Scene Analysis

Two things that I noticed that the film maker of Apocalypse Now, Francis ford Coppola, used in the opening scene of the film were the use of music, and also the mix of war imagery with images of what was actually occurring at the time.

Francis Ford Coppola, the film maker of Apocalypse Now, successfully employed the use of music in the opening scene of the movie. I thought that the juxtaposition of the scenes of bombing and destruction paired with somewhat calm, slower music was very interesting and worked to make the slower-motion scenes of destruction of more impactful to the viewer. I believe that was most likely the main goal of the film maker—to make the scenes of destruction more impactful by placing them in slow motion and adding the slower music, and also to evoke some emotion from the viewing audience.

Another interesting strategy that Coppola used in the opening scene of Apocalypse Now was having a mixture of war scenes, but also showing the view of what was actually occurring with the character at the time (lying alone in a hotel room). He successfully combined the two very dissimilar sceneries in creative ways such as having the propeller of a helicopter fade into the imagery of a ceiling fan in his room. I feel that this mixture of images was incorporated to demonstrate the truth that even when a soldier is not in battle, the scenes and images of the battles he has endured never fully depart from his head.