On Memorial Day weekend Sounds of Cinema will feature a condensed version of Elektra Records’ two-disc, 96 minute soundtrack to Apocalypse Now. The soundtrack album is unique in that it includes the music as well as the dialogue, sound effects, and narration featured in the motion picture, making the album play very much like a radio drama.
Based on Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now tells the story of Captain Willard (Martin Sheen), an American soldier in Vietnam who is given a secret mission to assassinate an American colonel who has gone insane deep within the Southeast Asian jungle. On Willard’s journey he confronts his own doubts about the war, his allegiance to his country, and even his own sanity.
Apocalypse Now is an unconventional war film. There are none of the typical war film clichés; no taking the hill, no waving flags, no Rambo-style heroics, no buddies in combat. Instead, Apocalypse Now is a journey from the order and relative civility of the military command through a progressively chaotic and uncouth battlefield, stripping away the social and technological signs of human advancement and returning the characters to a primal state of nature. By doing this, Apocalypse Now examines the roots of violence and the nature of warfare, making the film an exploration of the Thanatos drive.
Sounds of Cinema airs every Sunday morning at 9am on 89.5 KQAL FM in Winona, Minnesota and at 11am on 89.7 KMSU FM in Mankato, Minnesota.