While there are differences between Francis Ford Coppola’s film, Apocalypse Now!, and Joseph Conrad novel, The Heart of Darkness, Kurtz and his influence on the main character remain very similar. Both the movie and novel depict a protagonist’s struggle to travel upstream in a ship in search of a man named Kurtz. While doing so, Marlow (The Heart of Darkness)/Willard (Apocalypse Now!) become progressively fascinated with Kurtz. Kurtz is claimed to have a profound influence on his followers and is becoming a huge influence on Marlow/Willard as well.
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...
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.
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
In Heart of Darkness, Kurtz is a symbol of truth and brutality. Due to Kurtz’s love for truth and brutality, his actions that develope his reputation are driven by his perception of truth, the only way to live is through power and brutality. One example of Kurtz’s actions being dictated by his perception of truth is the ornamental heads Marlow finds when he reaches the inner station, we find that Kurtz has used his
The plots of these two works are parallel. In Apocalypse Now, Willard, like Marlow, is sent on a mission. However, he is sent to kill Col. Kurtz, whereas Marlow is asked to bring him back with him. Apocalypse Now presents Kurtz as a psych...
Very rarely do filmmakers intend to create cinematic masterpieces which integrate and draw upon lush literary qualities and leave the viewer with a deeper feeling of life and death than he or she had before viewing the film. Even if some filmmakers do attempt to create a masterpiece, symbolic and complex, many fall short. However, when Francis Coppola created Apocalypse Now, he succeeded in creating a masterpiece, drawing upon the complicated story within Conrad's Heart of Darkness and the savage observations within Frazer's The Golden Bough. The character of Colonel Kurtz in both Conrad's and Coppola's works, is one of a complicated, volatile renaissance man; he is at the same time a ruthless, body collecting warrior and a artistic philosopher. Kurtz's "divinity is like fire, which under proper restraints, confers endless blessings, but if rashly touched, burns and destroys what it touches" (Frazer 13). Kurtz, as a savage icon, is capable of greatness and is brutally malicious at the same time. Where Coppola strays from Conrad, he does so to show Kurtz's deliberate choice to become a god-like figure and be destroyed in the tradition of the savages. Through the savage beliefs of tabooed head and hair, the slaying of the divine king, and sympathetic magic, Coppola creates a more savagely realistic character in Kurtz.
In German “kurtz” means short. What Kurtz actually says is plain and terse, but appalling. It is not hidden behind words, but revealed within Kurtz’s own voice and scribbled in margins. However, it is the voiceless words, the written words, the lies, and not the note scribbled by his own voice that Kurtz asks Marlow to preserve. By wanting to preserve his report, Kurtz acknowledges the power of written words. He knows that besides Marlow’s memory, writing is the only thing that can begin to immortalize him. But, perhaps, Kurtz’s knowledge is meant to die along with his voice.
This situation of waiting for Kurtz allows Marlow to fantasize about Kurtz and create a larger than life figure out of a man who he’s never met before. Soon Finding Kurtz becomes an all-out obsession for Marlow; even the night before they meet Kurtz, he wishes to press on despite the danger. Here the reader can see that Marlow is willing to get to Kurtz at all costs. When Marlow does finally make contact with Kurtz, his fantasy carries over into the person who he sees Kurtz as. Marlow is willing to overlook some of Kurtz’s shortcomings and is very willing to see his greatness. Marlow is obviously fond of Kurtz, as it can be seen in the passage when he speaks of Kurtz’s “unextinguishable gift of noble and lofty expression.” Here the reader can observe that Marlow is truly fond of Kurtz’s. The narrator even chooses to side with Kurtz against the manager; even though he hardly knows the man. Kurtz has also managed to get the native people to worship him as a god, and has mastered their language. This makes Marlow respect him even more. Marlow’s point of view allows him to foster both the reality and the fantasy of Kurtz, and though he is very fond of Kurtz, he is still able to see the truth in him as
So why did he take what starts out looking like a fictionalized autobiographical account, and then half way through the story start being totally fictional? The important changes made seems to be that he is in charge of the boat, and thus is in control of his own journey to the heart of darkness. The other is the significance of the Kurtz character. Prof Abel mentioned Kurtz was loosely based on someone named Klein, but presumably the significance of Kurtz is much more symbolic than biographical. Perhaps Conrad creates Kurtz to embody the issues that he thought about during his trip on the Congo, but which never actually personified themselves so concretely.
As to the character of Kurtz, it is worth noting that while significant discrepancies exist between the depictions of Conrad and Coppola, the basic nature of the man remains fairly similar. The idea of company man turned savage, of a brilliant and successful team-player, being groomed by "the Company" for greater things, suddenly gone native, is perfectly realized in both novella and film. In the film, Kurtz is portrayed by Marlon Brando, the father of American method actors, who lends weight (both physically and dramatically) to the figure of the megalomaniacal Kurtz. Brando's massive girth is all the more ironic for those familiar with Heart of Darkness who recall Conrad's description: "I could see the cage of his ribs all astir, the bones of his arms waving.
Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now & nbsp; Heart of Darkness, a novel by Joseph Conrad, and Apocalypse Now, a movie by Francis Ford Coppola can be compared and contrasted in many ways. By focusing on their endings and on the character of Kurtz, contrasting the meanings of the horror in each media emerge. In the novel the horror reflects Kurtz's tragedy of transforming into a ruthless animal. The film The Horror has more of a definite meaning, reflecting the war and all the barbaric fighting that is going on. & nbsp;& nbsp;& nbsp;& nbsp;& nbsp;& nbsp;& nbsp;& nbsp Conrad's Heart of Darkness, deals with the account of Marlow, a. narrator of a journey up the Congo River into the heart of Africa, into the jungle, his ultimate destination. Marlow is commissioned as an ivory agent.
Kurtz once was considered an honorable man, but living in the Congo separated from his own culture he changed greatly. In the jungle he discovers his evil side, secluded from the rest of his own society he becomes corrupted by power. "My Ivory. My people, my ivory, my station, my river," everything was under Kurtz's reign. While at Kurtz's camp Marlow encounters the broken roof on Kurtz's house, the "black hole," this is a sign of the uncivilized. The black hole represents the unknown and unconquered, and therefore represents the uncivilized. Also, Marlow notices the "black heads" on Kurt...
When Marlow finally reaches Kurtz he is in declining health. This same jungle which he loved, embraced and consumed with every ounce of his flesh had also taken its toll on him. Marlow finally meets the man whose name has haunted him on his river journey. Could this frail human be the ever so powerful Kurtz? The man who has journeyed into uncharted territories and has come back with scores of ivory and the respect of the native tribe. Yes, this was the very man and though he is weak and on his way to death his power still exudes from him.
What horror is Kurtz recounting as his final words? Truths lie inside the inner soul of all human beings, it is just a matter of when and where they will come out. Kurtz choose to let his be known as his passing words. An epiphany, a passing glimpse, the realization of what he has created and destroyed, willingly, or blindly going about hacking through the jungle blindfolded, searching for something of extrinsic importance. The narrator of Heart of Darkness never lets the reader know what Kurtz was speaking about. I believe Conrad wanted his audience to judge for themselves the importance of Kurtz’s words. Finding literal, as well as deeper meanings, in the novel becomes very apparent when basing the context of Kurtz’s words from a thematic standpoint. His word’s can be broken down on three levels: the first, dealing with the obvious literally sense of horror representing all the dead Africans, who died at the hands of the Kurtz in his lusty quest for ivory; the second, delves into an important theme relating to the book, which is human savagery, Kurtz must have realized he had become what he hated most; Lastly, on a abstract level, his finally word’s would have represented the society of European Imperialism that had molded Kurtz and formed him into a by-product of the mixture, which culminated together to create colonial, imperialistic attitudes.
...il of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision,-he cried out twice, a cry that was no more that a breath- 'The horror! The horror!' "(Longman, 2000, p. 2240). This is what distinguishes the two men; Kurtz abandoned himself and went over the edge, but Marlow is aware of just how close he was to becoming what Kurtz was.
But later in Heart of Darkness I believe that Conrad tells us what the real horror is-life. "Droll thing life is-that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself-that comes too late-a crop of unextinguishable regrets..." (pp. 1415) To the very end Kurtz was proud and unrepentant. It was not the recognition of just his wrongs, but the recognition of life's wrongs, terrors, and disappointments that caused Kurtz to cry out.