Looking at the newly expanded version of Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now," you can understand why he cut the sequences he did in 1979 and also why he has restored those cuts. Under the gun to get his overbudget and difficult film out, he removed these scenes not only in the interest of time but to make the film as accessible as possible. Today, in a relaxed atmosphere of reworking and rethinking a film that has enjoyed critical and commercial success, Coppola can restore footage that made it more political -- and therefore more specifically about Vietnam -- even darker and at the same time funnier.

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