August 3, 2001

Coppola, 'Apocalypse Now,' and the Ambivalent 70's

By DAVID STERRITT

Francis Ford Coppola's most popular contribution to American screenwriting is surely Marlon Brando's wry promise in the first Godfather film (1972): "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse."

There's another oft-cited line, in Coppola's 1979 Apocalypse Now, that crystallizes far more of the 70's American spirit, however, with a wit so ferocious that audiences have never quite known whether to laugh, gasp, or shudder. It comes when surfboard-toting Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore, played to

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