Heart Of Darkness Vs Coppola's Apocalypse Now

Heart of Apocalypse

In 1899, Joseph Conrad wrote the novel Heart of Darkness about Charles Marlow, an explorer who voyaged deep into the Congo of Africa for the retrieval of a sick, ivory trading post manager named Kurtz, and the horrors of his journey. In 1979, Francis Coppola directed his cinematic version of Conrad's novel, entitling it Apocalypse Now. But, the story is changed to fit Coppola’s vision. His rendition is about Captain Willard’s (Martin Sheen) journey to Cambodia during the Vietnam war and his search for Colonel Kurtz, a rogue military man. Though the time, place, and situations are different, Conrad and Coppola both use their separate craft of writing and film to capture close to the same conceptual journey into madness.

Willard is given a secret mission to assassinate Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), a rogue military leader who went insane and took over a village in Cambodia and become the ruler. Willard has been in the military and fought in the Vietnam War previously; he has seen the horrors of war. Yet, he is drawn to the jungle. Whilst waiting for a mission, Willard say, “ When I was here, I wanted to be there, and when I was there, all I could think about was getting back into the jungle” ( Coppola). Unlike Marlow, in Heart of Darkness, Captain Willard has been to his “Africa” ( Vietnam), yet he has not encountered anything like Colonel Kurtz before. Willard got what he wanted and went back into the war-torn

Coppola uses a full shot of Willard with his back turned to the camera as the focal center point of the screen as Willard’s boat moves closer to the natives in the background. The next scene is a close shot of Willard as he walk to Kurtz’s temple and sees severed human heads on stakes and scattered around on the ground. There is no score during these scenes and just ambient sounds set behind the dialogue to maintain the grave tone.

The close shot of Willard’s face after he takes notice is used to convey the crucial seriousness of the situation. Prior to this moment, Willard was reading a file Kurtz; he never knew what Kurtz was capable of and how far gone he was. Willard had just read of the great thing Kurtz had in the military, but seeing the heads in front of the temple, Willard realizes the inanity he has walked in to.

Whilst Conrad’s novel uses humor to exhibit a nonchalant tone, Coppola uses close and full shots, as well as ambient sounds and no score, to convey a more serious tone. Marlow and Willard both knew the dangers of their journey, yet neither expected the horrors they would face and the insanity that is Kurtz. The severed human heads on stakes are symbolic of the madness that encapsulated the Kurtz in the book and in the movie. Through both Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now, a loss of humanity is presented through the character Kurtz, in which