illard'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…...
mlaWorks Cited
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Signet Classics reprint. New York: New American Library,
1902.
Coppola, Francis Ford, dir. Apocalypse Now. United Artists, 1979. Film.
Demory, Pamela. "Apocalypse Now Redux: Heart of Darkness Moves into New Territory."
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 can moral standards or social values be relevant in judging evil? Is there such thing as insanity in a world that has already gone insane? On his boat journey to his mission's starting point, Willard remembers the other times he had killed: "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…...
mlaConrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. 2nd ed. Edited by Ross Martin. New York: Bedford Books, 1996, p. 51-52.
Apocalypse Now Redux. Francis Ford Coppola. Paramount 1979.
Conrad, p. 87.
Okonkwo's journey is one of self-imposed exile. So, too, is the journey of the Kurtz character in Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Coppola's Apocalypse Now. Thus, Kurtz takes the place of the protagonist as being the symbolic character catalyst in Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart. The Kurtz character is more similar to the Okonkwo character than either Marlow or Willard. For this reason, Kurtz can be considered a default protagonist. The journey that Kurtz took has already happened, though. The reader of Heart of Darkness and the viewer of Apocalypse Now does not know how Kurtz got to that point. All we know is that Kurtz lost his mind, went insane, and is now a freak example of the heart of darkness of the human soul.
Even if their exile is self-imposed, Okonkwo and Kurtz remain a world apart from the rest of society. Psychologically and spiritually, Okonkwo and…...
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 Things Fall Apart provides an Afro-centric account of the events that transpire.
Heart of Darkness, published in 1899, follows Charles Marlow as he sets out to meet Mr. Kurtz, a smart and successful ivory trader who has established residency and taken over a village at Central Station. Conrad creates a very imperialistic character through Kurtz. 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…...
mlaWorks Cited
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. 1958. Web. Accessed 15 November 2012, from l-adam-
mekler.com/things-fall-apart.pdf.
"The Age of Imperialism." Accessed 28 October 2012, from blue.wths.net/faculty/bertola/Imperialism.ppt
Apocalypse Now. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. United States: United Artists, 1979. DVD.
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…...
mlaBibliography
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Production Line: Francis Ford Coppola for United Artists
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Cinematographer: Vittorio Storaro
Real Hearts Going After Apocalypses
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad was one of the first works of fiction to explore modernist notions of reality, and specifically, what makes an experience "real." "Apocalypse Now" can, in many ways, be thought of as the transposition of Conrad's ideas onto a modern war. Tim O'rien's Going After Cacciato investigates similar themes concerning mental and physical interpretations of reality and is also placed in the Vietnam War. Together, these three works provide insights into the minds of Francis Ford Coppola, Tim O'rien, and Joseph Conrad; in particular, they reveal how these three artists structure their interpretations of reality through direct experience, memories, and dreams.
Conrad was, of course, a pre-modernist author. He did not go as far as many that followed him, like Wolfe or Hemmingway, who jumped from moment to moment, and perspective to perspective in an effort to represent reality as a combination…...
mlaBibliography
1. Apocalypse Now. Videotape. Paramount Home Video, 1979. 155 min.
2. Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York: Bantam, 1981.
3. O'Brien, Tim. Going After Cacciato. New York: Broadway Books, 1999.
Apocalypse of Art in the Tech Era
Modern Apocalypse Art and Technological Aspects
The purpose of this paper is to examine modern art, in particular that which is referred to as "apocalypse art" and further to examine the interactions between art and technology. Specifically this paper will look at the new dimensions that technology has contributed to the rendering of art as well as what contribution or impact that art has rendered to technology.
The methodology for this study is through examination of several of the artists as well as scholars who are in some way interconnected in this process of producing apocalypse art.
The question that seems to weigh on the minds of those who view the modern "apocalypse" art exhibits asks:
Has this artist attempted to achieve the effect of shock or is the artist attempting to convey some deeper truth?"
London's Art Gallery featured an exhibit entitled "Apocalypse" in the year of 2000.…...
mlaBibliography 3 of 3
28. UNSW (nd) "Anna Munster" [Online] available at http://www.icinema.unsw.edu.au/bios/zbio_munter.html
29. Vesna, Victoria (1999) "Fear of Deletion and the Eternal Trace" [Online] available at http://www.the-artists.org/Artists/Vesna.html
30. Wilson, Cintra (2000) "Joel-Peter Witkin" Salon [Online] available at http://dir.salon.com/people/bc/2000/05/09/witkins/index.html
Reuters News (3 May 2000) "London Gallery's Apocalypse Could Rival Controversial Sensation" [Online] available at http://www.cnn.com/2000/style/arts/05/03/britian.apocalypse.reut/
Walk to the End of the World
It is a post-apocalyptic account of a journey of a father and his young son over a time of several months, across a landscape blasted by an unspecified cataclysm that has destroyed most of civilization and, in the interceding years, all life on Earth. George and his child Tim proceed with a trip together where they know they won't survive. The area is loaded with fiery remains and without living creatures and vegetation. A significant number of remaining human survivors have depended on savagery, searching the debris of city and nation alike for substance. The boy's mom, pregnant with him at the season of the catastrophe, surrendered trust and conferred suicide some time before the story started, in spite of the father's requests. Acknowledging they can't survive the approaching winter where they are, the father takes the boy south, along unfilled streets towards…...
Horror, the Horror:
Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness vs. Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now
I stood on this hillside, I foresaw that in the blinding sunshine of that land I would become acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly. How insidious he could be, too, I was only to find out several months later and a thousand miles farther -- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
The director Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 Vietnam epic entitled Apocalypse Now makes a direct analogy in its symbolism as well as its plot structure with Joseph Conrad's famous 1899 novella about colonialism in the Belgian Congo entitled Heart of Darkness. This is most notable in the character played by Marlon Brando: Colonel Kurtz, who is named after Conrad's Kurtz, an important figure in a fictional ivory trading company in the Congo. Both works present white men that have, for various reasons,…...
mlaWorks Cited
Apocalypse Now. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, 1979.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness, 1899. Available:
[22 Oct 2012]http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/ConDark.html
God created the dispensations and guides humanity differently during each period. C.I Scofield outlines the dispensations including Innocence, Conscience, Human Government, Promise, Law, Church, and Kingdom ("End Times" 4). Dispensationalism is based on a literal and unequivocal interpretation of the Bible ("End Times" 4). Efird, for instance, describes dispenstionalism a historically accurate and nearly scientific method of discerning Biblical prophecy based on a close reading of the sacred text. Efird claims that dispensationalism prevents the "disappointment and embarrassment" that has plagued believers in the apocalypse (7). Dispensationalism is a relatively new type of Christian eschatology and has the unique hallmarks of American Protestantism. The Catholic Church does not embrace a strict interpretation of millennialism. On the contrary, Catholics prefer a more symbolic interpretation of the Book of Revelations ("End Times" 4).
Regardless of the denomination of Christianity, the end times is central to the religion's teachings, its cosmology, its theology,…...
mlaWorks Cited
Efird, J.M. Left Behind? What the Bible Really Says about the End Times. Macon: Smyth & Helwys 2005.
"End Times." BBC.com. Retrieved 5 Oct 2009 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/beliefs/endtimes_1.shtml
Endtime Ministries. Web site retrieved 5 Oct 2009 from http://www.endtime.com/
"Eschatology." Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 5 Oct 2009 from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/192308/eschatology
classic films, and what makes them classic. Specifically, it will contain a discussion of what makes a film "classic" and use a specific film that I believe is classic, with good quality reasons for the answer.
CLASSIC FILS
The term "classic film" often evokes thoughts of an old film, often shown and enjoyed by audiences throughout many decades. The film could be a musical, such as "The Wizard of Oz," or a drama, such as "Apocalypse Now." Both films (and scores of others) have been called classics, and are often shown on network and cable channels. What makes these films classic?
Some might say it is the acting that makes a film a classic. In "The Wizard of Oz," for example, each actor, from Judy Garland as Dorothy, to argaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch is perfectly cast, and creates their role with great talent and charm. They set the stage for…...
mlaMany classic films also make history with their visual techniques or special effects. In The Wizard of Oz," the film opens in black-and-white, and turns to Technicolor when Dorothy opens the door onto a new world. This technique was new and different in 1939, and created a stir with viewers. The special effects in the movie, from the tornado, to the talking trees in the forest that toss their apples at Dorothy and her friends were all groundbreaking for the time. In "Apocalypse Now," the photography of Vietnam and the conditions facing our troops there during the Vietnam War are both spectacular and disquieting. The scene of the helicopters advancing toward the Vietnamese village to the strains of Wagner's "Cry of the Valkyries" is probably one of the most well-known and often remembered scenes in movie history. "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" has become a standard quote in American language, and just about everyone immediately knows the film it came from.
Great directors can also make even the most mediocre film classic by their understanding of the themes in the script, and the actors capabilities. Francis Ford Coppola is an excellent example of this. His films all tend to be classics, simply because of his incredible understanding of the film, the historic background, and his actors abilities and strengths. "Apocalypse Now" made stars of many of its actors, and Coppola's directing certainly added strength and purpose to the theme from Conrad's book, which was difficult to understand, especially at the end.
In conclusion, a classic film is made up of many elements. Some of them are as unique as each film is unique, and some of them are common to many classic films. Classic films are enduring, and linger on in the mind of the viewer long after they have seen the film. They usually contain excellent casts, who make their characters come completely alive. The writing of a classic film is usually superior, and helps the film and the characters endure. People often quote lines or passages from classic films, because the writing simply demands repeating. Excellent photography and directing usually accompany classic films. The visual techniques and special effects endure, making the film indelible unforgettable. Great directors can create a classic even when many of these elements are missing, by making a mediocre film memorable with acting or photography.
Post Colonial Literature
Historical literature is filled with examples of pre- and post-colonialist paradigms. Within each of these models, however, there is a certain part of a larger story that can only be told in the larger view of the historical process. One of the grand themes that help us wade through that process is that of the dehumanization of the individual. For whatever psychotically reasons, humans seem to have the need to change others into less than human in order to subjugate them economically, intellectually, or culturally. We might even think of the process of imperialism as practiced by the European powers as dehumanization of culture and society; begun at the micro level and then evolving into the macro. This dehumanization was particularly exemplified by the manner in which indigenous cultures were decimated, how families were torn apart and scattered all over the Empire, and the manner in which the…...
mlaREFERENCES
Achebe, C.Things Fall Apart. New York: Anchor Books, 1994, Print.
Conrad, J. Heart of Darkness. Web. Plain Label Books. 2009. Retrieved from: googlebooks.
Hawthorne, N. Young Goodman Brown. Boston, MA: Wildside Press, 2006.
Scott, A. "Apocalypse Now Redux (2001). The New York Times. 2001, Web.
The central focus of the book is the search for self and identity and an attempt to answer the question of what happens when men leave the protective normative and restraining influence of society. The central figure of Kurtz is a man who has broken free of the constraints of a sick society. However the novel also questions whether Kurtz too has become evil and lost his own sense of direction. The question is posed questions whether the human "heart of darkness" is not the real problem. If one interprets the book from this perspective, as a work that states that human nature or the human heart is essentially flawed, then one could conclude that Heart of Darkness is in fact more gloomy or pessimistic then the Wasteland.
The Heart of Darkness is a complex work that can be interpreted on many different levels: psychological, sociological, ethical and political. The…...
mlaBibliography
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=98131559
Bloom, Harold, ed. 1(986). T.S. Eliot's the Waste Land. New York: Chelsea House,
Conrad, Joseph. (1946) Youth: Heart of Darkness, the End of the Tether; Three Stories. London J.M. Dent and Sons Ltd., 1946. http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24227703
Eder, Doris L. (1984).Three Writers in Exile: Pound, Eliot & Joyce. Troy, NY: Whitston, http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=75053211
[toc]
Joseph Conrads novella Heart of Darkness is a fictionalized account of real-life historical events that took place during the colonial era in Africa. The novel centers on the protagonist Charles Marlow, known throughout the book as Marlow. As Marlow travels deeper and deeper down the river on a mission for the Company, he becomes increasingly horrified and shocked by what he sees. Having witnessed first hand the insane cruelty of colonial oppression, Marlow completely reconsiders his own role in the world. Through Heart of Darkness, Conrad conveys anti-colonial sentiments, showing how racism and exploitation are detrimental to all human societies.
Topics
Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness is one of the most important works of literature you will be asked to encounter in your academic career. Because of this, you may need some tips on how to write about Heart of Darkness. At first, writing about famous novels like this one can seem…...
There is a direct correlation with, say, Henry Hill's cocaine abuse and the increasingly rapid cuts between shots. Faster-paced narrative parallels quicker-moving shots. When viewers finally see the film in the theater, the finished product reads like a cohesive narrative when in fact the filmmakers strung together disparate shots and cuts and combined them later after thousands of hours of painstaking labor. Analyzing a movie must therefore include respect for the editorial prowess of the post-production crew.
Editors must be intimately familiar with the screenplay they work with, especially in films that do not have a linear narrative. For instance, Christopher Nolan's 2000 film Memento describes one man's struggle with memory degradation. elying on a non-linear plot, the filmmaker depended on the post-production crew to adequately convey the disjointedness of amnesia. Other elements like dramatic irony, in which the audience is privy to information that protagonists do not have access…...
mlaReferences
Bellour, R. (2000). The Analysis of Film. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Bertolucci, B. (1993). Little Buddha. Feature film.
Brown, B. (2002). Cinematography: Theory and Practice. USA: Elsevier Science.
Cameron, J. (2009). Avatar. Feature film.
The first thing you need to do is understand what a theme is. A theme is an idea in a movie. Many people think of themes as the main idea, but a movie may have a central theme and several other themes. If you are not sure how to identify a movie’s theme, think about the things in a movie that you want to talk about after you watch it or that leave you thinking about the movie. While themes can spur a number of different discussions, you should be able to describe the them concisely, generally....
1. When the trappings of society crumble, only the raw essence of humanity remains.
2. In a world without laws, the primitive nature of survival comes to the forefront.
3. As civilization fades, the line between man and beast blurs in the struggle for existence.
4. When societal structures collapse, the fight for survival reveals the true nature of humanity.
5. In the absence of civilization, instincts that have long been suppressed rise to the surface.
Sources
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