Apocalypse Now  5 Things You Need to Know About Coppolas New Final Cut  IndieWire
Its no great surprise that an American classic like  would receive an updated version, complete with a new hi res scan and revised sound mix to take advantage of the latest in theater/home sound technology. But that isnt the only thing that  did for the 40th anniversary of celebrated look at the Vietnam War.
Francis could have simply just restored it in 4K, and thats what wed release, said Coppolas American Zoetrope archivist James Mockoski. But that was not exciting for him.
Instead, Mockoski served as restoration supervisor on a year long archival, technical and creative process that resulted in Apocalypse Now: Final Cut, which premiered at the  Film Festival last evening and will be re released in theaters and on Blu Ray this August. Heres what you need to know.
Francis Ford Coppola and Volker Schlondorff, winners of the Palm DOr prize in 1979
In 1979, Coppola had taken on so much personal debt making Apocalypse Now that he was worried the full version of his film would be too weird for a non arthouse crowd. Since he needed the film to play as far and wide as possible to save himself from financial ruin, he made major cuts to film for its original two hour and 33 minute theatrical runtime.
In 2001, for Apocalypse Now: Redux, Coppola put 49 minutes of previously cut footage back in. The idea was for people to see the whole scope of his original vision, regardless of how weird it may played. However, Coppola has said that he doesnt believe this fully restored version was the best version of the film, as it played too long and uneven at times.
For his Final Cut, Coppola said he has found a version he can stand behind. By studying old cuts of the film preserved on betamax, Coppola said he felt he discovered where he went wrong in editing the film  due to financial and distribution pressure  and removed 20 minutes of the new material from Redux in this new final cut. The new running time is three hours and two minutes.
This is the first time the original negative has been scanned, since all previous transfers have been made from an IP. Over 11 months, over 2,700 hours was spent cleaning and restoring the films 300,173 frames. The 4K scan, combined with Dolbys HDR processing  Dolby Vision , has led to a level of depth and detail in Vittorio Storaros cinematography that you couldnt see before. This is particularly the case in the nighttime scenes. On a creative level, Coppola had to dial down the level of new detail, for example, he wanted to keep Marlon Brandos Col. Kurtz in silhouette as much a possible.
For Redux the best the sound team could do in 2001 was work off a third generation dub. For Final Cut Mockoski and the films original sound designer Walter Murch were able to locate  it had been tossed in a dumpster  one of the 1979 films original six track print masters. This gave the Final Cut team the ability create significantly clearer sound, but it also meant being able to go inside sound designer Walter Murchs revolutionary work and adapt it to the modern tools of post production and in theaters.
Apocalypse Now
Murchs 5.1 sound design for the 1979 release was not only a technical breakthrough, but on an artistic level it remains at the pinnacle of surround sound. Murchs work in enveloping the audience in war and the way sound traveled inside the theater is still a textbook example that virtually all sound designers and mixer study when honing their craft. Murchs protegee, Pete Horner, who first worked with Murch on Redux, oversaw the six, which adapts the the 5.1 surround mix to Dolby Atmos and the ability pinpoint sound anywhere in theater, including the ceiling.
In 1979, Murch hit a snag when trying to achieve the vision for the film that he and Coppola had in mind. In 1979, they created a partnership between Coppolas American Zoetrope and Meyer Sound Laboratories called Sensual Sound, which was intended, through deep low frequency sound, to create a new type of visceral viewing experience. John Meyer himself use to install special subwoofers for 70mm screenings of Apocalypse Now in 1979.
With access to the print master and new sound technology, John Meyer worked with Horner and Coppola to finally reach those low frequencies they couldnt in 1979. In Final Cut, the low frequencies are detectable in the helicopter battle scene with Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore  Robert Duvall . The sound has a visceral effect during the war scenes. For the Tribeca premiere screening at the Beacon Theater, Meyers Sound went even one step further, installing its own special low frequency speakers to give Final Cut the powerful audio that has eluded Coppola for decades.
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