Why Apocalypse Now is Amazing

I do not use the word "amazing" lightly in the movie genre, I own a lot and have seen a lot more.  It takes mighty good reviews for me to purchase a film, because I don't want to spend 20 dollars on trash.  I bought Apocalypse Now as it was recommended by all the best critics and a few close friends of mine.  The very first time I saw this film I thought the story was hard to follow, I do not mean the very simple assassination portion of the story, but the politics and psychology involved.  What I did appreciate was the imagery and the way the film, through impressionistic means, as a whole showed me a picture of dark and bleak insanity.  I remember sitting through this and almost forcing myself to bypass some of the more gruesome of psychologically taxing portions, I speak of the puppy on the boat, or the psychotic Colonel Kilgore.  I watched as Americans proudly mowed down dozens of human beings and was affected.  Nothing made a more lasting impression though than the end of the movie when the sacrifice of the steer corresponded with the killing of Kurtz.  Everything was perfect in making us feel as if we had experienced our worst nightmares on screen.  Insert Heart of Darkness.  Reading and analyzing this novella in class added an entirely new dimension to my appreciation of the movie.  I noticed just how many parallels are made, Kilgore being the incompetent individual who is in charge simply because he won't die, the american photographer representing the Russian, and the wonderful way Vietnam was made to be the interpretation of the hell which was the unknown in the Congo.  Much more of the psychology was transferred to me after I read the book, but the most important thing and biggest success of the movie was the way the feeling of the book was so accurately transferred to film.  The book used impressionistic means to convey a sense of darkness, and the movie did the exact same thing through music and imagery.  I thought the movie was even better having watched it after reading the book, I was very very much impressed.