Cinephiles everywhere were envious of the TCM crew who attended the first annual TCM Classic Film Festival in Los Angeles last week. The festival lineup of films, presenters, and guests looked like a phenomenal combination of Hollywood star power and learned scholars. Fortunately, I was able to attend an event that was arguably the next best—Roger Ebert’s Overlooked Film Festival in Champaign, Illinois, affectionately called Ebertfest.

Each spring, America’s leading film critic masterminds a five-day festival in Champaign, which is home to his alma mater, the University of Illinois. This was my first year attending Ebertfest, and I found the experience to be affordable, relaxing, and rewarding, partly because of the schedule of movies personally selected by Ebert and partly because of the congenial small-town setting. The friendly, easy-going atmosphere and organized festivities were a welcome break from the rat race of Chicago, where a simple act like parking on a side street can get you shot by over-caffeinated drivers or fined by a city in dire financial straits.

Originally, Ebert chose films for his festival that he felt had been overlooked or not given a fair shake in distribution and exhibition, a major problem in today’s film industry. The festival still retains a taste of that original idea; this year, Michael Tolkin’s The New Age, Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York, and James Mottern’s Trucker—one of my favorite films of last year—all fit that agenda. But, over the years, the event has expanded to be a celebration of films by a community of Midwesterners who appreciate good movies of all types. As Ebert wrote in the festival booklet, “I don’t have a set of criteria in my selections. It’s more that I see a film and am seized with the desire to share it with the Ebertfest family.” The 2010 schedule was rounded out by everything from the Japanese film Departures to a showing of Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera accompanied by the Alloy Orchestra, which then headed west to participate in the showing of Metropolis at the TCM Classic Film Festival.

For me, the lure to Ebertfest this year was master sound designer Walter Murch, who was supposed to attend a screening of Apocalypse Now Redux and then discuss his contributions to the film afterward. Unfortunately, Murch, who lives in London, was waylaid by the volcanic eruptions of Eyjafjallajokull, proving once again that the power of nature is still greater than the petty plans of humans. However, my initial disappointment quickly faded as I began watching Apocalypse Now Redux on a huge screen from the balcony of the historic Virginia Theater, which hosted a sold-out crowd of 1500 movie lovers.

Watching a film version of Redux projected onto a huge screen reminded me of the inadequacies of viewing classics of this caliber on DVD. It’s akin to leafing through a coffee-table book on Picasso and thinking the color plate of Guernica is equivalent to experiencing the actual painting. The emotional impact of either art work is greatly diminished when not viewed as originally intended. While it is impossible to see most classic films projected on a big screen, it is disturbing when opinions or perspectives of classic films, especially negative ones, are based on DVD viewings alone.

Director Francis Coppola released Apocalypse Now Redux in 2000 after restoring 49 minutes to the original cut, a decision still controversial to critics and fans—as evidenced by the post-screening discussion. With the new material, Coppola reworked the film’s themes and subtexts, without fundamentally altering them. He and Murch actually re-edited the film from the original raw footage, starting from scratch instead of merely inserting new scenes and sequences here and there. For example, along with the new sequences, some scenes were extended with a few additional shots or changed slightly by using alternate takes. More than just a director’s cut, Redux was reworked from the vantage point of an older, more mature artist in a different socio-political climate.

THE NEW TECHNICOLOR DYE-TRANSFER PROCESS PRESERVES THE COLOR OF THE NEW FOOTAGE AND RESTORED THE COLOR OF THE OLD FOOTAGE.

The difficulties Murch , Coppola, and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro endured revolved around matching the previously unused footage with the original version of the film. Storaro decided to render all the footage in a Technicolor dye-transfer process, a re-working of the three-strip Technicolor process of the Golden Age.  According to Jeff Joseph of SabuCat Productions, an expert on film print preservation, who is quoted in the festival catalogue, “Instead of the chemical development of colors, color dyes are transferred to the film directly, resulting in the stunning Technicolor look of the 1940s and 1950s. . . .” The printing process is comparable to the way photos are printed in magazines. Because it is a computer controlled process, Storaro had more control over the colors and densities, plus he corrected the fading of the original cut of the negative. However, to re-cut the old negative and integrate it with the new footage then render all of it via the dye-transfer process makes it almost impossible to go back to the original version of the film. In The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film, Murch noted that a master copy of the original cut of the negative was made and saved, so the original is not totally lost, but he expressed reservations about taking the kind of step they did for Redux.

Apparently, renowned cinematographer Storaro didn’t have a problem with this decision, and judging from the projected version of the film that I watched, the splendor of the rich, saturated colors makes the sacrifice worth it. In addition to the scale of the action, the vividness of the colors is another aspect of the film that won’t translate to DVD. Scenes such as the one in which Willard and Chef hike through the jungle for mangoes are more profound when viewed on film in a theater. The various greens of the jungle gleam with an internal vividness that emphasizes the magical, Wonderland quality of the setting, while the size of gargantuan trees and foliage, which dwarf Willard and Chef, actually registers on the viewer. An idea takes shape in this scene that the characters will be engulfed by a setting—Vietnam—where they are uninvited guests who are unaware that they do not belong and unprepared for the consequences.

Murch and his sound team managed the nearly impossible task of integrating the sound of the original cut with the added footage. This included asking actors Martin Sheen, Sam Bottoms, Arthur Hall, and Robert Duvall to re-record dialogue from scenes shot 24 years earlier. Yet, the dialogue represented only a small part of the sound design, which also included music and layers of sound effects. Like the visuals, the sound design was at times overwhelming, at times subtle. The film’s legendary opening sequence in which images of napalm blast across a tree line and then dissolve into Willard in his hotel room provides an example of the complex layers of sound that define the film. The sound dissolves parallel the lap dissolves: The whirring of helicopter blades blend flawlessly into the droning of the ceiling fan in the hotel room and then back to the chopper blades again. Over the sound effects, the Doors’ “The End” underscores the hallucinatory nature of the scene and foregrounds the inherent doom of the narrative before bringing in Willard’s weary voice-over. (See clip above and focus on the layers of sound.) The sound pulls us into Willard’s frame of mind—and it is not a stable one.

LAP DISSOLVES CONNECT WILLARD TO IMAGES FROM HIS PAST AND FUTURE, AND SUGGEST THE TORMENT IN HIS MIND.

According to Murch, none of the original sound synced up with the images—a minor fiasco in 1977. He resolved the problem in the original cut by removing one frame every 30 seconds to keep the sound from drifting ahead of the image. While not a problem for short takes, it was a headache for some of Coppola’s extended takes of five to ten minutes. This problem was more easily rectified for Apocalypse Now Redux , with Murch using a digital toolkit to fix the synchronization. With the excellent sound system at the Virginia Theater, the subtleties of the sound design were noticeable. Professor David Bordwell of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and coauthor of the renowned text book Film Art introduced the film with a few remarks about Murch, directing our attention to the tapestry of sound. Though brief, his introduction did exactly what it should—it guided an audience of diehard movie buffs, who had seen the film several times, to consider the film in a different way in order to get something more or different this time around.

PROFESSOR BORDWELL NOTED THAT THE FILM'S HALLUCINEGENIC QUALITY WAS A HALLMARK OF THE FILM SCHOOL GENERATION.

In place of Murch, the festival organizers asked Professor Bordwell to monitor a panel discussion after the film. Panel members included a film critic, a veteran festival organizer, and one of Ebert’s special correspondents. The “special correspondents” are bloggers, small-town reviewers, and other enthusiasts who have written to the critic over the years or have commented on his reviews and columns; Ebert personally invites a number of them each year in order to participate on panels. It must have been difficult for the panel members to pull together for a discussion they had not planned for at the last minute, but, truth be told, only Bordwell’s comments illuminated the film for the audience. The others steered the conversation toward the validity of the new sequences and whether they “worked” or not—remarks that amounted to nothing more than whether panel members liked or disliked Redux better than the original version. The panel’s inability to analyze or interpret strangled the Professor’s attempts to discuss more interesting ideas. Bordwell brought up the movie’s hallucinogenic quality as a marker of Film School Generation filmmaking and how that quality was achieved through specific techniques and visuals; he then noted that this aspect of the film as well as its scope and scale was a modernization of Hollywood’s penchant for spectacle a la Cecil B. DeMille. In the balcony where I sat, audience members mumbled and nodded at this idea, clearly intrigued with this line of thought. Yet, none of the panel members were up to this level of discussion. The people I was sitting near seemed particularly annoyed with the film reviewer, whose lack of insight was trumpeted by his continual need to pronounce opinions such as his “intense frustration with the last 40 minutes of the film” for reasons he was unable to articulate.

A SCENE IN WHICH THE CREW OF WILLARD'S BOAT ENCOUNTERS THE PLAYBOY BUNNIES SEEN IN AN EARLIER SEQUENCE DISTURBS MANY FANS OF THE FILM.

Regarding the new sequences, Bordwell tried to set Coppola and Redux within the context of other artists who tinker with their key ideas throughout their career. And, he tried to get at why Coppola might have felt compelled to reinstate the lengthy French plantation sequence and the shorter but oddly disturbing Playboy Bunny sex scene. Again, the panel seemed driven to simply criticize Redux for the new footage instead of commenting on its remarkable restoration achievement or considering how the addition of material 24 years later might reflect socio-political changes in America or at least the aging of a bona fide cinematic artist who has stepped away from the limelight. Because of the panel’s perspective, the Q&A with the audience was then reduced to either attacking the new sequences or defending them.

According to Murch, the French plantation scene should be taken symbolically more than literally. Willard and the young crew on the boat reach the plantation far up the river after one of their crew members, 17-year-old Clean, has been killed. The inhabitants of the plantation, including guards who stand in military formation, emerge out of a ghostly mist to greet the Americans on a broken-down dock half submerged in the water. The French allow the crew to bury Clean and then treat Willard and his men to a sumptuous meal that is interrupted by arguments about France’s futile efforts to colonize and control Vietnam. If references to French military failures and comments about how the French government put their army in a situation they could not win doesn’t get Coppola’s point across, then the plantation owner’s plea to Willard should. He admonishes: “Why don’t you learn from our mistakes?”  The sequence ends with Willard and a French woman in a dreamy bedroom scene. As they smoke opium, the woman pulls gauzy mosquito netting around Willard, disappearing behind the translucent material much like the French had appeared out of the hazy mist at the beginning of the sequence. The French are like ghosts trapped in a past political system (colonialism) that is no longer working for them. That they provide Clean’s final resting place suggests that Americans already have one foot in the grave in Vietnam and are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the French.

PROFESSOR BORDWELL BROUGHT UP THE MANY TIMES THAT CAMOFLAUGE MAKEUP IS APPLIED TO FACES--LIKE MASKS. BUT THIS WAS ANOTHER OBSERVATION NOT PURSUED BY THE PANEL.

VISUALLY, THE GAUZE IN THE CONCLUSION OF THE FRENCH SEQUENCE ECHOES THE MIST OF THE OPENING SHOT, SUGGESTING THE FRENCH ARE "GHOSTS" OF THE PAST.

Logically, the sequence showed what happened to Clean’s dead body. In the original version, the body just disappears, and no one speaks of it again—something I had always wondered about. Thematically, the plantation sequence provides background information about the West’s involvement with Vietnam and how both France and the U.S. over-estimated their authority in the Third World. Symbolically, the sequence suggests that the ghosts of imperialism hovered over the mess that was Vietnam.  I understand Coppola’s inclination to clarify his material and his political stance in our conservative era, particularly for generations who know Vietnam only from their high-school history books. Whether I personally like the new sequences, or whether I think they “work,” are irrelevant. Personal preferences are trite considerations in pondering the meaning of Redux or in speculating on Coppola’s ultimate purpose.

THE DINNER SCENE IN THE FRENCH SEQUENCE

Perhaps my background in art history helped me understand why filmmakers might revisit earlier works or return to previous ideas, because fine artists do it as a matter of course. While much less common in the popular arts, in which the public tends to adopt key works as “theirs,” altering past films by the original directors shouldn’t be condemned as mere egotistic tinkering. Oddly, so-called “directors’ cuts” of films are an accepted practice, based on the myth propagated by marketing  departments that outside influences had forced the director to compromise his vision, and therefore the consumer is getting “the real version” if they buy a “director’s cut” DVD edition.  Yet, in the discussion, Coppola and Steven Spielberg were taken to task for altering their films for personal, artistic reasons by certain panel members who didn’t know enough about this film or cinema history to actually articulate or defend their positions. Talk about egos. Later, a fellow fest-goer remarked that Professor Bordwell should have been the sole respondent to the film and then fielded questions alone, and I agreed. The experience reminded me of the weaknesses of film reviewing: Many reviewers don’t engage in true criticism but instead pander in opinion.

The panel for Apocalypse Now Redux was one of many topics of discussion among my fellow festival-goers; it was terrific to be among movie lovers who could debate such issues in lively but friendly discussions. Roger Ebert, who cheerfully appeared throughout the event, continually called festival-goers a community, and, indeed, we were.