The Color of Darkness *Apocalypse Now Spoiler Alert*

     Cinematography is critical to the concept of storytelling in cinema. As I watched Apocalypse Now, I found my mind in a constant daze. This film demonstrates how the audience is at the hands of the director, Francis Coppola, and cinematographer, Vittorio Storaro. The things that stood out to me while watching the film was the toning used, the representation used in the film, and what is in and out of the frame.
    Toning does not just add a shade of color to the film. In Apocalypse Now, there is an ongoing consistency of harsh yellow tones. These tones primarily give off a warm presence of the location, which is the open fields and dead land of Vietnam. One of the many scenes where this is used is when the Robert Duvall’s character is saying the famous “I love the smell of napalm in the morning”. In this example, the yellow toning does two things. The first is the time of day the scene is taking place. It is giving the audience the idea that the battle being fought is probably early afternoon. For instance, the toning would have a more red tint for dusk, dawn, or midday because the placement of the sun. Secondly, it is showing that it is warm. This feeling is pushed even further since the costume that Duvall’s character is not wearing a shirt. What is also interesting in this scene is the toning brings out the red and yellow smoke signals in the background.
      Toning can help bring out colors that may be over looked. This effect also allows the opportunity for more depth given to the shot. An example of this is when Chef and Captain Benjamin L. Wallard are in the jungle searching for mangos. This time the toning is blue to represent a cooler and night falling illusion. I really found it striking that the toning would create this depth with some of the plants in the scenery. For instance, the first shot of them in the jungle is an extreme long shot that gives off a good sense of depth. It’s all fully focus but thanks to the toning, there are certain green plants that stagger in the fore and background of the shot. Also, even though it is not essential, the blue toning makes the blue bucket that Wallard is holding stand out.
The representation that takes place in the movie is very strong. There are two specific examples that stand out to me. The first is in the very beginning of the film. This is an extreme long shot of a Vietnam jungle that is interrupted with fades and dissolves. When the scenes cut to the apartment, there is a fan with its blades spinning. With this image and the sounds of the helicopter in the background, it achieves the illusion that the fan blades are the blades on a helicopter. This is similar to the film The 39 Steps when the woman screams and the sound is a train whistle. In other words, the audience is prepared for something and the sound or image is able to represent what is supposed to occur. This is very different in the end of the film.
      When Colonel Walter E. Kurtz is stabbed to death at the conclusion of the motion picture, there is a very strong sense of representation. While the brutal killing is occurring, the tribe outside is killing a bull in a form of a ritual. This is a very strong and maybe even tasteful scene because it is able to show the gore but through the beast. Not once does the audience see the actual stabbing of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz but they do see hard slash that hacks onto the neck of the bull. Then there is also a sense of Brutus killing Caesar as this moment occurs.
      The cinematographer carries on a very difficult task of what to put and not put in the frame. This shown very strongly though this film and there is just a one out of many examples that I wish to point out (I don’t want to go to in-depth with it because some of the shots I likes were also because of the mise-en-scene). At the murder that I just mentioned is the last time Colonel Walter E. Kurtz is seen. The shot is just of his head. This is one of my favorite parts of cinema. I enjoy the idea that the audience has to image how Kurtz’s body looks without actually seeing the wounds. This concept of what the audience can’t see is actually one of my favorite things about cinema but it is starting to occur less and less because of CGI. But I will save that rant for another blog…