In Heart of Darkness, the story is actually relayed by an unnamed narrator, and although "his presence is so subtle that either we never really notice him or we soon forget that Conrad has positioned this disembodied voice between Marlow and us," the fact remains that Marlow is not given total narrative authority; instead, his narrative and inner experiences are related as a story within a story, such that his subjective interpretation is not given the imprimatur of authority (Cahir 181). Marlow's story is only one of the many "yarns" told by the passengers aboard the Nellie, and as such the reader may regard it not as a strict documentary and fact, but rather a kind of allegorical approach to the issue of Belgian imperialism (Conrad 65, 68)
As discussed above, Apocalypse Now does not actually use this setting change to criticize the war in the same way that Conrad implicitly and explicitly criticizes Belgian imperialism in Heart of Darkness. It is crucial to reiterate this point because much extant scholarship on the film seems to miss it, and views the film strictly as a transformation "from a story of Belgian imperialism in the African Congo to one of American militarism in Vietnam" (Demory 342)
On cursory examination this choice seems only natural, and almost unimportant; the story does not precisely follow Conrad's novella, so why bother keeping the name, which might lead audiences to expect a more faithful adaptation? However, this name change also reveals something important about the way each text frames its story. While Conrad's Heart of Darkness is a deeply personal story, based partially on his own experiences in the Congo, it nevertheless contains a strong undercurrent of political criticism, linking Marlow's experience to the imperial project of Belgium as a whole (Firchow 18)
The name Apocalypse Now, as well as the apocalyptic title sequence, initially lead the viewer to expect that the story will address its themes on a worldwide, humanity-encompassing level, but as the film progresses, it becomes clear that this is mere effect; in reality, the horrors and violence of Vietnam are not the target of the story, but rather a metaphor for Willard's internal experience. As Kerry Grant notes, "Coppola reveals the bias of his particular reading of Heart of Darkness, which leads him consistently away from the more political dimensions of that text" (Grant 214)
Willard's internal trauma is representative of the shock many Americans must have felt at seeing the violence inflicted in their name, and thus his killing of Kurtz represents a kind of superficial destruction of the "bad seed" that supposedly tainted the otherwise respectable and honorable American military. By focusing on the "primitive" evil embodied by Kurtz, the film allows the more "subtle and civilized manifestations of evil" in the form of American foreign policy to go unquestioned (Maier-Katkin 584-585)
While Marlow's narration reveals a strong aversion to the violence and horror committed in the name of empire, Apocalypse Now (partially due to its filmic nature) seems to revel in this violence, with its lovingly crafted shots of napalm exploding or the scene of Kurtz's death interspersed with images of a ritual sacrifice. As Keith Solomon notes, with its "emphasis on technology and the spectacle of war," Apocalypse Now serves to erase the distinction between "the real" and "the virtual" because visually they become the same; as such, Apocalypse Now essentially predicted the kind of "embedded reporting" now common in American imperial endeavors, but it did so uncritically, and thus actually helps contribute to this tendency (Solomon 25)
She must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her. She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress (Conrad, III)
Jung referred to the shadow as the "often dangerous…primitive, uncivilized, pre-evolutionary past of the species. The shadow is represented as jealousy and repressed desires like avarice, aspects which most people would prefer not to recognize as part of their being" (Schmuhl & Guches 2003)
In Things Fall Apart, Obierika, one of Okonkwo's friends recounts, "They were locusts, it said, and that first man was their harbinger sent to explore the terrain. And so they killed him" (Achebe 50)
Unlike Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now in which the natives are regarded as savage, in Things Fall Apart, white men are considered to be savage because of the death and destruction they left in their wake. While many contend "history is written by the victors," Things Fall Apart allows readers to understand history from the perspective of those that were forcibly conquered and thus allows the reader to understand the destructive nature of imperialism and conquest (Churchill)
Like many imperialistic countries that sought to expand their territories for political and financial gain, Kurtz seeks out to explore as much of Congo for personal gain. Kurtz asks, "What was he doing? exploring or what?," to which a response of "Oh, yes, of course,' he had discovered lots of villages, a lake, too -- he did not know exactly in what direction; it was dangerous to inquire too much -- but mostly his expeditions had been for ivory…'To speak plainly, he raided the country" (Conrad 31)
Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American epic war film directed, produced and co-written by Francis Ford Coppola. It was co-written by John Milius with narration ...
Title: Apocalypse Now (1979) 8.5 /10. Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered ...
One of a cluster of late-1970s films about the Vietnam War, Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now adapts the Joseph Conrad novella Heart of Darkness to depict the war ...
A legendary film, without any exaggeration. Winning 2 Oscars and proving that Francis Ford Coppola was …
Apocalypse Now for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, macOS and Linux. You are an assassin. You've been given the most dangerous, most secret and most controversial special ...
Buy Apocalypse Now: Read 2693 Movies & TV Reviews - Amazon.com
Apocalypse Now - In Vietnam in 1970, Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) takes a perilous and increasingly hallucinatory journey upriver to find and terminate...
A troubled Army captain goes on a dangerous odyssey into remote Cambodia to assassinate an American colonel who has succumbed to the horrors of war. Watch trailers ...
Amazon.com: Apocalypse Now: The Complete Dossier (Apocalypse Now / Apocalypse Now Redux): Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest, Laurence ...