English IV AP Film & Literature Study
Apocalypse Now, Heart of Darkness, and Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Journey
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Cinematographer: Vittorio Storaro
Screenplay: John Milius & Francis Ford Coppola
Nominated for 8 Academy Awards – Won 2: Best Cinematography, Best Sound
Cast
Cpt. Willard – Martin Sheen
Col. Kurtz – Marlon Brando
Lt. Col. Kilgore – Robert Duvall
Col. G. Lucas – Harrison Ford
Chef – Frederic Forrest
Chief – Albert Hall
Lance – Sam Bottoms
Clean – Laurence Fishburne
Photographer – Dennis Hopper
Willard’s Odyssey
Willard’s journey was to be an odyssey, with adventures that threatened to delay or divert him from his mission, while revealing the purposelessness of our war effort. We see encounters with a surfing colonel (Cyclops), Playboy bunnies in a downed helicopter (Sirens), the Du Lung Bridge sequence (visit to the underworld for further instruction), and a stay at an old French plantation (Circe, Lotus-eaters).
Willard’s Character
Willard’s role was originally offered to Harvey Keitel, but he was fired after one week because he projected too strongly. The problem for Coppola after bringing on Martin Sheen to play Willard was that his character was verging towards nonentity till late in the picture. Coppola made the decision to work up a voice-over narration. Even if Conrad’s Marlow suggested this method, it was not part of the original script.
How Should We View the Film?
It has been argued that the film is brilliant fascist art, woven closely around themes found in Nazi Mysticism. Coppola originally wanted an idealized image of Kurtz, but Brando wanted no part of it. But you could also view it as a liberal anti-war picture – with its sympathetic images of Vietnamese villagers and ruthless portrayal of the military, the obvious madness of Kurtz, and Willard’s apparent choice to return home to his world after slaying the tyrant.
It’s probably neither and tries to be apolitical. What you may come to see is that the film tries to be too many things. It is pretentious and wildly ambitious. It is not as great a work of art as Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. It is not a truepicture of Vietnam. But it is a staggering achievement.
Purely on a level of cinematography and action direction, it takes your breath away. Every sequence, every minute, every frame churns with violence and beauty.
Works of Literature Referred to in the Film
T.S. Eliot – “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” Bedford p. 1222
T. S. Eliot – “The Hollow Men”Handout/Online
Questions for Study
1. Describe the film's opening. How does it set us up for the rest of the film?
2. One of the most memorable aspects about the film is the narration, written by Michael Herr and spoken by Martin Sheen. What role does the narration play in the film as a whole, and what are some of your favorite moments?
3. Think about the scene in which Willard is briefed on his mission. What impression does the General make on you? Do events bear out what he has to say about Kurtz?
4. The two central characters in the film are of course Kurtz and Willard, though we do not see Kurtz until near the end. Look at the way their characters are developed. How do we learn about them, about their backgrounds? Do we learn more and more about them as the film progresses?
5. This is a voyage of discovery for Willard, and he realizes that from the very beginning. What does he learn--about the war, about himself, about humanity in general?
6. All the war scenes have an ironic craziness about them, though the earlier war scenes seem somewhat less nightmarish than the later ones. How is this atmosphere created? Think of the cinematography, sound, setting, as well as the story itself.
7. One of the common developments in the War Film is to have men from different backgrounds pulling together for the common goal. How does Apocalypse Now, and the patrol boat in particular, work both within and against this tradition?
8.Apocalypse Now is a blend of Realist and Expressionistic scenes. Which scenes come to mind when you think of the two styles?
9. How does the setting (the Jungle, the River) contribute to the overall mood of the film?
10. Coppola has referred to Apocalypse Now as a "film opera." He is referring in part to its Expressionistic style, but he is mainly referring to the complex use of sound in the film. It is a blend of different kinds of musical and sound effects: both diegetic (part of the story) and discursive (added to the soundtrack). Identify scenes in which the use of sound is especially effective.
11. At the time it came out, many critics loved the first part of the film, but felt that it rambled off into nevernever land towards the end, so that the film came off as an overblown, failed masterpiece. They are certainly correct that the film moves into another dimension as Willard approaches Kurtz, but the question is, do you find the latter style justified? Or simply pretentious? Either way, support your judgment.
12. Much of the flavor of the last part of the film comes from the source, Conrad's Heart of Darkness. In fact, the film's most famous line, Kurtz's "The horror; the horror," is a line in the novel. What is "the horror"? What has happened to Kurtz in his Montagnard kingdom?
13. What do you think of the ending? Is it appropriate?Does the plot work out as it should?
14. It is of course hard to watch this film and not think about our current political situation, particularly given the way that Vietnam and Iraq/Afghanistan seem intertwined in the public mind. To what extent are the lessons of Apocalypse Now relevant to us today?
English IV AP Film & Literature Study
Apocalypse Now, Heart of Darkness, and Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Journey
Apocalypse Now and the Holy Grail
Toward the end of the film, we see and hear Kurtz reading from T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men.” We also see copies of James Frazer’s The Golden Bough and Jesse L. Weston’s From Ritual to Romance. It appears that Coppola is intent on having us view Willard as a questing knight, particularly Perceval, and Kurtz as the Fisher King. The idea here is that Willard must kill the aging, injured king, whose wound and infirmity are reflected in the barrenness of his land. The legend of the Fisher King mixed with the aforementioned anthropological studies suggests that Willard must kill the king and replace him as the new virile leader. His virility will then serve to allow the land to regain its strength – in a sense, be born anew.
.Apocalypse Now and the Vietnam War
I don’t think Apocalypse Now should be approached as an analysis of the Vietnam War. Coppola appears far more interested in the study of the darkness of man’s soul. It may be that Coppola’s mania in making the film, and the film itself, serve as a metaphor for the Vietnam War. Both Coppola’s arrogance and persistence in sticking with the project and the resulting piece of film appear to function as beautiful disasters. Could it be that in five years of struggling with this project – risking his fortune, getting sick with jungle rot, and trying to maintain authority over platoons of Hollywood types and primitive Ifugao tribesmen by the hundreds – Coppola found himself identifying with Conrad’s Kurtz? Coppola was, after all, off on his own, risking his future – his ambitious plans for Zoetrope Studios – on something that was constantly getting out of hand. As Kurtz was point man for the ivory trade, Coppola was an agent of the movie industry. And, as Kurtz embodied the spirit of a parasitic enterprise, Coppola’s film betrays the ambiguities of Hollywood: the enormous technical and sensual power of the film, the desire of many of its artisans to turn that into something like art, and the business and marketing factors that perpetually militate against any fully realized achievement.
Coppola’s Riverboat as a Modern Ship of Fools
The Ship of Fools is an allegory that describes the world and its human inhabitants as a vessel whose deranged passengers neither know nor care where they are going.
The four-man crew: the helmsman, the clown, the coward, and the sportsman are innocents caught in a conflict they no nothing about.
The helmsman Philips becomes increasingly hostile toward Willard till, at the moment of death, he tries to strangle him.
Mr. Clean is friendly and carefree. His death, while listening to a tape of his mother pleading with him to come home in one piece, is one of the film’s most poignant moments.
The coward, Chef, also develops; shattered by his encounter with a tiger early in the film and still frightened when he has to search another boat for weapons, he has, by the end, gained enough courage to stand by Willard in his encounter with Kurtz.
Lance, the surfer, is less alive than the others because he is intended to be the shallowest personality of the four.
Heart of Darkness and Psychological Analysis
If Heart of Darkness is, as some critics claim, an account of an exploration conducted by Marlow into the heart of man, from his superego through the ego into the id, then its conclusion is that man can surmount the bestiality of the id by finding order and integrity within himself (the ego) and demonstrating this by worthwhile and responsible action (the superego).
For many critics, Heart of Darkness is about Marlow the saved, not Kurtz the damned. It is a story of how to survive the approaching horror.