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

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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