1979 - A Cinematic History Podcast

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1. Episode 2: Apocalypse Now

   Sep 20, 20261 hr 38 min

   We open in 1899. Joseph Conrad. A river in the Belgian Congo. A story about what happens to men when the rules run out, and nobody is watching. Eighty years later, Francis Ford Coppola read that novella and said: this is the Vietnam War. This episode is about Apocalypse Now; the film, the production, and the man who nearly destroyed himself making it. We talk about what Vietnam actually was, and why it took Hollywood four years after the fall of Saigon to even try to look at it honestly. We talk about the first televised war, the role of the media in dismantling the official narrative, and why that moment connects directly to the journalism at the heart of last episode's The China Syndrome. We go through the production in detail; the typhoon, the replaced lead actor, Martin Sheen's heart attack he publicly called heat stroke so the film wouldn't be shut down, Marlon Brando arriving unprepared and overweight having refused to read the script, and Francis Ford Coppola spending two years in the Philippine jungle slowly losing his mind. His Oscars thrown out a window. Call sheets reading scenes unknown. A wife secretly recording her husband's breakdown in their bedroom. And a director who contemplated ending it all but couldn't quit because it was his own money on the line. We also get into the film itself. The helicopter sequence and the question of whether a film that makes war look that exhilarating can honestly call itself anti-war, Vittorio Storaro's cinematography and what the shifting light is actually arguing, Kurtz and whether a man who sees clearly but acts monstrously is mad or the only honest person in the film. The film and production Apocalypse Now (1979) — IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt0078788 Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991) — IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt0102015 Eleanor Coppola's Notes on the Making of Apocalypse Now — her 1979 published diary, widely available secondhand Critical writing worth linking Serge Daney's 1979 original review for Cahiers du Cinéma, translated and published by MIT Press: thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/legendary-film-critic-serge-daney-on-apocalypse-now The Week's collection of the original 1979 critical reception including Time's Frank Rich calling it "this decade's most extraordinary Hollywood folly": theweek.co.uk/entertainment/5191/apocalypse-now-original-1979-reviews Roger Ebert's piece on Apocalypse Now criticism and the Richard T. Jameson review he calls "the most lucid thing anyone's ever written about the movie": rogerebert.com (search Apocalypse Now in the Great Movies section)

2. Trailer: 1979 A Cinematic History Podcast

   Aug 25, 20261 min

   Introducing 1979

3. Episode 1: The China Syndrome

   Aug 21, 20261 hr 18 min

   What did you do twelve days ago? If something extraordinarily significant happened only 12 days ago, how well would you remember it? The China Syndrome opened in US cinemas on the 16th of March, 1979. A film which used a nuclear plant near-disaster to tell a tale of corporate greed, cover ups, and whistleblowers. An entire industry berated the producers, the cast, the film studio and shrugged it off as "pure fantasy". Then, 12 days later, on the 28th March 1979, the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor disaster happened. Coincidence? Yes But coincidence or not, nothing will take away the legacy that this film has, particularly in 2026 as it holds up a mirror to our current political climate and screams "I told you so!"