Comparing Apocalypse Now and Heart of Darkness
Francis Coppola’s movie Apocalypse Now was inspired by the world famous Joseph Conrad novel Heart of Darkness. A comparison and contrast can be made between the two. Both have similar themes but entirely different settings. Heart of Darkness takes place on the Congo River in the Heart of Africa, while Apocalypse Now is set in Vietnam.
"Heart of Darkness , which follows closely the actual events of Conrad's Congo journey, tells of the narrator's fascination by a mysterious white man, Kurtz, who, by his eloquence and hypnotic personality, dominates the brutal tribesmen around him. Full of contempt for the greedy traders who exploit the natives, the narrator cannot deny the power of this figure of evil who calls forth from him something approaching reluctant loyalty."[1]
The main characters in both have the same general personalities but have different names. Of course, Kurtz is Kurtz, Willard parallels Marlow, and the American photojournalist corresponds to the Russian Harlequin. Willard is a lieutenant for the US Army and Marlow is a captain of a steamboat of an ivory company. The first images of Willard and Marlow differ to some degree. The movie begins with Willard lying in an apartment room lost from reality with the song ‘The End’ playing by The Doors. He is haunted by his earlier deeds and he is getting very drunk. Willard smashes the mirror while fighting himself and cuts his hand. Marlow is portrayed as a wanderer of the sea. The narrator described him to somewhat of a hero. Their mission is to find Kurtz and take him down at all costs. In both stories Kurtz is a psychotic rebel, worshipped as a god, who threatens the stability of his original unit, but in one it is an ivory trading company and in the other it is the US Army. Kurtz, who had begun his assignment a man of great idealism and the highest morals, had become strangely savage. Tribes of natives worship the man who lives in a hut surrounded by fence posts topped with recently acquired human skulls.
The most obvious contrast found in Heart of Darkness is between that of light and dark. In the beginning of the novel when the sun set upon London, the city began to light up yet the narrator describes the light as a "lurid glare under the stars" (Conrad 6). The lights from the city illuminated the Thames River. Because London is described as being light, the light then symbolizes civilization, or at least Conrad's view of civilization. Conrad's view of civilization is one of great despise. Civilization is a place where evil is ever present but ignored and people believe they know everything. The light is the knowledge that we have gained through exploration and the civilizing of places that have not yet been civilized. In contrast there is the darkness. Represented in the novel by Africa and the Congo River, the darkness is the evil that lurks in the unknown. The darkness is full of savages and cannibals. It is the uncivilized and uninhabited part of the world where people eat people and the savages lurk in the trees and in the darkness. Africa is the "heart of darkness," the place where man's inner evil is brought out in the open and is displayed through their thoughts and actions, such as those on Marlow's boat, letting the bullets fly into the jungle without reason or need.
Comparing Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now Heart of Darkness, written by Joseph Conrad, and "Apocalypse Now," a movie directed by Francis Coppola, are two works that parallel one another but at the same time reflect their own era in time and their creator's own personal feelings and prejudices. "Apocalypse Now" was released in 1979 after two years in the making, as Coppola's modern interpretation to Joseph Conrad's novel, Heart of Darkness (Harris). Conrad's book is an excellent example of the advances writers and philosophers made in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This advance deals with civilized humanity's ability to be prepared for and know the unknown. (Johnson) Comparatively, Copolla's movie did the same in the late 1970's.
In Heart of Darkness, all of Joseph Conrad’s characters seem to have morally ambiguous tendencies. The most prominently morally ambiguous character is Kurtz, whose distance from society changes his principles, and leads him to lose all sense of decorum. Conrad takes a cynical tone when describing Marlow's journey. Marlow's voyage through the Congo gives him insight to the horrific, dehumanizing acts that his company and Kurtz conduct. Conrad creates a parallel with the tone of his writing and the misanthropic feelings that the main character experiences. Furthermore, Conrad creates a frame story between Kurtz and Marlow, adding to the symbolism and contrast between contextual themes of light and dark, moral and immoral, and civilization and wilderness. After being sent on a horrific journey into the Congo of Africa, as an agent for the Company to collect ivory, Marlow finds the infamous and mysterious Kurtz. Kurtz, who has totally withdrawn from society, and has withdrawn
Although one is a book and the other is a movie, both Apocalypse Now which is directed by Francis Ford Coppola and Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad portray very detailed scenes by using various elements in their respective works. A scene is particular that stands out is the death of the helmsman which contains many similarities but also many differences between the two works. Similarities like the iconic fog that appears serve to convey a message of the helpless that the characters feel because at the mystery of their surroundings and of the uncertainly of what their tasks.
"What happened if a slave was caught while he or she was trying to escape?." Pathways to Freedom | About the Underground Railroad. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Feb. 2014. .
Heart of Darkness is Joseph Conrad's tale of one man's journey, both mental and physical, into the depths of the wild African jungle and the human soul. The seaman, Marlow, tells his crew a startling tale of a man named Kurtz and his expedition that culminates in his encounter with the "voice" of Kurtz and ultimately, Kurtz's demise. The passage from Part I of the novel consists of Marlow's initial encounter with the natives of this place of immense darkness, directly relating to Conrad's use of imagery and metaphor to illustrate to the reader the contrast between light and dark. The passage, although occurring earlier on in the novel, is interspersed with Marlow's two opposing points of view: one of naïveté, which comes before Marlow's eventual epiphany after having met Kurtz, and the matured perspective he takes on after all of the events leading up to his and Kurtz's encounter.
Chalmers, David J. "Consciousness and Its Place in Nature." Research School of Social Sciences. Print.
“Under an overcast sky — seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.” This is the last line of the book Heart of Darkness and it summed up the setting and tone of the book. Apocalypse Now is an epic war film made in 1979 set in Vietnam directed by Francis Ford Coppola. It is based on the book Heart of Darkness. The settings of both the book and the movie are very different; they take place in completely different places. However, their effects are very similar to each other and shown in a variety of ways: in character development, cultural aspects, as well as thematically.
In the opening scenes of the documentary film "Hearts of Darkness-A Filmmaker's Apocalypse," Eleanor Coppola describes her husband Francis's film, "Apocalypse Now," as being "loosely based" on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Indeed, "loosely" is the word; the period, setting, and circumstances of the film are totally different from those of the novella. The question, therefore, is whether any of Conrad's classic story of savagery and madness is extant in its cinematic reworking. It is this question that I shall attempt to address in this brief monograph by looking more closely at various aspects of character, plot, and theme in each respective work.
Goldstein, Richard. "What are the Risks?" Beauty Pageants and its Effect on Children. 6 Dec. 2010. 5 Feb. 2014
In Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" and Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" the reader learns more and more about human nature as Marlow, Captain Willard, go farther and farther up the river in search of Kurtz. An evil side lies within every man, but this evil remains repressed by society. When moving up the river and farther away from civilization, the evil side begins to break out. Whenever basically different cultures meet we are led to discover ourselves and can even drive us to perceived madness.
Throughout Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad points to the hypocrisy and horrors associated with colonialism. The half-English, half-French Kurtz is the main vehicle used to convey his theme of European colonialism, as “all [of] Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz” (Conrad 164). It was Kurtz who goes to Africa for the "sake of loot, and thus becomes a great literary symbol for the decadence of colonialism" (Zins 63). With his help, Marlow dissects the reasoning behind colonialism, eventually seeing its evil nature.
Kendrick, C. Ed.M. LCSW. (2011). Are beauty pageants bad for children? Life, Retrieved June 20, 2011, from http://life.familyeducation.com/emotional-development/girls-self-esteem/41305.html
Decker, Jonathan P. "Beauty Pageants Advance Careers." Christian Science Monitor 04 Aug. 1995: n. pag. Newspaper Source Plus. Web. 24 Feb. 2014.
The main character in Conrad's novel, Heart of Darkness, isKurtz. Kurtz no longer obeys the authority of his superiors who believe that he has become too extreme and has come to employ "unsound methods" (Coppola, 1979; Longman, 2000). Marlow is sent to retrieve Kurtz from the evil influences in the Congo, and a wild journey on a tainted river ensues. Along the way, Marlow learns about the real Kurtz and finds himself identifying with and becoming dangerously fond of the man.