ABSTRACT
Rayment examines the double(d) complexion of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now Redux. In its twin operation of overlaying acts of diegetic remembering across its extra-diegetic, cinematic ʻmemory’ of the Vietnam War, Rayment argues that Redux is a brilliantly innovative film. Showing how it replicates its representation of the ‘working through’ of personal trauma in the diegesis with a surreal frame which presents Vietnam as a hysterical ʻmemory’ of a war so traumatic for the United States that it cannot be viewed ‘straight’, Rayment considers the film as a form ápres coup remembering – a symptom of America’s collective need to recall injuries for assuagement. Redux is also, Rayment contends, an adroit operation in subverting orthodox remembrance codes that offer homage to American soldiers and their mythical deeds. Although it effectively satirizes the myth-making tendencies of American war film-makers and war-makers alike, Rayment also points toward how Redux is drawn toward the kind of myth-making that it supposedly critiques. The film is thus simultaneously a tour de force and an abject failure – that rare breed of motion picture which can be considered both a masterpiece to marvel at and a turkey to laugh at, the best and the worst film ever made.
