What to watch this weekend
Morality plays, from the corridors of the Vatican to the battlefields of Vietnam
MORAL AMBIGUITY is the throughline of this week’s recommendations. Trying circumstances—war, illness, death—have a way of inducing decent characters to do dubious things. No one is unfalteringly good; anyone who professes to be is fibbing. Everyone makes choices then regrets them. Good. Perfection, on screen as in life, is not very interesting.
“Apocalypse Now” and “The Deer Hunter” (Both available to rent on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+)
The 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon is an occasion to revisit two of the best American films ever made. Michael Cimino’s “The Deer Hunter” tells the story of three friends from a steel town in Pennsylvania who get drafted, then struggle to readapt to civilian life. It features a terrific performance from Christopher Walken before he became a caricature of himself. Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” transplants Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”—a novella about European colonialism in Africa—to Vietnam, with a terrifying Marlon Brando as Colonel Kurtz. Do not attempt to watch both films in one day.
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