Apocalypse Now Page #19

They are silent. We can HEAR the most ominous SOUND

COMING FROM THE BANKS. The GROANING, OR WAILING .. of

HUNDREDS OF MEN.

CHIEF:

They're on the banks of the

river.

200 VIEW ON LANCE

Frantically, he swings the twin fifties around.

LANCE:

Jesus !

201 VIEW ON CHIEF

We can barely SEE him -- in and out of the fog.

CHIEF:

No, Lance. Not while you can't

see.

202 VIEW ON WILLARD

listening. The SOUND IS TERRIBLE, HORRIFYING.

CHIEF:

Will they attack?

WILLARD:

If they have boats ... or

canoes... they'd get lost in

the fog. We can't move either --

we'll end up on the shore.

CHEF:

God...

LANCE:

Sounds like hundreds of them.

WILLARD:

Shhhhhh.

The CHORUS OF GROANS in unbearable. But it is not ahostile

cahnt; or a war chant, but rather the SOUND OF HUMAN

ANGUISH.

WILLARD:

(continuing)

It doesn't sound hostile --

it sounds like they've seen us

coming and it sounds like --

I don't know, a funeral. I

don't understand.

203 VIEW ON LANCE

A glimpse of him, almost in tears. We then SEE glimpses,

fog moving, of all the men on the P.B.R.

DISSOLVE TO :

204 MED. VIEW - THE P.B.R.

MOVING THROUGH the thinning mist. The Navy craft proceeds

cautiously.

WILLARD (V.O.)

Two hours after the fog lifted,

we moved slowly to a spot we

thought was roughly a mile and

a half below Kurtz's camp. We

approached a long sand-bank

stretching down the middle of

the river.

CHIEF:

Which way? Right or left?

WILLARD:

Who knows? Right.

CHIEF:

Looks pretty shallow.

The P.B.R. moves toard the right-most channel. Chef

takes a long pole and begins sounding depth.

205 VIEW ON WILLARD

The men are really tense now -- Lances swivels his gun from

bank to bank. Chief keeps his fingers on an M-16. Willard

takes out the TOP SECRET packet he received at Do Lung.

Tears it open. We MOVE IN ON him.

WILLARD:

(reading)

Upon reaching objective. Target

key personnel and commence

operation. Should difficulty

arise from which extraction is

impossible, break radio silence

Com-Sec Command code Strong Arm --

indicate purgative air strike --

code -- Street Gang.

(pause)

Purgative air strike ! Purgative !

They'd kill me too !

Suddenly Chef lays out flat on the bow. Hundreds

and hundreds of slender sticks fly onto the P.B.R.

rattling against the boat.

CHIEF:

Sh*t ! F***ing arrows ! They're

shooting f***ing arrows at us.

206 CLOSE ON WILLARD

looking toward the banks.

207 WILLARD'S POV

Frags of men -- naked limbs, arms, breasts, glaring eyes

entangled in the dense jungle gloom. And hundreds of

pathetic wooden arrows flying out toward them.

208 VIEW ON THE P.B.R.

crazily zig-zagging up the river in the midst of the

childish assault.

WILLARD:

Steer her right.

209 VIEW ON THE P.B.R.

arrows hitting the deck. The men open up everything

they've got. Lance is FIRING the two fifties wildly.

WILLARD:

Keep going.. keep going.

They're just f***ing sticks !

Chief, stay at the helm.

But Chief seems out of control -- he lets the clip of his

M-16 go. Then slowly lets the rifle fall out of his hands,

and falls to Willard's feet, a primitive spear having

caught him right through the ribs. Willard looks down in

horror.

210 VIEW ON CHIEF

laying at Willard's feet -- the long spear through him,

bleeding onto Willard's boots. He looks up at Willard,

about to say something.

CHIEF:

A spear?

He dies.

211 MED. VIEW ON THE P.B.R.

The men are still crazily FIRING into the empty jungle

long after those who attacked beat their retreat.

WILLARD:

Stop it. Stop it !

Slowly he pulls his boots from under Chief. They are

absolutely soaked in blood. He is stunned -- sits down

and begins to unlace the bloody boots, and take them off.

LANCE:

Chief's dead.

Willard unlaces the other boot, and holds the bloody boot

in his hand.

WILLARD (V.O.)

It was the strangest thing --

I don't know that I can explain

it. Two of my men dead, and all

I could think of was whether

Kurtz was dead too. That's all

I wanted:
to see Kurtz, to hear

Kurtz.

He starts to wipe the blood off the boot.

WILLARD (V.O.)

(continuing)

Somehow, in the middle of this ...

carnival, Kurtz had grown into

something -- a gifted officer;

a great man.

Somehow, he was the only light

in this hopeless, hopeless

darkness.

And now I was too late --

he was probably gone, disappeared...

by a grenade rolled into his

tent -- or by some spear on the head.

Christ, I felt like howling like

those animals in the fog.

212 EXT. THE BOAT AT MARINA DEL REY - NIGHT

The people at Charlie's cocktail party on the boat.

Some flashbulbs are going off. Some people are dancing

to the MUSIC. OUR VIEW MOVES SLOWLY TOWARD Willard, on

the edge of the party.

WILLARD (V.O.)

Here they are in Los Angeles.

Everything is safe. There's a

supermarket around the corner,

the police station around the

other. It would seem ridiculous

to them that I was shot to hell

because I had lost the privilege

of listening to the mysterious

Colonel Kurtz.

(pause)

Of course I was wrong. He was

waiting for me. Kurtz was alive

and he was waiting for me.

DISSOLVE TO :

213 EXT. THE RIVER - P.B.R. DAY

The P.B.R. moving up the river. The men are practically

in a trance now, looking at the banks of the river. They

don´t even make an effort to touch their weapons.

214 WHAT THEY SEE

Hundreds and hundreds of Montagnard natives -- dressed

in the most ornate and primitive manner: feathers, parts

of birds and animals; cod-pieces -- all in body and face

paint of the most savage nature. But there is a purity

about them, men and boys, standing passively watching

the small Navy craft flying the strange flag of red,

white and blue.

215 VIEW ON THE P.B.R.

The men of the crew are not the same men who began this

voyage. Their manner is lifeless as though in a trance.

The various decorations and paraphenelia that they have

picked up along the way seem oddly relevant to the

savages that stand before them. The Chef has made a

hat of birdfeathers; Lance's face has been painted with

mud under the eyes to block the glare of the sun. He

wears certain animal skins; trinkets; some animal teeth.

Their uniforms have been torn and patched throughout the

difficult journey. They start to move to their gun

positions.

WILLARD:

Just stand here with me where

they can see us. Do nothing.

216 VIEW FROM BEHIND THE P.B.R.

MOVING SLOWLY TOWARD the fantastic human wall of feathers

and war paint, standing on canoes across the river. The

men on the crew stand in a group, their hands visibly

without weapons. The natives standing across the river

make no hostile gestures as they approach. They accept

the small boat moving toward them with a sort of inevi-

tability. The boat moves closer, approaches the wall of

feathers -- which slowly and automatically gives away, in

almost a ritual of birth, undulating, allowing the little

boat to penetrate.

217 VIEW ON WILLARD

Mus on his face (to protect it from the sun), the palms

of some jungle vegetation protecting his head, he looks

something like atribal chieftan himself. His intuition

was right. He senses that they would be allowed to pass.

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