Apocalypse Now: Crash Course Film Criticism #8
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Date: 2022-04-04
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Comments and reviews: 10
vinsanity982
Here's my take on Willard and Kurtz. A lot of people believe that Kurtz wasn't insane but enlightened. Some kind of damaged genius. I think they are wrong and here is why. Kurtz was definitely insane but he was also enlightened at the same time. The reason why I think he is insane because he kills pretty indiscriminately, like the part where the reporter says that he threatened to kill him for taking his picture. And the grotesque hanging naked bodies etc etc. See, the River was the journey - almost like a long obstacle course - and Kurtz made it through it. He achieved enlightenment were he saw the absurdity of it all and he also embraces the horror as his friend, just like he described in the monologue about the Cadres. The problem is that it broke him and he embraced it to the point that he lost all sense of right and wrong. Willard, went down the same River journey, achieved the same enlightened understanding as Kurtz, embraced horror as a friend, but did not break as Kurtz did. He was the perfect soldier that Kurtz described. For this reason, Kurtz recognized that Willard was the greater man than himself and determined that he was worthy enough to allow him to end his life. After Willard kills him, he is greeted with the same worship from the followers as Kurtz received, which further shows that Willard was greater. And when Willard rejects it, grabs Lance and leaves, he shows my earlier point: He was strong enough to endure all of that, embraced horror as a friend etc, but still come back from the edge that Kurtz went over. Willard was the perfect soldier.
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Here's my take on Willard and Kurtz. A lot of people believe that Kurtz wasn't insane but enlightened. Some kind of damaged genius. I think they are wrong and here is why. Kurtz was definitely insane but he was also enlightened at the same time. The reason why I think he is insane because he kills pretty indiscriminately, like the part where the reporter says that he threatened to kill him for taking his picture. And the grotesque hanging naked bodies etc etc. See, the River was the journey - almost like a long obstacle course - and Kurtz made it through it. He achieved enlightenment were he saw the absurdity of it all and he also embraces the horror as his friend, just like he described in the monologue about the Cadres. The problem is that it broke him and he embraced it to the point that he lost all sense of right and wrong. Willard, went down the same River journey, achieved the same enlightened understanding as Kurtz, embraced horror as a friend, but did not break as Kurtz did. He was the perfect soldier that Kurtz described. For this reason, Kurtz recognized that Willard was the greater man than himself and determined that he was worthy enough to allow him to end his life. After Willard kills him, he is greeted with the same worship from the followers as Kurtz received, which further shows that Willard was greater. And when Willard rejects it, grabs Lance and leaves, he shows my earlier point: He was strong enough to endure all of that, embraced horror as a friend etc, but still come back from the edge that Kurtz went over. Willard was the perfect soldier.
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Renato
I love this movie to its core but i must say: i only got a satifiyng understanding on my third view and after reading -Heart of Darkness-.
So it became very clear to me what was happening to Wilard and Kurtz. Many people use to quote lines from the movie only for the style, Apocalypse Now its not your usual war drama movie, much like the novel is not about emperialism alone.
Coppola's production tales turned the movie realization an miracle by itself, the scenes are gigantic, the cinematography is a wonder with almost impossible colors and sets, the improv and scripted lines are eternal. but the movie is only inteligible when the espectator melds the macro motives of the time (cold war, vietnam, scars of empirialism) to the micro motives (buried desires, death intentions, supressed id, shadow or, like in Conrad's novel, the Darkness.
Its far more easy to comprehend through Conrad's work, for the movie, at least in my opinion, the average movie watcher usually lacks the ability to recognize those keys through visual language. Knowing the novel, you can connect the dots and appreciate more.
reply
I love this movie to its core but i must say: i only got a satifiyng understanding on my third view and after reading -Heart of Darkness-.
So it became very clear to me what was happening to Wilard and Kurtz. Many people use to quote lines from the movie only for the style, Apocalypse Now its not your usual war drama movie, much like the novel is not about emperialism alone.
Coppola's production tales turned the movie realization an miracle by itself, the scenes are gigantic, the cinematography is a wonder with almost impossible colors and sets, the improv and scripted lines are eternal. but the movie is only inteligible when the espectator melds the macro motives of the time (cold war, vietnam, scars of empirialism) to the micro motives (buried desires, death intentions, supressed id, shadow or, like in Conrad's novel, the Darkness.
Its far more easy to comprehend through Conrad's work, for the movie, at least in my opinion, the average movie watcher usually lacks the ability to recognize those keys through visual language. Knowing the novel, you can connect the dots and appreciate more.
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BOMBASTIC
he's saying that the western front of the Vietnam war were just as bad as the Spanish in the americas. yeah right if you look at all the awful things the Viet con did (not saying the Americans weren't bad either) you couldn't justify it as them doing the right thing and he is also saying that the white Americans intentionally used small pox as a weapon against native Americans when bacteria wasn't even discovered to cause diseases until the late 1800 hundreds. he is also saying that the Americans took their land (the west already owned a majority of Vietnam) when honestly the Vietnamese way Preferred the western non-Communist owned land where they had equal rights (not saying they weren't discriminated against but the Viet con killed and raped a lot of Vietnamese natives for no justifiable reason. The Americans and the west weren't fighting the Vietnamese they were fighting the Communist owned parts of Vietnam supported by the soviet union.
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he's saying that the western front of the Vietnam war were just as bad as the Spanish in the americas. yeah right if you look at all the awful things the Viet con did (not saying the Americans weren't bad either) you couldn't justify it as them doing the right thing and he is also saying that the white Americans intentionally used small pox as a weapon against native Americans when bacteria wasn't even discovered to cause diseases until the late 1800 hundreds. he is also saying that the Americans took their land (the west already owned a majority of Vietnam) when honestly the Vietnamese way Preferred the western non-Communist owned land where they had equal rights (not saying they weren't discriminated against but the Viet con killed and raped a lot of Vietnamese natives for no justifiable reason. The Americans and the west weren't fighting the Vietnamese they were fighting the Communist owned parts of Vietnam supported by the soviet union.
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abburobinson
1: 46 But the Heart of Darkness is the trip up the Congo, Marlow goes to the continent (likely Brussels, perhaps Paris) and from there is sent after Kurtz up the Congo. Now if you are asserting that Conrad is critiquing the British Empire in general by discussing a European Company's action in Central Africa and by this comparing it to them, then perhaps, but then you missed a number of steps in doing so. If, however you wanted to point out a condemnation of Colonialism without an in depth explanation then why mention British Imperialism?
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1: 46 But the Heart of Darkness is the trip up the Congo, Marlow goes to the continent (likely Brussels, perhaps Paris) and from there is sent after Kurtz up the Congo. Now if you are asserting that Conrad is critiquing the British Empire in general by discussing a European Company's action in Central Africa and by this comparing it to them, then perhaps, but then you missed a number of steps in doing so. If, however you wanted to point out a condemnation of Colonialism without an in depth explanation then why mention British Imperialism?
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gurufabbes1
1: 40 Wrong. Heart of Darkness was not a critique of British imperialism but of non-British, in this case: Belgian imperialism in heart of Africa. Conrad if anything was drawing the comparison with it through his book and holding up British policy to be better and that the descent into the Congo was the descent into depravity unleashed in the Congo Free State at the time.
Nevertheless great video. Great points brought up here.
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1: 40 Wrong. Heart of Darkness was not a critique of British imperialism but of non-British, in this case: Belgian imperialism in heart of Africa. Conrad if anything was drawing the comparison with it through his book and holding up British policy to be better and that the descent into the Congo was the descent into depravity unleashed in the Congo Free State at the time.
Nevertheless great video. Great points brought up here.
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lalas
i am not trying to troll, but your analysis is completely of. if you are a psychiatrist you should watch
scientific documentaries, (there are no books in my language for that) and especially the comments
undernith them. but anyway just saw that it's a 2018 vid.
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i am not trying to troll, but your analysis is completely of. if you are a psychiatrist you should watch
scientific documentaries, (there are no books in my language for that) and especially the comments
undernith them. but anyway just saw that it's a 2018 vid.
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Tom
-Kurts is depicted in mostly darkness, as if seeing him fully would be too much for Willis to handle-
Incorrect. The actor who played him got incredibly fat and the director used the shadows to hide it.
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-Kurts is depicted in mostly darkness, as if seeing him fully would be too much for Willis to handle-
Incorrect. The actor who played him got incredibly fat and the director used the shadows to hide it.
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pkunkbwok
The way I've read the ending is that whatever's inside Kurtz jumps over to Willard; Willard then carries this home with him, in the way that the chaos of Vietnam gradually bled into American society.
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The way I've read the ending is that whatever's inside Kurtz jumps over to Willard; Willard then carries this home with him, in the way that the chaos of Vietnam gradually bled into American society.
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Danni
kurtz is based on the real life Barry Peterson an australian soldier sent into vietnam by the cia his story is fascinatingly documented in the book the tiger man of vietnam its a realy good read.
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kurtz is based on the real life Barry Peterson an australian soldier sent into vietnam by the cia his story is fascinatingly documented in the book the tiger man of vietnam its a realy good read.
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Florian
The more I am listening to you, talking along about Apocalypse now, the more I am thinking about Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder, which seems to make references to the filming of Apocalypse now.
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The more I am listening to you, talking along about Apocalypse now, the more I am thinking about Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder, which seems to make references to the filming of Apocalypse now.
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