Heart of Darkness
Comparison of Coppola's film "Apocalypse Now" and Conrad's novel "Heart of Darkness."Francis Ford Coppola's film of horror in Vietnam, Apocalypse Now, borrows its narrative structure from Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness. Essentially, Coppola transported the nineteenth century tale of personal depravity to the jungles of twentieth century Vietnam. The effect of this change in setting is inherently tied to the change of time and the political situation, and, while there are a great many similarities between the two narratives, Coppola's movie portrays a much darker, and more menacing version of the novel. Conrad's novel is set in the nineteenth century Belgian Congo, and focuses on the character of Charles Marlow, an experienced sailor who has been hired by a European trading company as a captain of one of their steamboats. His employer requires Marlow to travel up the river and find Mr. Kurtz, another employee of the trading company that the home office believes is helping himself to company-owned ivory. The setting of Coppola's film contrasts sharply with the setting of Conrad's novel. The film is set in twentieth century Southeast Asia, and depicts the confusion, violence, fear, and nightmarish madness of th
The US Air Cavalry has its own "miracle" in the form of Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore (Cahir 181). The focus of the film is on Captain Benjamin Willard, who is a hired assassin in the American armed forces. Similarly, Willard has a first stop, in which he has a rendezvous with the Air Cavalry, his escorts to the Nung River. This difference is indicative of the change in setting. A personal crisis afflicts Marlow when he realizes that the company manager has no real objection to the "ceremonies" in which Kurtz has been participating, other then interrupting the normal trade relations with the natives. Marlow, in the nineteenth century Congo, is faced with the fact that, just beneath the veneer of civilization, humanity's inherent nature is primitive and capable of great depravity; however, he is also aware of the depravity of European imperialism. "Soldier, sailor, surfer, chef: Conrad's ethics and the margins of Apocalypse Now," Literature Film Quarterly, Vol. It is Marlow's professionalism as a sailor, and his act of creating himself through perfecting his trade that gives Marlow the necessary integrity and strength to resist evil and, eventually, to survive his African ordeal, more or less with his psyche intact (Grieff 188). Kilgore chooses the site because it has the best beach for surfing. It is as if Coppola is saying that the man, who would have been normal in the nineteenth century, has been changed radically by the Vietnamese War. He is faced with a choice of nightmares. His protagonist, Willard, right at the beginning of the film, has already been changed irrevocably by the actions that he has had to take as a military assassin.
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Acceptance Essays
