20 Things You Somehow Missed In Apocalypse Now
15. Willard's Mirror Scene Came To Coppola In A Dream
Apocalypse Now is full of iconic scenes and lines of dialogue, starting from the opening napalm barrage, and into the following scene with Captain Willard lying on the bed in his Saigon hotel room. The scene, intended to communicate how deeply traumatized Willard is by his experience so far in Vietnam, focuses on the spiritually broken soldier getting absolutely hammered drunk and then doing a kind of staggering Tai Chi-influenced dance. Willard stares into the mirror in his room and then punches it, shattering the glass and cutting open his hand. He then rolls around, covering his face and bedsheets in blood, weeping and sobbing to himself before passing out.
According to director Coppola, the genesis for the scene came to him in a dream. He dreamed of the character staring into a mirror, to face not only his vanity, but also to face himself and the trauma he'd experience, and the guilt over the things he'd done in the war.
To achieve this in front of the camera, Coppola goaded Sheen to stare into the mirror as the actor drank more and more, provoking him to stare into himself, and finally getting the bloody and compelling results he wanted.