By Christian Eltell
Written on March 18, 2018; Published on December 6, 2019
Critic Rating: 4/4 Stars
40th Anniversary Analysis and Review
Francis Ford Coppola is known as one of the most essential auteurs of cinema, alongside directors like Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Robert Altman, and Stanley Kubrick. Similar to his highly acclaimed mob saga, The Godfather, Coppola’s Apocalypse Now is a grand epic based on the crisis of masculinity, in which male characters are involved in dangerous life-and-death situations. Apocalypse Now is primarily about the horrors of the Vietnam War, and how the U.S. military was in a state of hell that was challenging to get out of. The conflicted war in Vietnam was a typical concept in 70s and 80s films, in which American soldiers were traumatized by the killings and unbearable tasks they were ordered to carry out. Dramas such as The Deer Hunter and First Blood present former marines who don’t understand how to move on after Vietnam, causing them to feel depressed and have nightmares or terrifying memories. Apocalypse Now displays an American captain who’s ordered to carry out a mission to find and kill another marine who has gone renegade, all while presenting numerous soldiers who either have no understanding of Vietnam, or too much experience has caused them to go over the edge.
Apocalypse Now reveals the darkness of humanity, and the trauma surrounding American soldiers who were trying to fight and serve for their country but were actually battling their own demons during the Vietnam War. Along with the crisis of masculinity, this war epic also recalls “films of 1974-76 that respond to a crisis of confidence in American society in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate” (Friedman 242). Martin Sheen’s Captain Willard is the protagonist seen in a psychedelic phase during the start of the film. During the opening sequence, there are sounds of helicopters, followed by major explosions on palm trees while the song “The End” by Jim Morrison and The Doors plays. Willard is lying on his bed, appearing to envision these explosions and helicopters flying by, and is entrapped in a daze that he cannot escape. In another early scene, Willard is pretending to fight while naked in his hotel room, and breaks a mirror with his hand, causing it to bleed, and screams out in pain while “The End” continues playing. Willard is presented as a depressing character, a soldier who has seen so much in Vietnam that he doesn’t understand how to do anything else in life. In his narration, Willard mentions not speaking to his wife until they divorced, or how he feels absolutely nothing while waking up. He also smokes a lot of cigarettes and drinks a lot of alcohol, further reflecting on his depressive state of mind. Willard’s narration displays focus on his mission to encounter Colonel Kurtz, as well as all the soldiers he meets along his journey. The dark tone in Willard’s voice would make spectators feel like they are taking a trip into hell with him. Willard’s “voice-over guides his listeners’ understanding and even anticipates (in the first minutes of the film) the outcome of his journey into the heart of the jungle: “When it [the mission] was done, I’d never want another”” (Lirca 190). While we don’t know how the film ends yet, we can sense from Willard’s narration that his assignment to go after Kurtz was a journey of transformation and realization, one in which Willard will not be the same after the mission is over.
Captain Willard and Colonel Kurtz are similar characters in the sense that both men are soldiers that despise the atrocities that occur in Vietnam. Both are skilled and highly trained military men who become depressed from all the warfare and chaos. However, while Willard accepts his orders, Kurtz diverts from the U.S. government and withdraws his chain of command from special forces. Kurtz lost his mind and went rogue, while “Willard began the descent into the darkness of the jungle as a man already accustomed to the “horror”- he was a man who had been fighting his inner demons, who as a result of war trauma failed [to] re-adjust to the life in the United States, and who desperately needed a mission to give his life some purpose” (Lirca 190-191). During their first encounter, Kurtz asks Willard what he knows about his situation. Willard mentions to Kurtz that his superiors told him that he has gone insane, and that he had dangerous and radical methods. As Willard is speaking, Kurtz is presented as an obscure and depressing figure, representing the heart of darkness. Everything around Kurtz, including his clothes, are all dark except for his face and bald head. When Willard describes how his superiors think negatively of the Colonel, Kurtz grabs some water and pours it over his face and head, cleansing himself both physically and mentally. His large hand then rubs his head in a slow manner, revealing the confliction that has encompassed his mind. Kurtz knew that an American solider like Willard would show up and interfere with his affairs, without any true understanding of who Kurtz really is, which is why Kurtz dismisses Willard when the captain calls himself a soldier. Kurtz tells Willard that he’s neither a soldier nor an assassin, but an “errand boy” who’s orders are given by “grocery clerks to collect a bill.”
Kurtz’s understanding is that Willard is being paid and manipulated by a corrupt U.S. government that intends to eliminate Kurtz because he’s viewed as a major threat to the military. Since Kurtz was trained by U.S. special forces, his violent methods and radical views in Vietnam makes the American government look very flawed. Kurtz is one of the many soldiers suffering from trauma, and the U.S. government refuses to take responsibility for not treating men in the military with proper care. In order for Willard to understand Kurtz’s perspectives, Willard is kept under the Colonel’s compound, but is not held against his will. Willard is free, but he chooses to stay and listen to what Kurtz has to say about Vietnam and the horrors he went through. In his narration, despite the traumatic experiences he gets into throughout the film, from the brutal deaths of soldiers under his command, to seeing dead bodies of Vietcong, Willard mentions that he never met a man like Kurtz, a soldier so torn apart. Kurtz even understands Willard more than Willard understands himself, especially when Kurtz tells Willard that “I’ve seen horrors, horrors that you’ve seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer, you have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that, but you have no right to judge me.” Kurtz believes that Willard is also a murderer like him, a cold-blooded killer who has been through hell, war, and death. The monologues by Kurtz during the climax of the film are raw and brutally honest in presenting the essence of a broken man bearing his soul and unleashing his true feelings of terror and guilt over what he’s done in Vietnam. During a five-minute monologue, Kurtz tells Willard about his time with special forces, and how it was traumatizing to watch himself and his men chop off arms of children who were ill due to polio. He disturbingly mentions how there were a pile of little arms, and that he cried and wept like many of the people in Vietnam who were suffering from tremendous pain and illness. Kurtz confesses his sins to Willard in what appears to be a dark cave, perhaps a reference to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, making Kurtz a tragic and philosophical figure.
The cinematography by Vittorio Storaro, and Walter Murch, who was in charge of sound design and editing, help establish the dark and broody tones for the picture. Storaro’s “rich, inky blacks add a tactile immediacy to the film’s “descent into darkness.” The pyrotechnics of the Do Lung bridge sequence, with flares shooting through the darkness, showing Vietnam as a disorienting, psychedelic war” (Friedman 244).
There are also very disturbing scenes that show the incompetence and inadequacy of the U.S. soldiers in Vietnam. While on his journey to encounter Kurtz, Willard is in a boat with young soldiers Chef (Frederic Forrest), Lance (Sam Bottoms), and Clean (a very young Lawrence Fishburne), led by Chief Phillips (Albert Hall). Willard and Phillips argue at times over who’s in command. Phillips also makes a ridiculous stop to check another boat, which contains harmless Viet Cong. Clean, without thinking before acting, is fearful about the Viet Cong carrying weapons, so he shoots them all with a high powered machine gun. Lance also shoots at them, fearing for his life. Chef is panicky, constantly telling Phillips that the Viet Cong has no weapons on their boat, only food and rice. Chef also breaks down when he realizes that a woman was going for her puppy rather than a gun. Then Willard startles the crew when he shoots a woman who is already dying, telling Phillips, “I told you not to stop.” It’s a heartbreaking scene that shows just how pointless the war at Vietnam was due to the unnecessary killing of families and innocent people.
While the final section of the film shows Kurtz talking to Willard most of the time in the dark with partial to minimal lighting, Willard’s encounters with Colonel Kilgore, portrayed by Robert Duvall, are louder and brighter because there’s a lot of action that occurs when Kilgore leads his men to battle in daylight. The famous music track, “Ride of the Valkyries,” is bombastic and operatic while Kilgore and his unit shoot down areas of Vietnam, with major explosions due to the use of gunships, missiles, and automatic weapons, as well as loud chopper sounds, and the Vietcong people screaming and shouting in terror. The choppers and explosions echo Willard’s visions from the start of the film. As Kilgore orders attacks, Willard just sits back in one of the choppers and has a look of resentment.
While Kurtz and Willard represent traumatic soldiers, Kilgore is quite the opposite. He views the war as a glorious event that is for the taking. Kilgore is like an American cowboy, with his black hat and yellow bandana. When Kilgore tells Willard, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” and that it “smells like victory,” Kilgore establishes himself as a fearless winner who enjoys putting himself right at the center of chaos and warfare. He casually yells and gives orders to his men in the middle of a beach while missiles are loudly dropped in the water.
Another character filled with energy, like Kilgore, is the photojournalist at Kurtz’s compound, manically portrayed by Dennis Hopper, who also played a psychedelic hippie in Easy Rider. He carries a bunch of cameras around his neck, and constantly talks to Willard during their first encounter about how Kurtz is a big man who means what he says and can tackle many personalities. The photojournalist calls Kurtz a voyeuristic poet, a right man, a violent individual, etc. When Kurtz reads “The Hollow Men” by T.S. Eliot, the photojournalist tells Willard that Kurtz is emphasizing how there’s love and hate in the world, and that Earth is made up of simple physics and dialectics. He also states that the world ends when madness surrounds everyone, and people like Kurtz go radical when the world turns into a disaster zone. After that, the photojournalist leaves Willard with the Colonel, showing that he has no plans to see what Kurtz will do next.
Kurtz’s compound is dark and eerie, with war photos, philosophical books, and poetry. When Willard and the surviving members of his unit arrive at Kurtz’s camp for the first time, Hopper takes pictures of Willard and his men, and mentions, with discomfort, the heads that are placed around the area. As Willard looks around the compound, the Vietcong stare at the Americans, and the camera shows dead bodies hanging over the water, as well as Vietnamese people with painted faces and custom clothing. This setting appears tropical due to the palm trees, the grand staircase, the statues of animals, napalm and colored smoke in the air, but also surreal because of how the Vietnamese people are presented, and how quiet and serious they are, while the American characters are the only ones talking to each other. Willard stares with curiosity and amazement at the Vietnam setting, while everyone else stares at him, wondering what his plans are for Colonel Kurtz.
Martin Sheen had a few parallels with his character Willard because Sheen himself went through a very rough time during the film’s production. He suffered a heart attack while on set and was going through a state of depression. Despite this, Sheen returned to work on the film after his attack. The film’s other star, Marlon Brando, who worked with Coppola before on The Godfather, was unprepared for his role as Colonel Kurtz. Brando was overweight, disliked screenwriter John Milius’s script, and he did not read the novel, Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” the source material for the film. This gave Coppola a challenging task in determining how to end his film. He had to use some specific camera techniques, and filmed Brando mostly in the dark in order to make Colonel Kurtz a dark and disturbed character. Many of Brando’s lines were also improvised due to his dissatisfaction or lack of enthusiasm with the script and novel. In addition to all these problems, “a typhoon hit the film’s Philippine locations, destroying sets and delaying production for several weeks” (Friedman 242). Brando was also paid millions of dollars for only a small amount of screen time towards the climax and conclusion of the film, adding on to the movie’s massive budget, resulting from long hours and years on set, and numerous footage. Yet, despite all these issues while making the film, Apocalypse Now has become regarded as a classic war film over the years, and is highly considered one of the greatest motion pictures of all time due to the subject matter, the performances from the cast, the massive set locations, and an ambitious director in Francis Ford Coppola. Below is a clip from the documentary based on the making of the film, called Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse. This clip contains brilliant improvisation from Brando as Kurtz, and Coppola describing the struggles of displaying this complex character on screen.
Apocalypse Now is a late 70s film that portrays traumatized soldiers in the Vietnam War, as well as others, like Colonel Kilgore and Hopper’s photojournalist, who get heavily caught up in the action and mayhem. Coppola’s epic displays the crisis of masculinity, where male soldiers are involved in dangerous life-and-death situations. Willard and Kurtz explain the horrors of the Vietnam War, and how the U.S. military was in a state of hell that was challenging to get out of or win. The conflicted war in Vietnam was a typical concept in 70s and 80s films, in which American soldiers were traumatized by the killings and unbearable tasks they were ordered to carry out. Even when Willard kills Colonel Kurtz in the end, many questions are raised, and Kurtz’s dying words, “The horror, the horror,” echo through Willard’s mind. Will Willard continue to be traumatized by Vietnam and go renegade like Kurtz, or will the mission help him move forward in life? Perhaps Willard’s realization and newfound knowledge from Kurtz will cause him to get away from a war that never should have happened.
Film Cited
Apocalypse Now. Dir. Francis Ford Coppola. United Artists, 1979. Film.
Works Cited
Friedman, Lester D.. American Cinema of the 1970s : Themes and Variations, Rutgers University Press, 2007. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxy.library.nyu.edu/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=328677.
LIRCA, Corina. “Narrative Method and Design in J. Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” and F. F. Copolla’s Apocalypse Now.” Studia Universitatis Petru Maior – Philologia, vol. 20, Jan. 2016, pp. 186-191. EBSCOhost, proxy.library.nyu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ufh&AN=120830438&site=eds-live.
Christian and Benigno's Love For Films 