Film Studies: Some light relief in the heart of darkness

It is one of those idiocies built into the teaching of art, that somewhere within the raw material there is a one and only work of genius waiting to be found. So the sculptor gnaws away at the stone, seeking to free the shape that hides there. More or less, the composer does the same thing with silence – or does he start with din? While the writer waits for the right words, and so on. It's an austere, unforgiving view of creative enterprise as a test in whether or not you can get "it" right. The curse of this approach is that the antagonistic neuroses called inspiration and perseverance, and the real story of circumstances, are buried in mere correctness.

In the late 1970s, as he struggled to release Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola abandoned a sequence (maybe 20 minutes long) to "save" his film. There he was, striving to reach the best judgements, yet well aware that he was having a kind of breakdown. What had promised to be a picnic in the Philippines had turned into an ordeal: the weather was terrible; it proved tough getting proper military cooperation; Harvey Keitel had to be fired; his replacement, Martin Sheen, had a heart attack; Marlon Brando came to work overweight and under-prepared. And Francis was losing his way. His marriage had nearly ended. He contemplated suicide. He did not know how to resolve his movie. He was horribly in debt, and hounded by financial pressures to get the movie opened. Perhaps it should not be so, but very often great artists make decisions that hang on their need of a cheque. Perhaps that is the key part of movies – and why they make their cheques bigger.

So as Francis told the story of a lieutenant (Martin Sheen) who goes up the river in IndoChina to terminate the rogue command of Colonel Kurtz (Brando), his film crew and the boat crew shared a strange slogan, "Don't get off the boat!". It was a way of relying on momentum, when no one was sure where the boat was going or what it would find. For desperate men, it was a good rule (survivors need mantras) and so the French plantation sequence was cut. Not without some regrets, for many felt it was beautiful and eloquent. But it slowed the film; it delayed the appearance of Kurtz – the most evident climax in the story. "You've got to make a decision," Francis was told. That's what leaders do, and better any decision than the inertia that had smothered Brando the actor – and which threatened Francis as surely as infection in a plague colony. You will do nothing except go crazy, thinking of all the options you have.

Well, Apocalypse Now opened. The reviews were mixed, but it was a huge event and a fascinating work, and over the years most of us saw it. As for the French plantation scene, it waited in the archive. Then more than 20 years later, the idea arose to look back at the film, to take advantage of tranquillity and experience. The result is Apocalypse Now: Redux, 53 minutes longer than the original film, and the most significant indicator that I can think of that being "right" is not enough, or not even the point.

I don't wish to spell out the contents of this scene too fully – for you have the pleasure of discovering it now. Let me address the matter of structure. In 1979, momentum won the day, but now there is an aside, a digression, if you will. The headlong river trip pauses. Another language, French, is heard; the basic element of femininity intrudes on the film in a new way; there is an opportunity for a brief history of Vietnam. One is uncertain even whether this plantation is real, or a ghost. But those additions are not as important as the sense of quiet, or pause, before a final crescendo. In symphonic terms, this is a short, tender slow movement – and as so often in music, the dynamics before and after are changed by its existence. There are those who protest – there always will be. They say the plantation scene is sentimental. I'd counter that it introduces the chance of sentiment in a film much in need of it. The real point I want to make is that critical argument is only a mirror image of the intense, unspoken debate in the film-maker's mind, or among the small group who make the key decisions. And rightness is just one way of measuring that work. Another is to assess the very practical, human, monetary pressures of any crisis, and to know that the final condition of movie-making is a version of dementia. Only then can you feel how close you are to gambling.

d.thomson@independent.co.uk

'Apocalypse Now: Redux' (15) is released on 23 November