20 Things You Somehow Missed In Apocalypse Now

There is a long tradition in cinema of directors making cameo appearances in their own films, such as Martin Scorsese in Taxi Driver, Alfred Hitchcock in North by Northwest, and Quentin Tarantino in Pulp Fiction. Francis Ford Coppola's appearance as a television direction in Apocalypse Now is among the most famous of these cameos. The appearance of a television crew in a village that is still under attack perfectly captures the absurdity that Coppola tries to convey about the American military involvement in Vietnam. It also gives a hint of metatextuality to the film, as Coppola's character implores the soldiers rushing past to "just go by like you're fighting," as though the soldiers invading the village need to "act" like they are fighting.

As interesting as his appearance may be, Coppola had not planned to be in the scene. As disasters and delays were a constant difficulty during the making of the film, the actors who were supposed to play the television crew didn't make it to the set that day. Coppola jumped in, joined by production designer Dean Tavoularis and director of photography Vittorio Storano.