Apocalypse now is a film that follows the journey of Captain Benjamin L PDF

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Question 2: Apocalypse Now Apocalypse now is a film that follows the journey of Captain Benjamin L. Willard who is on a secret mission to assassinate colonel Kurtz.The film shows the true tragedies of the Vietnam war and the effects of American interventionalist and post- colonialism through the Eyes of Captain Benjamin L. Willard. The opening scene of Apocalypse Now shows a range of techniques that makes this a complex piece of film making. In the opening scene we are greeted by a black screen and the sound of helicopters flying above, we know that the sound is a helicopter with out actually seeing one because the helicopter became a major theme of the Vietnam war (Coppola, 1979). We then see an image of a medium long shot of a palm tree jungle and this combined with the sound of the helicopter is Vietnam (Coppola, 1979) . The dust that enters the image also represents the chopper as well as the blurred line of what is actually going on in Vietnam. We then hear a sweeping across the screen as chopper leaves the frame and instrumental music begins with more dust flying around (Coppola, 1979). As the chopper leaves the frame two things happen simultaneously, Napalm explosions in the jungle and a voice begins to sing "This is the end beautiful friend." Another two symbols of American presence in Vietnam this being Napalm-American military power, and Rock 'n Roll-American culture (Coppola, 1979). A shocking new element enters the frame: a close-up of a face upside-down, shot from over-head and the face is under the image of the fiery jungle with the choppers circulating (Coppola, 1979). The superimposition of images and dissolving back and forth between them to simulate Willard's consciousness. What we thought we were hearing and seeing at the beginning the sounds and images of a place this being Vietnam are actually only sounds and images going on in Willard's mind (Coppola, 1979). We are experiencing the Vietnam in Willard's head. This is how we are introduced to the character of Willard. This first scene introduces him as a man who has reached his breaking point. He is in the midst of a nervous breakdown, a state of dementia induced by alcohol and a sense of alienation from the civilized world. When the scene was shot, Sheen actually was drunk and insisted the cameras keep rolling, even after he bloodied his first by accidentally punching the mirror. And so straight away from the opening scene the actor portrays Willard as a man changed forever by war. Willard managed to leave war physically but mentaly he could not free his mind it was still at

war (Hartzog.org, 2018) . Now he is going back abandoning any hope of being normal and getting better to a horrific war zone. We see the journey of Willard develop as he goes into Vietnam with some sort of moral, knowing the difference between right and wrong, And in the end he is completely overcome by the savagery of war and the deeper Willard travels into the jungle the darker it gets and the more the darkness consumes him. The darkness and light contrast is sharp when Willard reaches Kurtz’s compound (Coppola, 1979). Kurtz’s face is almost always hidden in the darkness only rarely is it seen in full, and it is never filmed in daylight. The climax of the film heightens the contrast to an extreme, as Willard slaughters Kurtz in a scene backlit so that the figures are silhouettes (Coppola, 1979). The darkness can be said to have spread inside Willard as he emerges from where he has killed Kurtz and half of his face is shadowed when he looks out at the crowd of Kurtz’s followers (Fastenupyourseatbelts.com, 2018). In the opening and closing scenes, Coppola shows us how these two are inexorably linked. The film is framed by images of the idol shown in relation to Willard’s face looking directly into the camera and the sound of a helicopter, all underscored by “This is the End” by The Doors (Coppola, 1979). This repetition implies that the aggressive instincts of the id manifest in Kurtz’s violence were always imprinted on Willard’s psyche before the two even met (Hartzog.org, 2018). Willard says, “I felt I knew one or two things about Kurtz that weren’t in the dossier,” (Coppola, 1979) , suggesting that there is something inexplicable that links these men together (Hartzog.org, 2018). As if one could not live without the other but this gets blurred as Willard travels deeper into the darkness until only one of them could exist. Willard survives to live forever with the echo of Kurtz’s “horror.” The blurring of the morality and individuality of these two men is represented through the superimposed images that frame the film (Hartzog.org, 2018). In the Willard’s reflection scene we see how Willard struggles to come to terms of what to do as he finds out more about colonel Kurtz’s character, Coppola uses reaction-shots and pov shots combined with the voice-over to create a sense of Willard struggling to decide what to do (Coppola, 1979) . There are three point of view shots that are very important as they establish what Willard establishes about colonel Kurtz’s character. These shots being one: Kurtz's uniform and slowly tilts

down to reveal his name tag (Coppola, 1979). The detail established Kurtz as the Colonel, Also that Kurtz is not wearing his uniform, which signals his having gotten off the boat (Coppola, 1979). The second is a close-up of a box that Willard opens to reveal Kurtz's medals, which establish his credentials as a heroic soldier (Coppola, 1979). And the third shot follows the same strategy as the first. It starts with a medium shot of Kurtz's son and wife this shows us that Kurtz is a family man who still thinks of his family even in this predicament (Coppola, 1979). The camera then tilts down to reveal books on a table the bible, The Golden Bough and From Ritual to Romance theses details are very important as they signal that Kurtz is an intellectual who reads scholarly books (Coppola, 1979). More importantly, the presence of The Golden Bough and From Ritual to Romance, both books which explore the significance of rituals and myths in so-called "primitive" societies, help prepare the audience for the staging of Kurtz's death as a ritual sacrifice. The final scene of the film shows how Willard kills Kurtz’s. We must first look at examining Willard's voice-over on the boat as he gets ready to kill Kurtz "They were going to make me a major for this and I wasn't even in their fucking army anymore." (Coppola, 1979) ,This statement tells us straight away what we had been thinking for the whole film that Willard, like many before him, has converted. Willard has come to believe Kurtz's type of the war and so just like Kurtz Willard also, metaphorically, had gotten off the boat. And so, Willard is going to kill Kurtz and follow his orders as a ideal solider would, but it will not be an assassination. He is going to kill Kurtz because Kurtz wants him to "Everybody wanted me to do it, him most of all. I felt like he was up there, waiting for me to take the pain away." (Coppola, 1979) , In other words, Willard will act as the instrument of Kurtz's will, he will assist Kurtz in committing suicide. Willard's voice over thus provides a very clear interpretation of the subsequent killing scene. The killing scene its self-shows a lot of cross cutting from the scarifical animal to Kurtz, the crosscutting creates a visual simile this being the killing of Kurtz is like the ritual killing of the sacrificial animal (Coppola, 1979). The comparison of Kurtz to the sacrificial animal suggests that Kurtz is a tragic victim of the war. A great and good man of courage and moral clarity who was destroyed by the moral contradictions of an insane war. And yet the Generals and those back home will only see him as a crazy killer who has succumbed to primitive bloodlust. And that is why Willard must return home. The drama ends with a cut to an extreme

close-up of Kurtz's profile (Coppola, 1979). In the silence, he whispers "The horror, the horror " Then a reaction-shot of Willard's grief (Coppola, 1979). The final shot: a close-up of Kurtz's dead hand (Coppola, 1979). And so, from what has been seen and said Apocalypse Now ends in the exact way it began, inside the mind of Benjamin L. Willard. Willard has completed his Mission he has killed Kurtz. But the main point of Willard’s mission has been drastically altered due to his experiences travelling up river deeper into the darkness and by his acquaintance with colonel Kurtz (Hartzog.org, 2018). Willard’s primary mission from the U.S. army was to assassinate colonel Kurtz because he had gone mad engaging in absurd chaos that was against what the American war effort stood for. Willard's time in the war zone that was Vietnam and his short time spent with Kurtz had changed all this. He has learned that the U.S army was lying to him and that the real reason they wanted Kurtz dead was not because he had gone beyond all humane limits in his killing people. Observing Kilgore, a so-called model officer had taught Willard this. Kurtz was to be killed because he wasn't an ideal soldier he was not following orders (Hartzog.org, 2018). He had come the realisation of what the army was actually doing and so metaphorically Kurtz had gotten off the boat. When Willard meets Kurtz, we learn two things one being that Kurtz has indeed gone mad but the cause of his madness is because of the disgusting way the generals of the U.S. army are running the war. And Second being that Kurtz has chosen him to do two things Kill him and then go back home and tell the truth about him and the Vietnam war. Willard decides to do both as he is the ideal soldier he kills Kurtz’s and then get back on the boat to begin the second mission. He takes Kurtz's papers and leaves to go back home to tell the truth about Kurtz and the war.

BA1 ENGL6212 2018

Keagan Aiken Student number: 17001543 Module: ENGL6212 Lecturer: Kevin Heapy

Reference list Fastenupyourseatbelts.com. (2018). Apocalypse Now - Movie Research & Analysis. [online] Available at: http://www.fastenupyourseatbelts.com/apocalyseNow/apocalypseNowAnalysis.html [Accessed 20 Aug. 2018]. Hartzog.org. (2018). apocalypse now: the end of the river--kurtz and willard. [online] Available at: http://hartzog.org/j/apocalypsenowkurtzwillard.html [Accessed 20 Aug. 2018]. Apocalypse Now. (1979). [film] Directed by F. Coppola. Hollywood: Lions Gate....