Revealing the Heart of Darkness in Apocalypse Now
Often a novel filmed as a movie departs from the original story, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. However, many great works of literature have inspired movies, and served as the basis for a great film, even though the film may approach the literature in a different way. Such is the case with Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, which was inspired by Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
Coppola and the screenwriter, John Mileus, took a story written nearly eighty years earlier and used its basic theme of the inner darkness of man and the idea of the journey up a river into the unknown to tell a story about one of the darkest, most confusing chapters of American history: the Vietnam War. Coppola's alterations to Heart of Darkness serve to exemplify his overall point, namely, that the United States' involvement in Vietnam was itself a descent into the "heart of darkness". Coppola was able to make a movie with such a theme for an American audience that was still dealing with Vietnam. The movie came out five years after the last troops finally left Vietnam, and the American public was still asking itself what had been accomplished and why we had been involved, while the troops who had served there were haunted by memories of the horrors they had seen, and were left wondering what it had all been worth as well. Coppola found a story in Heart of Darkness that dealt with the same issues of darkness and confusion, and he applied them to Vietnam to accomplish the task of demonstrating the darkness that was the Vietnam War. Coppola uses the basic plot structure and theme of Heart of Darkness to convey a message that America was wrong in the Vietnam War, and he comes...
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... saw the darkness of a bloody, confusing war that surely parallel Conrad's colonialism, but that also showed that the inner darkness of all man was still at work in the world. He shows that war is at its heart only a manifestation of that darkness. As Mike Wilmington puts it in his article "Worth the Wait: Apocalypse Now," "It's a search . . . toward death and dissolution. Probably Coppola . . . could not explain what that search was meant to find" (288). With Apocalypse Now, Coppola has looked down a crooked unclear path into the heart of darkness.
Works Cited
Chatman, Seymour. "Two and a Half Versions of Heart of Darkness." Conrad on Film. Ed. Gene M. Moore. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Wilmington, Mike. "Worth the Wait: Apocalypse Now." Heart of Darkness, Norton Critical Edition. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1988.
Watts, Cedric. 'Heart of Darkness.' The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad. Ed. J.H. Stape. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 45-62.
Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness’s are two magnum opuses to quest the evil and virtuous human nature. They have some similar and different places among the story plots, characterizations, and environments. At the same time, they reflect the exploration of the human nature in a different era and the exploration is not the end.
Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now lacks the impact of its inspiration, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. While the basic elements of imperialism and human nature remain intact, the characters of the film bare little resemblance to their literary counterparts. The film serves as a re-interpretation of Conrad’s novella, updated from 19th-century British imperialism in the Congo to a critique of 20th-century U.S. imperialism in Southeast Asia. Coppola’s changes in setting and plot structure, however, force the film to sacrifice the character development so crucial in the literary work. This detracts from the overall effectiveness of the film.
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.
Canby, Vincent. "Apocalypse Now." The New York Times Film Reviews. New York: The New York Times & Arno Press, 1981.
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.
Apocalypse Now is a presentation of imperialism in a more contemporary setting, the Vietnam War, to which more people can relate. Heart of Darkness is a classic imperialistic novel portraying the same basic events in Apocalypse Now. However, because Apocalypse Now is visual representation, it is more widely accepted than Heart of Darkness. Despite the contrasts, they both show the ignorance of imperialism and the destruction and selfishness it displays.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness 3rd Ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: Norton Critical, 1988.
* Conrad, Joseph. “Heart of Darkness” in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, M.H. Abrams, general editor. (London: W.W. Norton, 1962, 2000)
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness 3rd ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: Norton Critical, 1988.