Christmas task: apocalypse now

 Making the hotel room scene

The content of this particular scene was heavily affected by several factors. Martin Sheen told the shooting crew to just let the cameras roll. He was actually drunk and even punched the mirror which was real glass, cutting his thumb. The destruction of the mirror is symbolism for him destroying himself. The crew were able to captures such raw moments of Sheen's genuine distress, we can tell that what started as improvisation then became a genuine reflection of his state of mind. He said "Please. I must do this for myself. He allowed me to wrestle with some demons that I had been wrestling with for quite a while. Now, I was doing it in a public forum, and in a sense, I got them out." His unsettling behaviour in this scene marks the beginning of his descent and immediately raises questions as to his sanity.                           He had admitted he was an alcoholic, but did not exactly plan the breakdown in the scene, but knew it would be intense for him. "I had done that scene at bars, I had done that scene at home," Sheen said of his actual drunken breakdowns. "I had comes to grips with it. I had to exorcise that out of myself." Willard's action on screen are much more violent and dangerous that the generic description in the script. In effect, what the filmmakers created in the scene is a much more dramatic and compelling scene, one that not only coneys the fragile state of Willard's mind, but also kicks off the story with a mysterious, entertaining opening scene.