How Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Apocalypse Now’ inspired Spike Lee
The Vietnam War might not be the first piece of American history that we think of when it comes to Spike Lee, but the truth is that the legendary filmmaker has explored the conflict in his 2020 film Da 5 Bloods, joining a long list of brilliant movies surrounding the infamous historical event.
There have been countless excellent films that focus on the Vietnam War throughout the years, including Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, Oliver Stone’s Platoon and Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, although Lee took an incredibly different approach to those filmmakers when it came to his turn.
Da 5 Bloods, starring Delroy Lindo, Jonathan Majors, Clarke Peters and Johnny Tri Nguyen, focuses on four aging Vietnam War veterans who return to the country in the hopes of finding the remains of their deceased squad leader as well as digging up a treasure they buried during their service.
Lee had once admitted that he was indebted to the great Vietnam movies of the past when it came to making his own, particularly Apocalypse Now. “I was at the first screening of Apocalypse Now,” he once revealed in an interview with Sight and Sound. “It was on a Friday, and I took that day off. I’ve told this story to Francis probably too many times, but I was there! Twelve noon, a screening of Apocalypse Now at the Cinerama Dome on Sunset Boulevard, with the great Walter Murch’s sound design, those helicopters going over my head like: ‘Where did that sound come from?’”
According to the director, it was his mother who started taking him to the movies when he was a child, which turned him into a cinephile. “That was where the bug was planted,” he said, “but I didn’t know that it would lead me to want to be a filmmaker.” And there were much worse movies for Lee to be seen at a young age for creative inspiration than Coppola’s legendary Vietnam War movie.
In fact, when Lee set about making Da 5 Bloods, he paid a respectful little homage to his “guy” Coppola and Apocalypse Now. Lee explained, “The club you see in Da 5 Bloods is a real club – the Apocalypse Now one in Saigon. That’s not a set; the film was shot in Thailand and Vietnam. I knew about that club before we shot the film and said, ‘We gotta shoot there. We gotta have a scene there.’”
There’s an iconic moment in Apocalypse Now in which Robert Duvall’s character leads a huge helicopter raid on a Vietnamese village to the sound of Richard Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries. Lee was sure to pay yet another moment of respect to Coppola’s film, with an image of his main characters on a boat to the sound of the very same piece.
“It’s a tip of the hat and a homage to my brother Francis Ford Coppola: I love him, I love him, I love him,” Lee enthusiastically admitted. But let me ask you a question: when you saw them on the boat with that music, did you start to laugh? It’s kind of humorous, too. But again, it’s respect. It’s respect for Francis. It’s an homage.”
Just as much as Lee has inspired so many filmmakers throughout his career, he can’t help but be influenced by the great directors who have come before him, and when it came to Da 5 Bloods, few played as big a hand of influence than Francis Ford Coppola.
