When you think of the most exciting, triple-wowser screenings of your life, it’s always a combination of (a) a knockout film, (b) a great crowd and (c) the film playing at a big-city, big-screen, technically tip-top theatre.
The original 1979 version of Apocalypse Now has always been and always will be knockout-level, but seeing it inside one of those Film Forum shoebox theatres can’t be much good. I’m sorry but it just can’t be.
I saw the original Apocalypse (147 minutes, give or take) at the Ziegfeld theatre two or three times in August and September of ’79, and the big-screen presentation was aurally and visually wonderful, especially in terms of sharp, punctuating fullness of sound.
Apocalypse Now was presented at the Ziegfeld within a 2:1 aspect ratio, which Vittorio Storaro insisted upon through thick and thin.
As we began to listen to The Doors’ “The End” while staring at that tropical tree line, John Densmore’s high hat could be heard loudly and crisply from a Ziegfeld side speaker. Before that moment I had never heard any high-hat sound so clean and precise.
Remember that “here’s your mission, Captain” scene with G.D. Spradlin, Harrison Ford and that white-haired Filipino guy? When that scene abruptly ends, we’re suddenly flooded with electronic synth organ music…it just filled your soul and your chest cavity.
When Martin Sheen and the PBR guys first spot Robert Duvall and the Air Cav engaged in a surfside battle, Sheen twice says “arclight.” In the Ziegfeld the bass woofer began rumbling so hard and bad that the floor and walls began to vibrate like bombs were exploding on 54th Street…the hum in my rib cage was mesmerizing.
As Duvall’s gunship helicopters take off for the attack on a Vietnamese village (“Vin Din Lop…all these gook names sound the same”), an Army bugler begins playing the cavalry charge. The “tirrah–tirrah–tirrah” was clear as a bell in the Ziegfeld.
