Apocalypse Now

Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now is a loose adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness. Everything about the film, it’s plot, its characters, even the troubled production and the director’s health and sanity, is like slow-motion descent into madness. Despite featuring very little of the actual ‘war’, Apocalypse Now is perhaps the seminal film about the confusion and insanity permeating the conflict. This titan of a film 100% SHOULD have won best picture at the 1979 Academy Awards. The fact that it lost out to Kramer vs. Kramer is one the biggest travesties in Oscar history. The upset is often attributed to the Best Picture win for Deer Hunter the year before — apparently Academy voters didn’t want to have back-to-back wins for films about the war, which was still fresh in everyone’s mind. Sigh.

This incredible Japanese B0 poster is from famed surrealist and set and costume designer, Eiko Ishioka. In fact, Ishioka’s work on the pair of Japanese B0s for Apocalypse Now is likely what helped her make the jump from advertising to film production design. Francis Ford Coppola latter hired Ishioka to design the elaborate costumes for Bram Stoker’s Dracula in 1991, for which she won an Academy Award. This “Charlie don’t surf” style B0 is one of the most gorgeous posters for the film!