Capturing the Reality of the Vietnam War in The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now
‘The Deer Hunter’ and ‘Apocalypse Now’ are two films which deal, at a
very personal level, with American involvement in the Vietnam War.
Although the style and narrative of each film are quite different a
strong theme of ‘journeys’ is what binds the two films together,
perhaps more so than the theme of the Vietnam War itself. These are
journeys of self-discovery and self-destruction and in the sense that
the central characters’ ideals become twisted by war and their value
of life itself diminished. It is possible to claim that these films
provide ‘salves for a wounded nation’. In each film the extreme
slaughter of war is confined to symbolic set pieces, for example, the
helicopter attack in ‘Apocalypse Now’ or the Russian Roulette scene in
‘The Deer Hunter’, and the focus instead is placed upon the damage
caused to the individual himself. These are personal journeys about
war and the damage war is capable of inflicting.
In the case of ‘Apocalypse Now’, Colonel Willard travels deep into the
jungle but the real journey, based upon Conrad’s book ‘The Heart of
Darkness’, shows us Willard travelling into that ‘heart’ as he
confronts the horror of which man is capable and questions the meaning
of morality and sanity.
In ‘Apocalypse Now’, the point of focus is on the capability of man to
do evil. As stated by the army officer near the beginning of the film,
“every man has his breaking point”. Kurtz shows that he has almost
reached his breaking point by going to live in the jungle with the
primitive tribes. From this and from a voice recording of Kurtz, we
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... He sees it as
an excuse to instantly save him from his post-war life in which he
feel dejected and outcast. He wants to be put out of his misery and
knows that, should he continue to play, his death is inevitable.
Another similarity to ‘Apocalypse Now’ is that, by the closing stages
of the book, Kurtz and Michael are both already dead on the inside.
They both appear emotionless and detached from the rest of the world.
Overall, it is my opinion that both ‘Apocalypse Now’ and ‘The Deer
Hunter’ are, to a large extent, interested in capturing the historical
reality of the Vietnamese War. They are both illustrating to us the
affect war has at an individual level. As all the commotion of war is
captured on a personal level, however, it is hard to assume that the
films were seeking to provide alibis on behalf of America.
I carry the memories of the ghosts of a place called Vietnam-the people of Vietnam, my fellow soldiers- Tim O’Brien
	The novel illuminates light on the situation not just during the Vietnam era, but also rather throughout all history and the future to come. Throughout mankind’s occupation of earth, we have been plagued by war and the sufferings caused by it. Nearly every generation of people to walk this earth have experienced a great war once in their lifetimes. For instance, Vietnam for my father’s generation, World War 2 for my grandfather’s, and World War 1 for my great-grandfather’s. War has become an unavoidable factor of life. Looking through history and toward the future, I grow concerned over the war that will plague my generation, for it might be the last war.
“How nice- to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive” (Vonnegut 181).
The death of Kurtz is the biggest contrast of Apocalypse Now and Heart of Darkness. The death of Kurtz in Heart of Darkness is simple and no emotion is given by Marlow as he continued with his dinner. Marlow gave the reader the feeling as if this death was nothing of importance to the plot of the story. Compared to Coppola’s film where Willard fights a bloody battle and kills Kurtz with his machete while outside the ritualistic sacrifice of a cow is taking place creating a high intensity atmosphere. The book and the film have a similar moral which is that when left alone with the power to answer to no one, madness with soon develop and eventually corrupt.
Being an anti-war novel, his book is filled with shocking events and gruesome deaths. But Vonnegut portrays death as trivial. Every time someone dies or something bad happens, the reader might think " oh my gosh, that's awful!"
Vietnam was a highly debated war among citizens of the United States. This war was like no other with regards to how it affected people on the home front. In past war’s the population of the United States mainly supported the war and admired soldiers for their courage. During the Vietnam War, citizens of the U.S. had a contradictory view then in the past. This dilemma of not having the support of the people originates from the culture and the time period. During this time period it would be the fourth time Americans went to war in that century which made it tough for Americans to give their supportS (Schlesinger 8). Most Americans did not know why the country was getting involved in Vietnam as well as what the United States’ agenda was. This dilemma ties into the short story, “On the Rainy River” which is a passage from Tim O’Brien’s book The Things They Carried.
In the novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien demonstrates how exposure to the atrocities of nations at war leads to the soldiers having skewed perspectives on what is right and wrong, predominantly at times when the purpose of the war itself appears elusive. The ambiguity that consumes the stories of “The Things They Carried” and “How to Tell a True War Story” is displayed with irony, for the ‘moral’ of such war stories is that there is no moral at all. O’Brien portrays the character Mitchell Sanders as an observer who seeks the morals to be found through the war fatalities; however, he depicts these morals in a manner that actually stresses the impiety of the situations above all else. The characters in this novel are at the forefront of the Vietnam War, thus blinded by carnage that soon begins to obscure any prior notions held about what is moralistic and what is not.
In 1979, Francis Coppola released a film that he said he hoped "would give its audience a sense of the horror, the madness, the sensuousness, and the moral dilemma of the Vietnam war" (as quoted in Hagen 230). His film, Apocalypse Now, based on Joseph Conrad's 1902 novel Heart of Darkness, is the story of Captain Benjamin Willard's (Martin Sheen) journey to the interior of the jungle of Southeastern Asia for the purpose of executing his orders to track down Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando). Once Kurtz is located, Willard is to "terminate his command with extreme prejudice" because Kurtz has raised an army of deserters and natives, whom he rules over like a fanatical war lord- When Willard finally reaches Kurtz's compound and meets him, he discovers a man who has descended into primitive barbarism. From the beginning of their encounter, Kurtz knows why Willard was sent to find him and makes no effort to stop Willard from slaying him with a machete. With his mission accomplished, Willard boards the boat that will take him. back to civilization.
All in all, every year since 1975, Vietnamese have been killed or injured and they are so disappointed. The war causes chaos and is a sign of bad omen to Vietnam. This never-ending horror could be remedied if enough Americans cared about saving Vietnamese lives, as the stars of this documentary claim they did. After all, what kind of people seed a foreign land with hundreds of thousands of tons of explosives and then allow succeeding generations to lose eyes and limbs and lives? Only a “violent and unforgiving”
In Slaughterhouse Five the reader is encouraged to show contempt for war and to abandon all hopes of thinking war as a place where deeds of heroism are and bravery are performed. A character in the novel, Roland Weary, seems to think the very opposite of what Vonnegut is trying to communicate in the novel. He sees war as an adventure, a time for exploration, not as a time where horrible atrocities are committed and where massacres take place. Even army personnel turn on each other. Billy Pilgrim who is being beaten by Roland Weary is saved from death, ironically, when a German patrol finds him. Another bunch of characters that seem to ‘mistake’ war as something fun is the English officers at the POW camp. In the words of Vonnegut, “they made war look stylish, reasonable and fun.” Another interesting thing that Vonnegut does is that he frequently uses the phrase “So it goes,” after every death or mention of dying in the novel. He uses the phrase very often, and after a certain amount of time, it begins to remind the reader that the reader is powerless to stop all the killing that is going on.
Throughout the film "Apocalypse Now " by F.F. Coppola, there is a parallel between the Indian wars and the Vietnamese war. We can compare the Vietnamese with the Indians and the American soldiers with the cowboys.
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.
...ut the hidden thoughts and feelings of the narrator are the real things that need to be examined. The Vietnam War is so colluded with uncertainties that it's meaning and questions of why are still lingering in the minds of citizens of the United States.
The film Tomorrow When the War Began is a film based on the novel of the same title. John Marsden’s Tomorrow When the War Began is the story of seven teenagers who return from a camping trip to find their home town has been invaded. The producer of the film has excluded several settings from the book and also changed parts of the plot and the character’s characteristics. These differences occur to show the character’s development, to limit the duration of the film and to keep the audience engaged.
Both Conrad’s, “Heart of Darkness”, and Coppola’s, “Apocalypse Now”, profoundly illustrate the journey of man into their inner self and man’s encounters with their insanity, fears and demise. The novella and film are comprised of numerous pivotal themes that facilitate the understanding of the deeper meaning of both works. Fundamentally, theme is an extensive message or idea expressed by an author and is a crucial element of literature since it sheds light on universal concepts. The most striking parallels that can be formulated when comparing themes in both the novella and the film are associated with human nature. Specifically, Conrad and Coppola incorporate theme of hypocrisy in order to portray man’s incredible potential for evil.