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). One can see the irony of American imperialism supposedly being "defeated" in Apocalypse Now simply by noting that just a few months after its release in August of 1979, the Iranian Revolution and subsequent hostage crisis once again brought to the fore the widespread and ongoing effects of American imperialism.
In addition acting as a salve for those audiences repellant at the horror of imperialism while reluctant to admit any complicity in it, Apocalypse Now, in contrast to Heart of Darkness, serves to perpetuate further imperial endeavors by essentially glamorizing war and horror in the form of spectacle. 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).
This actually helps explain why it is so important for Willard to function as a stand-in for the audience, defeating the evil monster. By definition, portraying an imperial war as a spectacle makes it so that "as viewers, our own reception of that spectacle as entertainment turns us into tacit supporters of the imperial project" (Solomon 25). The film had to use Willard as a means of comforting its audience's uncomfortable relationship with empire, because otherwise the film and the audience's support of that empire would have been explicit. By framing itself as opposed to the violence of the Vietnam War while making that violence aesthetically appealing, Apocalypse Now functions in support of American empire while assuring its audience that it is doing no such thing. Ultimately, then, Coppola's rendition of Conrad's story strips it of any true anti-imperialist message, and instead uses it to protect and perpetuate empire, somewhat akin to a vampire turning its victim into a slave.
While Apocalypse Now and Heart of Darkness have been critically examined almost since the moment of their release, considering them in conjunction reveals a number of things about either text that would otherwise have been more difficult to spot. In particular, addressing both texts sharpens Conrad's criticisms of empire and demonstrates how the personal journey of Marlow is representative of a more general human phenomenon. On the other hand, it reveals how Apocalypse Now strips these anti-imperialist inclinations from the story by confining the horror portrayed within the bounds of Willard's internal psyche, so that instead of Willard's story being representative of a larger issue in human society, the Vietnam war becomes representative of Willard's (and the audience's) internal psychological issues. By considering the name change and the choice to set the film in Vietnam, one can see how the (relatively) same story can be altered and manipulated in order to perform an almost diametrically opposed function. Where Heart of Darkness critiques the violence and horror of empire, Apocalypse Now simultaneously shields it audience from their complicity in that violence while setting the stage for further imperial action.
Annotated Bibliography
Demory, Pamela. "Apocalypse Now Redux: Heart of Darkness Moves into New Territory."
Literature/Film Quarterly 35.1 (2007): 342-9.
This essay was useful because it reiterated the long-held yet erroneous belief that Apocalypse Now represents a direct continuation of Conrad's criticism of imperialism. Demory argues that...
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