¶ … MOVIE APOCALYPSE NOW Abstract: This is an analysis of the use of the Vietnam War as a cultural backdrop in the movie Apocalypse Now. It outlines how Francis Coppola uses Vietnam War as the basis for cultural differentiation, how director uses the narrator / voice over of Willard and it accounts for two combats during the journey up river. It uses only the movie as a source in MLA format. Francis Coppola's Apocalypse Now is one in a series of Vietnam War story. With Vietnam as the cultural backdrop, Coppola presents the bizarre war environment through the behavior of the various characters of the movie especially Kurtz and Kilgore. To make the Vietnam War experience more personal Coppola uses voice over of the protagonist Willard (played by Martin Sheen), transitioning his uncultured, all-American thoughts to gradually one of a soldier in Vietnam. In essence Willard is an assassin sent to terminate the command" of Colonel Kurtz (played by Marlon Brando). But as the plot of the movie...
The opening scene shows he is in a Saigon hotel, awaiting his mission. He thinks how strange it is to kill one's fellow countrymen in a foreign land. "There were those six that I knew about for sure, close enough to blow their last breath in my face. But this time, it was an American and an officer. It wasn't supposed to make any difference to me, but it did." [Apocalypse Now]. The other characters on the other hand become more chaotic. Their irrational behavior, the result of war pressure and a strange environment, contributed to the violent trip up river.
And why not?" This novella is, above all, an exploration of hypocrisy, ambiguity, and moral confusion. It explodes the idea of the proverbial choice between the lesser of two evils. As the idealistic Marlow is forced to align himself with either the hypocritical and malicious colonial bureaucracy or the openly malevolent, rule-defying Kurtz, it becomes increasingly clear that to try to judge either alternative is an act of folly: how
Close up shots are also used in this sequence to depict the soldiers that are flying in the helicopters during the attack. By using close up shots, the camera implies that the soldiers are being seen from the point-of-view of someone that would be flying alongside the men. Additionally, when the beach is being bombed by jets -- during which Lt. Col. Kilgore gives his infamous napalm speech --
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
Breaking on through to the Other Side and Passing Judgment in Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now Redux: A River Journey to Hell and Back The river journeys in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Copolla’s Apocalypse Now Redux are journeys into Hell—journeys that provide revelations on the horror of the modern world. Marlowe and Willard represent two different takeaways from these journeys, however. Marlowe’s journey is up the Congo; Willard’s is
Colonialism and Imperialism in Heart of Darkness, Things Fall Apart, And Apocalypse Now The shadow of colonization: Projecting European anxieties onto nonwhite peoples The Jungian concept of 'the shadow' is not that 'the shadow' is inherently dark or evil: rather, it is a hidden part of an individual or collective subconscious that is a repository of all of the aspects of society wishes to hide. The shadow' may contain elements of forbidden
Euro v Afro Centric Perspectives The unfolding of events can be told from a variety of perspectives that are highly influenced by an individual's background and personal prejudices. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe provide two distinct and polar perspectives. Heart of Darkness, and consequently the film adaptation Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, provides an Anglo-centric perspective on colonialism and imperialism, whereas
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