Apocalypse Now seeks less to meditate on the war and more to plunge us as viscerally into it as any movie possibly can. Structurally, it is a river movie the way Easy Rider is a road movie, a succession of events and set-pieces. The characters are quite simple; apart from Willard and Kurtz, hardly any register for more than a sequence….

The shot of the chopper in the tree quotes from a similar image in Aguirre, Wrath of God, a boat high above the river which looks like a mirage to the conquistadors. Visually—with its concentration on the immensity of the jungle, the strangeness and the intermittence of riverbank existence, the textures of the water, pristine vistas of pellucid sky through which warplanes streak and bomb, and a pervasive sense of blinding, stoned nightmare—Apocalypse Now draws on Herzog and probably on Deliverance as well. The results...