns on Ride of the Valkyries by Wagner and the image becomes textual again. The explosions and sudden destruction of the small village does not match up with the classical music playing in the background, but this contradiction is exactly what Coppola wants his audience to focus on.

I personally had trouble with the textuality that Coppola used within this film, but it does create a deeper meaning to the movie in general. It also challenges the audience to interpret the movie on an analytical basis, so If you are tired of movies that tell you how to think, this will be refreshing.