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SKIN JOB 66
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Joined: 16 Jan 2008
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Location: FRANCE
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 Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2009 6:21 pm Post subject: |
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| photek wrote: | | thankfully we have greats like Leone, Coppola, Kubrick, and Scott to ponder while we wait for another great film to come along (not holding my breath!). |
Thanks a lot for your appreciation, photek ! BTW, I wanted to let you know that the wait is over... Did you see CHILDREN OF MEN ? (the first masterpiece of the 21th century imo)
| joberg wrote: | | We know that, for D. Hopper, this role was not a stretch; high on some kind of funny weed he was |
Of course he was, just like Flinn & Stone were !
OK, another thing about APOCALYPSE NOW.
There are a lot of symbolic images in this movie, especialy in the action scenes involving the Air Cavalry...
THE BEAST OF THE APOCALYPSE
According to St John's Apocalypse, the beast is supposed to emerge from the sea... just like this amphibious tank decorated with a nightmarish face.
DEPORTATION OF THE INNOCENTS
I always found this scene showing children and women piled in a tank pretty disturbing but never really understood why... Well, last week we saw the last part of this brilliant documentary about WW2 titled APOCALYPSE on french TV and that's where I finaly understood the origin of this image : deportation of jews by the nazis.
THE GOLDEN CALF
A mass takes place in the middle of the battlefield, then a calf is taken away in the air, suspended to an helicopter... I think the right way to see those 2 scenes is to consider those soldiers and priest as worshipers of a false God, just like in the Bible :
"During the ascent of mount Sinai by Moses to receive the tables of the Law, the israelites, newly freed from the yoke of Pharaoh, pressed Aaron to build them a golden idol... He built a golden calf they worshiped in imitation beef that was worshiped in Egypt"
If you consider that this movie isn't about the war in Vietnam but about madness, then all those symbolic images suddenly make sense. They're here to say that those insane men are crushing the innocence (THEIR innocence) they find on the way with the help of devilish allies (the tank / beast of technological Apocalypse) in order to worship War (madness) as their only God (the golden calf).
The Doors / the End :
Lost in a roman...wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah
(For those mad children of a technologic society devoted to war, the rain / deliverance will come by the end of the film, in the sequence when Willard will kill Kurtz / the mad God)
Fred
PS : The Golden calf could also be seen as the first incarnation of Kurtz as the "god of war" also worshiped by all those lost soldiers and tribes at the end of the film... Coppola even establishes a parallel between his murder by Willard and the sacrifice of a buffalo by priests of Kurtz followers.
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Gaff87
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| Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2009 5:54 am Post subject: |
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Fred, you really know your stuff.
Love this topic.
I must admit, i've never seen this movie but seeing all this has inspired me to see it  |
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SKIN JOB 66
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| Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 2:46 am Post subject: |
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Thanks Neil !
I just hope you'll get a chance to see it on a big theatre screen someday, that's the place these kind of films really deserve if you really want to experience it the best possible way.
Regarding Col. Kilgore, a small detail about him that tells a lot : He wears a service weapon with ivory grips, just like the ones Gl. Patton used to wear.
I think it was intended to help establish this character as a hard boiled officer, just like Patton was...
Fred
PS : BTW, did you know that Francis Frod Coppola wrote the script for F. J. Schaffner's PATTON movie (1970) ?
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SKIN JOB 66
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| Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 8:33 am Post subject: |
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Let's talk about Lt. Col. Kilgore again...
According to Wikipedia, "In the book of Job, ha-satan is the title of an angel submitted to God".
Considering Kurtz is the mad God that reigns on this nightmarish land, considering also that he's worshipped by Kilgore's men in the form of a calf (see first post of this page), then Kilgore could be seen as an angel similar to Satan.
Not convinced ?
Well, there's a very interesting scene in APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX (the extended version of the film) that introduces Kilgore in such a way it made me instantly think of Satan himself...
Please take a look at this :
The first time we meet Lt. Col. Kilgore, it's in the form of an Helicopter descending from a sky on fire. Impressive image that made me instantly think of a dragon.
Then we have this shot where we can see soldiers kneeling while the Helicopter / dragon is approaching, just like vassals would do in front of their king.
Then Kilgore emerges from his helicopter and the first thing he does is putting his hat / crown on his head, just before visiting the battlefield, always surrounded by flames in the background...
One of the other names of Satan is Beelzebub, aka "the Lord of the flies"... take a look at the Hugues helicopters in all the scenes featuring Kilgore, they're noisily flying over the village without purpose, very much like flies on a corpse.
Fred
PS : Since he's playing Wagner / the Walkyries during the assault on the village, we could also say that Kilgore is an incarnation of Wotan (aka Odin), the nordic God of victory :
Kilgore : I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
A last thing : Wotan / Odin is usualy represented wearing a hat (OK, a hat very similar to the one worn by Gandalf, but Coppola couldn't make Kilgore wear a Gandalf hat, right ?) and riding a horse named Sleipnir... Now, guess what is the Air Cav emblem ? A horse head on a shield !
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SKIN JOB 66
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| Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 6:02 pm Post subject: |
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More evidence of Kilgore's "evil" nature below...
Look a the bodies of dead vietcongs in those screencaps, they are just as unnatural and tormented as in the illustration in the upper right. (illustration taken from Dante's inferno, as illustrated by Gustave Doré in the early XXth century)
The prisoners seen on the backgrounds of numerous beach scenes made me think of this "Apocalyptic procession", also taken from Dante's inferno by Doré.
Regarding Willard again, the scene where he hits the mirror in his bedroom at the begining of the film could be seen as a re-interpretation of the myth of Abel & Cain.
In the first screencap his face is half in the dark, half in the light, a symbol of the interior fight between his good (Abel) and dark (Cain) sides.
Then he faces the mirror, looks at himself and then violently hits his own reflection... the mirror breaks. We could see this as the murdering of his good side / innocence. Look, there's even blood on his hand... then he realizes what he has just lost and cries... only his dark side remains, ready to enter Kurtz's inferno.
Then the film takes place on a river, a symbol of the nigtmarish side of the mirror Willard is trapped on since he killed his good side...
And then, at the end of the film / trip, just after he killed Kurtz, Willard goes across the crowd of natives and lost soldiers... and that's where he sees Lance. He gently takes him by the hand and brings him back to the boat in order to leave the heart of darkness / Kurtz's lair.
Lance is high because of all the drugs he took earlier in the film. He symbolizes the innocence Willard killed in his hotel room. Abel and Cain meet again, Willard is definitely back from madness.
A last thing : Take a look at Willard and Kurtz, they look like Moses and Pharao in those scenes...
Kurtz (head shaved like Pharao) stands near a Buffalo (a symbol mentioned in the Bible as the false egyptian god some israelites are worshipping in the desert while Moses went up to mount Sinai, looking for the tablets of the Law).
The murder of Kurtz takes places in a temple, a blatant symbol of Pharao's power.
Then Willard / Moses appears atop the stairs, Kurtz's memories / God's tablets of the Law in hand... (no more light inside the temple - the egyptian sun god is dead - Willard literaly comes form the dark)
Then the sea (of soldiers) opens and he walks through to escape Pharao's empire, once again just like Moses did in the Bible !
Fred
Next : Back to A L I E N and BLADE RUNNER !!!
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SKIN JOB 66
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| Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 2:58 am Post subject: |
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Another evidence of the strong influence O'Bannon & Moebius' bande dessinée The long tomorrow had on Blade Runner...
Look a the clothes worn by Moebius' detective / main character and those production sketches of Deckard by Mentor Huebner : Same kind of silly hat, same kind of coat...
Fred
PS : I think Huebner's drawings were made at an early stage of pre-production because Deckard still looks more like Dustin Hoffman than Harrison Ford.
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SKIN JOB 66
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| Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 4:43 am Post subject: |
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Giger's A L I E N, as seen by Ron Cobb...
Fred
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repdetect
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| Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 5:37 am Post subject: |
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Aaah, at last !... no more biblical stuff, back to BR and A L I E N !! 
Just pulling your leg Fred !...Apocalypse Now is in my top 10
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I know what you're thinking...did he fire six shots or only five ?
Well to tell you the truth, in all the excitement i kind of lost track myself... |
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joberg
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.jpg)
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| Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 6:37 am Post subject: |
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| Fred; good analysis/concepts of the various images showed in Apocalypse Now...Lord knows that principal photography was "un chemin de croix" for Coppola...and more so for Martin Sheen |
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andy
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| Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 1:05 pm Post subject: |
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Fred,
I just want to thank you for this stuff. I find it all extremely interesting, and I think it adds a lot to this place. It is nice to have some deep thought and history, rather than always talking about stuff.
Thank you again,
Andy |
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SKIN JOB 66
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| Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 4:37 pm Post subject: |
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Thank you Andy, I must say I'm really touched to read things like that...
Fred
PS : Thank you too, repdetect and joberg !
PS2 : For those who'd like to learn more about the making of Apocalypse Now, try to see this amazing documentary, Hearts of Darkness : a director's apocalypse... a MUST see !!!
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SKIN JOB 66
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| Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 4:38 am Post subject: |
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A strange prop used in ALIEN 3... It's so weird, I really LOVE it !!!
Fred
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joberg
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| Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 6:49 am Post subject: |
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Wow, never saw that prop before Fred...by the way, how do prepare this?
Hopefully without ketchup |
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SKIN JOB 66
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| Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 9:09 am Post subject: |
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| joberg wrote: | | by the way, how do prepare this? |
I generaly prepare this kid of meal in a void oven with reinforced hatch / door, why ? (it's really tasty, served with an acid sauce)
Fred
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Gaff87
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| Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 9:20 am Post subject: |
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| Yummy!! |
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Bwood
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| Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 9:49 am Post subject: |
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| It's like cooking kidneys - you boil the pi$$ out of 'em. |
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joberg
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| Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 11:19 am Post subject: |
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Probs with kidneys is that your house will smell like an old folks home for days  |
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SKIN JOB 66
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| Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 5:22 pm Post subject: |
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.jpg)
No comment...
Fred
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Gaff87
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| Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 5:31 pm Post subject: |
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Keep 'em coming Fred.
Love it.
Can't wait for Avatar aswell, looks amazing. |
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joberg
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| Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 7:24 pm Post subject: |
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I haven't read anything concerning Avatar (or should I say Aqua-Blue) in the industry mags...nothing yet on a law-suit...or did they bought the rights to Aqua-Blue?
Btw, good find Fred |
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