Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now
Heart of Darkness
The film version of Conrad's famous novel Heart of Darkness by Francis Ford Coppola entitled Apocalypse Now has been acclaimed as an important and insightful film. The novel is based on the early colonial invasion of Africa, while the film version deals with the context and the reality of the Vietnam War.
However, the film follows the major themes and underlying meaning of the novel and in fact expands on the novel by bringing these themes into the modern context. Coppola's film is essentially successful in capturing the atmosphere of the book and in portraying the conflict between good and evil in the human heart -- especially with regards to the character of Kurtz.
It should be noted that Coppola saw the film as much more than just another movie about the Vietnam conflict and the horror and confusion of that war. At the Cannes Film Festival in 1979 he stated that Apocalypse Now
… is not a movie; my film is not about Vietnam, it is Vietnam. It portrays what it was really like. It is crazy. It is very much like the way the Americans were in Vietnam. We were in the jungle. There were too many of us. We had access to too much money, too much equipment. And we went insane.
(McDonald, 2002)
In other words, it is a film about human nature and the evil that lies hidden in the human heart -- no matter whether it is in the colonization of Africa or in Vietnam. In this sense the novel by Conrad serves as an artistic platform on which Coppola builds his cinematic creation.
The Heart of Darkness can be interpreted on many different levels. These include the psychological, sociological, ethical and political dimensions. The book is about the effects of imperialism in Africa but it also explores themes such as the search for self...
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