Admiral Kurtz In Apocalypase Now

1128 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Apocalypse now movie analysis

Admiral Kurtz

Apocalypse Now is a film about madness. In this film, Willard, played by Charlie Sheen, is sent through madness, reminiscent of Dantes' journey through hell. His mission is to kill Kurtz, who’s gone insane according to military intelligence. Kurtz has gone on his own, starting his own society in Cambodia, where his troops and the local tribes worship him as a god. Kurtz has committed murder by waging his own ferocious, independent war against Vietnamese intelligence agents with his own native Montagnard army across the border in an ancient Cambodian temple deep in the jungle. General Corman explains the confused insanity of the war: "In this war, things get confused out there, power, ideals, the old morality, and practical military necessity." The colonel has become a self-appointed, worshipped godlike leader/dictator of a renegade native tribe. General Corman describes Kurtz's temptation to be deified: "Because there's a conflict in every human heart between the rational and the irrational, between the good and the evil. The good does not always triumph. Sometimes the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. Therein, man has got a breaking point. You and I have. Walter Kurtz has reached his. And very obviously, he has gone insane." Kurtz’s motivation behind his actions is his need to feel godlike, to act without judgment.
In Kurtz' camp, a site of primitive evil, they are greeted by a crazed, hyperactive, fast-talking, spaced-out free lance photo-journalist played by Dennis Hoper. The babbling combat photographer, garlanded by his camera equipment, hopes for their sake, that they haven't come to take away Colonel Kurtz. He describes the great awe all the natives have for their jungle lord: "Out here, we're all his children." The photojournalist appears to be a fanatical follower of Kurtz, worshipping the enigmatic, genius "poet-warrior" Kurtz as a personal god and expounding Kurtz's cause: "You don't talk to the Colonel, you listen to him. The man's enlarged my mind. He's a poet-warrior in the classic sense...I'm a little man. He's a great man. I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across floors of silent seas, I mean...He can be terrible. He can be mean. And he can be right. He's fighting a war. He's a great man." He offers first-hand advice from his own experience: "Play it cool, laid back...You don't judge the Colonel." Willard is impressed by Kurtz's power over the people.

Show More
Related

  • Outlaw Platoon Sparknotes

    1937 Words  | 4 Pages

    Sean Parnell was a normal college student, partying on the weekends, going to class when he wanted, and being as carefree as one could be. A year later, he becomes the leader of a forty-man platoon at the ripe age of twenty-four. After being the leader of the platoon for only eight short months Parnell claims he “had enough knowledge to know that he didn’t know anything” (page 27). The job of ...

    Read More

  • Fallen Angels

    808 Words  | 2 Pages

    people killed in combat, and the feelings and thoughts of the opposing Vietnamese soldiers. After almost being killed Perry realizes what Peewee said was right.

    Read More

  • Utilitarianism and Morality in John Stuart Mill´s Essay

    1012 Words  | 3 Pages

    From top to bottom, John Stuart Mill put forth an incredible essay depicting the various unknown complexities of morality. He has a remarkable understanding and appreciation of utilitarianism and throughout the essay the audience can grasp a clearer understanding of morality. Morality, itself, may never be totally defined, but despite the struggle and lack of definition it still has meaning. Moral instinct comes differently to everyone making it incredibly difficult to discover a basis of morality. Society may never effectively establish the basis, but Mill’s essay provides people with a good idea.

    Read More

  • Obsession in A Hunger, The Penal Colony, and Metamorphosis

    897 Words  | 2 Pages

    In “The Penal Colony” the life of the officer is solely based on the old commandant’s rules and ideals. His strong obsession of being “involved in the very first experiments and also [sharing] in the work all the way to it completion” (96) Has a deep impact on the officer’s life and beliefs. The officer is not only obsessed with his work but with the old ways that the old commandant made. Also, the fact that he is the last one in the colony that still follow the old ways means that he is going against the whole society in the colony. The new commandant “uses everything as an excuse to attack the old ways” (105).

    Read More

  • John Stuart Mill's Civil And Social Liberty

    130 Words  | 1 Pages

    For Mill, the freedom that enables each individual to explore his or her own particular way of life is essential for a generous and diverse development of humanity. The only source of potential within society to further continue human development is the spontaneity or creativity that lies within each individual. Mill has a utilitarian view on freedom. He was especially keen on individual liberty because it allowed the greatest measure of happiness. His concern is not to declare liberty as a natural right but to rather set out the appropriate constraints within ‘Civil or Social liberty’. Civil liberty is defined as the limit society can exert its legitimate power over each individual and social liberty has much to do with a political principle

    Read More

  • Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now One Pager

    608 Words  | 2 Pages

    In both the film and the movie, Kurtz is portrayed as a man of great stature and mastery whose actions become questioned due his barbaric conduct. While Marlow slowly learns more and more regarding who Kurtz is and what he has done through others’ conversations, Willard educates himself about Kurtz through pictures and files he has of Kurtz. He states that he feels like he already knows a thing or two about Kurtz that are not in the papers he has, and that beyond the bridge, there is only Kurtz. This goes to show how Kurtz develops a prof...

    Read More

  • John Stuart Mill: Exploring 19th Century Utilitarianism

    1388 Words  | 3 Pages

    The second classic criticism of Utilitarian Principle is that Mill’s dichotomy of higher and lower pleasures create the need to calculate the happiness derived from each category of pleasures. This has left critics asking “Is a dissatisfied Socrates better off than a satisfied fool?” In response, Mill says that people learn to distinguish physical (or lower) pleasures from mental (or higher) pleasures with training. We possess the tendency to favor the higher pleasures, as we are human beings rather than mere

    Read More

  • Heart of Darkness and Wide Sargasso Sea: Depiction and Effect Due to Colonization

    1988 Words  | 4 Pages

    Kurtz was the chief of the Inner Station, where he was in charge of a very important ivory-trading post. Marlow learns that because of Kurtz’s ability to obtain more ivory than anybody else, he is of “greatest importance to the Company” and is to become a “somebody in the Administration” (Conrad 143). However, a critical aspect is the way in which he went about his business, as it was ruthless and selfish, characteristics that go hand-in-hand with European colonization.

    Read More

  • John Stuart Mill Essay

    3246 Words  | 7 Pages

    John Stuarts most famous essay, On Liberty came out in 1859. His father, James Mill, who was said to be a strict Utilitarian, raised him. Mill had a difficult childhood; he suffered a nervous breakdown when he was 21 when we first began to question his beliefs. He later on continued to struggle with his sense that Utilitarianism was too unemotional and that it failed to capture or understand the higher pleasures. Thus where On Liberty comes into play, this essay was established to broaden the meaning of utility and show that Utilitarianism can in fact provide a strong pr...

    Read More

  • John Stuart Mill And Utilitarianism

    1183 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the debate with the critics of utilitarianism Mill clarifies the principle of utility, which implies general happiness. General happiness requires no...

    Read More

  • Utilitarianism In John Stuart Mill

    1161 Words  | 3 Pages

    John Stuart Mill argues that the rightness or wrongness of an action, or type of action, is a function of the goodness or badness of its consequences, where good consequences are ones that maximize the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. In this essay I will evaluate the essential features of Mill’s ethical theory, how that utilitarianism gives wrong answers to moral questions and partiality are damaging to Utilitarianism.

    Read More

  • John Stuart Mill Utilitarianism Analysis

    1522 Words  | 4 Pages

    Mill understands the Utilitarian principle to the full of it 's extent, he also understands why a person would disregard the theory, and there goes on to unravel the seemingly missing puzzle pieces to connect the theory completely, and correctly. His argurment reflects that of his own thoughts and opinions on the philosophy of the overall good of the population, concerning what is considered good by the measurement of happiness and pleasure. This in turn is where the second term for Utilitarianims comes from, as it is call the Greatest Happiness Principle. In his text, Mr. Mill states that this principle "holds that actiosn are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness" (96). Following this idea, he explains that happiness holds the absence of pain and the reverse of that, there holds the "privation of pleasure" (Mill 96).  John Mill says that this is exactly what happiness and pleasure consist of. What is considered controversial on this particular theory is the simplicty of the definind words. The greatest happiness principle concerns happiness and pleasure, to the simple or closed minded this sounds degrading to humans or anyone who believes in it. John Mill argues for this principle and against the simple minded people that would judge the Epicureans for practicing

    Read More

  • John Stuart Mill and Utilitarianism

    1321 Words  | 3 Pages

    Utilitarianism defined, is the contention that a man should judge everything based on the ability to promote the greatest individual happiness. In other words Utilitarianism states that good is what brings the most happiness to the most people. John Stuart Mill based his utilitarian principle on the decisions that we make. He says the decisions should always benefit the most people as much as possible no matter what the consequences might be. Mill says that we should weigh the outcomes and make our decisions based on the outcome that benefits the majority of the people. This leads to him stating that pleasure is the only desirable consequence of our decision or actions. Mill believes that human beings are endowed with the ability for conscious thought, and they are not satisfied with physical pleasures, but they strive to achieve pleasure of the mind as well.

    Read More

  • Implications Of Happiness In John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism

    1289 Words  | 3 Pages

    Mill extended the theory in his book Utilitarianism, and was particularly well-known for his “hierarchy of pleasures in Utilitarianism” that he pointed out of

    Read More

  • John Stuart Mill and Utilitarianism

    1351 Words  | 3 Pages

    A major problem in society John Stuart Mill highlights is that there is not a set standard for judging what makes something right or wrong. Clearing these principles is one of the fundamental steps for consensus on moral thinking. Mill believes that what makes something right or wrong is based on whether it is thought of as “good”. However, this only further raises the question on what is considered good. Mill purposes the goodness as a principle of utility, otherwise known as greatest happiness principle. Whatever brings about the most happiness is what is the most good. While others argue that natural instincts disprove the principle of utility as well as any other standard on morals, Mill believes the consistency of moral beliefs throughout history shows that there is in fact some kind of foundation.

    Read More

More about Admiral Kurtz In Apocalypase Now

Open Document