Apocalypse Now: Ending

 FINAL SCENES

The story goes that Coppola didn't have an ending to Apocalypse Now that he actually liked, so due to this, there were two endings eventually shown on screen, both with distinct and explicit meanings and executions. 

In this particular ending, Willard creeps into Kurtz's compound and kills him while the Montagnards sacrifice a water buffalo, cutting it into pieces as part of their rituals. The two play over each other with a cross cutting technique, as Willard brings his machete down in rhythm with the Montagranrds one replacing the other on-screen. With the knowledge that a water buffalo was indeed cut into pieces for the scene further makes the final scene noteworthy. Further, this could emphasise inevitability linked to Willard's mission.

Willard has completed his mission, he has killed Kurtz. But the meaning of his mission has been tragically transformed by his experiences travelling up river and by his encounter with Kurtz. His original mission from the general was to assassinate Kurtz because he has supposedly gone mad engaging in senseless mayhem that was impending the American war effort. Willard's experience has diverted all of this. He began to learn that the General was lying to him. Observing Kilgore due to him being a model officer told him that. Kurtz was to be killed because he wasn.t following orders by getting off the boat. By carefully studying Kurtz, Willard has come to a conclusion that Kurtz is actually an outstanding soldiers with the intelligence and will to do the right thing with or without given orders. When Willard meets Kurtz he learns that Kurtz has indeed gone mad due to the insane way the generals are running the war and that Kurtz had chosen him to do two things: Kill him and then go back home and tell the truth about him and the Vietnam War as a whole. 

Willard's voiceover on the boat as he prepares to kill Kurtz is significant: "They were going to make me a major for this and i wasn't even in their fucking army anymore." This statement tells us that Willard has converted from his past mindset towards the war; he has come to believe Kurtz's version of it, and like Kurtz, he has gotten off the boat. Willard is going to kill Kurtz, but symbolically, it is not an assassination. He is going to kill Kurtz because Kurtz wants him to in the form of euthanasia: "Everybody wanted me to do it, him most of all. I felt like he was up there, waiting for me to take the pain away." Alternatively, Willard will perform as Kurtz's will, in assisting him to commit suicide. Thus, Willard's voiceover provides a clear interpretation of the killing scene.

Just as Willard's moving in for the kill, Kurtz's mental state is revealed before his death. He is obviously upset in his voice and gestures as he says: "They train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won't allow them to write 'fuck' on their airplanes because it's obscene!" Kurtz has visibly gone over the edge because he sees and struggles to accept such moral blindness and hypocrisy in the fighting of the war. He perceives his death as an escape from the constant torment and current painful condition. 

The dramatic crosscutting of the animal sacrifice and Kurtz's death raises questions. It could be viewed as visually engaging and adds a powerful dramatic dimension, however, it also holds an important role in in giving Kurtz's death a larger symbolic significance. The crosscutting creates a visual simile; the killing of Kurtz is like the ritual killing of the sacrificial animal. The comparison between Kurtz and the animal sacrifice suggests that Kurtz is a tragic victim of the Vietnam war. The moral contradictions of the war has destroyed a man of courage and moral clarity. 

Now we are in a position to see how Coppola ends the film just like he began it: in Willard's mind. He uses the same technique of overlapping multiple scenes to create Willard's consciousness that he utilized in the opening scene. As Willard is backing the boat out, Coppola superimposes a shot of the Buddha. In addition, he adds a third layer which is a close-up of Willard's face that slowly dissolves from under the Buddha as the boat shot dissolves away leaving only two layers: Willard's face side -by-side with the Buddha.