3. Marlon Brando And Martin Sheen - Apocalypse Now
United ArtistsThe madness and folly of warfare has never been so impressively filmed as in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, a movie with a production history almost as turbulent and destructive as the subject it explores. Indeed, these production woes were characterised by Copolla as like being in war - albeit without the same death toll. Apocalypse Now takes us into the Heart of Darkness of military combat, with Joseph Conrad's novella of the same name providing the inspiration. Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is tasked with tracking down renegade Special Forces Colonel Walter Kurtz (Marlon Brando) who has dug in deep inside the jungle and, in his insanity, set himself up as a godhead for the locals. As Willard progresses further and further into the war-torn jungle his own grasp on reality increasingly slips away. Kurtz's madness is already clearly established when we meet him, and the famous monologue - largely improvised by Brando - sums up humanity at its most self-destructive and nihilistic (any thoughts that he might be sane are shattered the instant we see the hanging bodies and severed heads on display). But it is Willard's slow motion unraveling which guides the film. If Martin Sheen's performance seems almost too authentic in places, the actor's increasingly heavy drinking at the time was certainly a factor. The legendary opening scene in the Saigon hotel room was shot whilst he was celebrating his birthday and his intoxication is clear. The ambiguity over Willard's state of mind by the end of the final reel, and the degree to which he may have come to concur with Kurtz's ramblings adds further layers to his state of mind, as well as the wider insanity of militaristic imperialism.