This is an analysis of themes from the film 'Apocalypse Now'
Apocalypse Now is a 1979 war film written by John Milius, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and starring Martin Sheen as Captain Benjamin Willard, a CIA assassin commissioned to locate and terminate the command of renegade Special Forces operative Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) who is wanted for murdering Vietnamese agents and building a fortress in a Cambodian jungle where natives worship him as a god. This is a scene-by-scene plot analysis of the film explaining the film's main themes correlating with the chapter sequence on the DVD version of the film. Whether you agree or disagree with my interpretation, please feel free to leave your comment and thanks for visiting my blog.
Apocalypse Now Redux
Title 1 (6:06-18:53) (12:47)
Summary
The film opens in a small room in Saigon. Captain Willard, of the U.S. Army’s Special Forces (505 battalion, 173rd Airborne , SOG Studies and Observation Group) and CIA operative is a wreck. He’s a government assassin without a mission, out of action, and the waiting and boredom are killing him. A couple of soldiers show up at his door with orders to bring him to COM-SEC INTELLIGENCE at Nha Trang Airfield.
There, a general hands Willard a mission. Walter E. Kurtz, a highly decorated Colonel, is wanted for murdering 4 Vietnamese double agents. He has since gone AWOL and made himself a god over an indigenous people called the Montagnards in a remote jungle in Cambodia. Willard and a crew are to travel up the Nung River in a boat, learn what they can along the way, and once they arrive in Cambodia, to find Kurtz and to kill him with “extreme prejudice.”
Analysis
At the beginning you see Captain Willards face and images of the war in Vietnam, fire, burning brush, helicopters, his wife’s picture on the table by his bed, bottles of Alcohol. Willard is an assassin for the CIA and he is disconnected from reality, disconnected from the world, his family, disconnected from himself. He’s disconnected from all the men he’s killed previously, disconnected because those men weren’t American. As Willard says in the film’s voice-over: “How many people had I already killed? There were those 6 that I knew about for sure… close enough to blow their last breath in my face. But this time, it was an American. And an officer!” Kurtz reconnects Williard with the reality of killing others because not only is Kurtz a U.S. Colonel and an American but Williard also gets to know the man intimately through his dossier and by retracing Kurtz journey up the Nung River. This journey both detaches Willard to understand how Kurtz flipped and at the same time the journey reconnects Willard to his own humanity and reality after being desensitized killing foreigners.
Title 3 (23:02-31:14) (8:12)
Summary
Willard goes over Kurtz’ dossier and right away he’s hooked. In ’64, Kurtz, worked with an advisory command in ‘Nam and returned his report to Washington. The President restricted his report. Also Kurtz signed up for paratrooper training at 38 years of age. This was crazy! No one signs up to jump out of planes at that age.
Williard and his 4 man escort—Gunners-Mate nicknamed Mr. Clean, a 17 year old from? Chef, a machinist from New Orleans, Gunner’s-mate Lance Johnson, a famous surfer from LA, and Chief Phillips, the boat’s captain—rendezvous at an unspecified location with Colonel Kilgore, Commander of Air Cavalry, 1st of the 9th. Air Calvary are mopping up an unsuccessful skirmish with the VietCong and evacuating refugees to South Vietnam.
Analysis
Right away, you see the disconnection from reality as soldiers entering the theater are met by a movie crew with the director shouting instructions to not look in the camera. Then, from this scene we are introduced to Colonel Kilgore who embodies both detachment from reality and complete insanity with his obsession with surfing and Lance Johnson who happens to be a surfing legend and his idol. Kilgore is a metaphor for Western society which is overstimulated and has lost the ability to connect with the world around him. Also, in this scene is hypocrisy as a priest and some soldiers recite the lord’s prayer (killing in the name of God) This is a metaphor of White colonialism using God and the bible to justify killing others. This metaphor is born out at the end of the film when we finally see Kurtz. The native people he rules have painted their skin white to look like him.
Title 7 (32:12-34:09) (1:57)
Summary
Willard needs to get their boat dropped at the mouth of the Nung River but that particular entrance to the River is pretty “hairy” and controlled by the VC. At first, Kilgore expresses serious reservations about the drop until one of his men tells him about the outstanding waves there, 6-foot peaks. This settles it for Kilgore and he agrees to drop Willard’s boat at Vin Bin Drop.
Analysis
Kilgore is more interested in surfing than the safety of himself or his men. This shows the insanity of war and the illogical choice of recreation over personal safety. Kilgore’s behavior is characteristic of someone disconnected from reality. Surfing is a metaphor here to show how we pursue things that offer temporary pleasure or relief from a reality that is difficult to cope with like someone who uses drugs to escape reality.
Title 8 (37:00-49:51) (12:51)
Summary
A squadron of Air Calvary Hueys raid Vin Bin Drop raining bullets and bombs and taking fire as well. When the copters hit the ground, Kilgore orders some of his men to get their surf boards and hit the waves in spite of the heavy explosions and flying bullets. He orders them to either surf or fight and they choose to surf. He then calls in a napalm sortie to clear out a tree-line and the way is clear for Willard and his men to enter the Nung River.
Analysis
Kilgore leads the helicopter raid on Vin Bin Drop playing loud music to stir up his men and to freak out the enemy. This is an example of using music as a distraction or as a way to escape. Again, this is not about music but about entertainment and how it is used to distort reality. People are dying all over the place and all Kilgore can think about is getting his surfboard in the water. He represents those who seek pleasure and entertainment to escape or disconnect from harsh realities. This also suggests that Willard may be attempting to escape or disconnect himself by staying in ‘Nam instead of returning home because in ‘Nam killing is normal. Going back home to his wife and reconnecting with civilization would reconnect him with reality and his humanity and cause him a great deal of pain, similar to someone staying drunk all the time to avoid something too painful for them to deal with in a sober state.
Title 14 (1:02:36-1:11:24) (8:48)
Summary
Willard and his escorts stop at a supply depot called Hau Phat, A band with some Playboy bunnies are putting on a show for the U.S.O. and things get out of hand quickly as soldiers storm the stage and a helicopter has to rescue the bunnies and the band as the stage is overtaken.
Analysis
Music and sex are big distractions in American society and in this scene they are used to disconnect the soldiers from the reality of war, which is an observation Kurtz makes in his diary. Kurtz’s mentality mirrors the mentality of the war itself, which is itself disconnected from reality. This incident pulls Willard deeper up the Nung River and deeper into Kurtz’ mind.
Title 19 (1:17:07-1:22:03) (4:56)
Summary
Willard reads Kurtz’ journal. Kurtz writes that he ordered the execution of 4 Vietnamese double agents. As a result of these executions, the U.S. military attempted to try Kurts for murder but Kurtz escaped and lead his Montagnard army out of the Central Highlands and into Cambodia.
Analysis
Kurtz broke with his command and what he felt were their humane methods of dealing with enemies that were inhumane. In order to combat an inhumane enemy he, himself, had to become inhumane by disconnecting from his own humanity and from God.
Title 21 (1:34:15-1:39:41) (5:07)
Summary
Willard and his crew encounter a Sampan or a junk boat on the river and Chief orders it to stop and for Chef to board it to look around. There’s a man who looks like a farmer, 2 sons, a wife, a daughter. There’s nothing on the boat except baskets of rice, ducks, bananas, a goat, some fish, mangoes. Something at the back of the boat moves and Mr. Clean opens fire with his machine gun. He is joined by Lance . They kill everyone on the boat. Chef reaches in one of the boxes and pulls out a puppy. They shot up the boat and killed an entire family over this puppy.
Analysis
As they travel deeper into the mind of Kurtz, fear causes the men to become paranoid and they kill an innocent family, which is a metaphor for the way the government uses fear to get support to wage wars on innocent countries from a public that’s disconnected from any knowledge of foreign affairs. A public that is disconnected from reality by recreational activities such as television, sex, and sports. An example of this is the Iraq war. After 9/11, President Bush capitalized on the fear of the American people to gain public support in invading Iraq to steal its oil and passing the Patriot Act, among the passage of many laws that infringe on privacy rights that were once protected by the constitution such as phone surveilLance .
From Wikipedia article “Vietnam War”:
On 2 August 1964, the USS Maddox, on an intelligence mission along North Vietnam's coast, allegedly fired upon and damaged several torpedo boats that had been stalking it in the Gulf of Tonkin.[186] A second attack was reported
two days later on the USS Turner Joy and Maddox in the same area. The circumstances of the attack were murky. Lyndon Johnson commented to Undersecretary of State George Ball that "those sailors out there may have been shooting at flying fish."[187]
The second attack led to retaliatory air strikes, prompted Congress to approve the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on 7 August 1964,[188] signed by Johnson, and gave the president power to conduct military operations in Southeast Asia without declaring war.[189] Although Congressmen at the time denied that this was a full-scale war declaration, the Tonkin Resolution allowed the president unilateral power to launch a full-scale war if the president deemed it necessary.[189] In the same month, Johnson pledged that he was not "... committing American boys to fighting a war that I think ought to be fought by the boys of Asia to help protect their own land."[190]
An undated NSA publication declassified in 2005, however, revealed that there was no attack on 4 August.
Title 22 (1:39:27-1:49:00) (9:33)
Summary
Willard and the crew arrive at the Do Lung Bridge, the last army outpost on the Nung River. It’s a chaotic scene. The Do Lung Bridge lit up like a Christmas tree with entrenched soldiers shouting and shooting into the darkness at unseen enemies. Willard goes from foxhole to foxhole looking for a commanding officer but no one seems to know who that is. Finally, Willard leaves the outpost and the Do Lung Bridge crashes into the river.
Analysis
This scene sums up what the Vietnam War is all about and why Kurtz disobeys his command whom, he feels, aren't providing real leadership. There is also rock and roll, which goes hand-in-hand with psychedelic drugs like LSD in the 60s and which also is a metaphor of the disconnect soldiers have with their commanders and their enemies.
Willard walks by a barricade where there’s rock and roll music and a small group of soldiers are just sitting and looking spaced out like they’re on drugs. Compare this scene with the last scene in the film where Willard kills Kurtz. The soldiers in this scene don’t know who’s in command; in the final scene after Willard kills Kurtz, the Montagnards (depicted in this film as primitives) bow to Willard like he’s their new god. Willard, however, leaves them, taking Lance with him out of the jungle. Therefore, the metaphor in this scene involving the soldiers at the Do Lung Bridge represent man’s disconnection from God himself. The ‘command’ Willard refers to in this scene can be looked at metaphorically if you juxtapose this scene with the last scene in the film where the primitives are abandoned by their ‘command’ so to speak when Willard leaves them and returns to civilization.
Title 23 (1:49:17-1:54:21) (4:59)
Summary
They open their mail from home. Lance goofs off opening a smoke grenade that attracts enemy fire from the heavy brush along the riverbank. Mr. Clean is shot and killed.
Analysis
The death of Mr. Clean reconnects everyone on the boat with reality and humanity. That they shoot at the riverbank at unseen enemies represents their disconnection from their humanity. Prior to Mr. Clean’s death, the purple smoke enveloping the boat is a metaphor based on the song Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix. Purple Haze is a slang term for LSD or purple cannabis and this best describes everyone on the boat at the time of Mr. Clean’s death. The purple smoke represents confusion or detachment from reality but Mr. Clean’s death jars them back to reality and humanity since Mr. Clean is someone they know, someone in the same boat as them.
Title 28 (2:13:40–2:19:54) (6:41)
Summary
After Mr. Clean’s death, Willard and his escorts arrive at the plantation of a French officer. Ho Chi Minh and his army ran the French colonialists out of Vietnam in 1955 but this officer chose to stay rather than flee to Paris. French losses in WWW2, Dien Bien Phu, Algeria, and Indochina is a bad taste in the officer’s mouth. Here, Willard meets the beautiful daughter of the French officer, Madame Sarrault and they enjoy opium and a brief affair.
Analysis
This is one of the extended scenes that’s been added to the Redux edition of the film. I was going to pass over it but watching it carefully I found this scene to be one of the most important scenes in providing a microcosm of explaining both Willard and Kurtz’s detachment from humanity and reality. As they are smoking opium in her boudoir, she shares a story of her husband who died of cancer: “there are 2 of you; 1 that kills, and 1 that loves.” And he, her husband, replies: “I don’t know whether I am an animal or a God?” But, Madame Sarrault replies to her husband: “But you are both animal and God.” Willard is hitting the opium pipe while she tells him this and the opium takes him deeper into the dark side of Kurtz’s soul. This is the same thing the General at Nha Trang told Willard using different words. The opium allows the lower level of Kurtz’ and Willard’s mind to break free of moral restraints. This is why he makes himself a god over primitives, a scene that represents him reverting to the primitive level of human nature, something he felt was necessary to combat an enemy with no moral restraints.
Title 28 (2:20:15—2:25:17) (5:02)
Summary
Willard and his crew on the boat enter a heavy mist. Chief wants to stop but Willard orders him to keep forward. They are attacked by toy arrows, but Chief Phillips keeps firing at enemy along the riverbank. He is killed by a spear but uses his last breath in an attempt to kill Kurtz, the one who got them into this mess. Willard kills him.
Analysis
There’s a parallel in this scene between the scene at the Do Lung Bridge and the 1st scene at the Nha Trang airbase where Willard gets his orders to kill Kurtz. The parallel is the disconnect between those giving the orders and those taking the orders. Kurtz breaks command and goes on his own because he saw his command as being ineffective; Chief Phillips ignores Willard’s command to stop firing and the soldiers at Do Lung Bridge had no command. In each case, there’s a disconnect with command which is a parallel to the duality of good and evil inherent in human nature.
Title 29 (2:27:39-2:31:37) (3:58)
Summary
Willard and what’s left of his crew enter the Kurtz’ compound and are met by the Montagnards who have painted themselves white to look like their god Kurtz.
Analysis
The compound is the basic, most primitive level of man, in this case, Kurtz’ nature. This is a very symbolic scene representing Western colonialism and how America conquers other peoples and forces its religion, especially its image of what God looks like on those people. Kurtz is the embodiment and arrogance of Western foreign policy and colonialism. He’s benevolent and humane and he’s also cruel meaning that every military operation uses the pretext of a “humanitarian” mission to exploit other country’s resources, specifically, oil. Also, you notice that Willard, Lance , and Chef blend in with the primitives and the jungle as they have been reduced to their basic nature like Kurtz. Lance doesn’t even talk anymore.
Title 30 (2:37:00-2:42:20)
Summary
Willard is captured and taken to a small temple where he finally meets Kurtz face to face.
Analysis
This is great cinematography in the way the shadows and light act as a shroud to heighten Kurtz’ mystique before finally revealing the man himself.
Title 34 (2:57:16–3:04:01) (6:04)
Summary
Kurtz describes to Willard what he saw in a village when he was a member of the Special Forces. They went into a camp and had inoculated some children for polio. They left the camp but were brought back to the camp where they saw the little arms of the children they’d inoculated cut off and in a pile. At first he was horrified but grew to admire the commitment the Viet Cong had to have to do such a thing.
Analysis
Kurtz describes to Willard the incident that disconnected him from his humanity and put him in touch with his primordial nature, that made him realize that what held him back and kept America from winning was judgement, was the conflict between nature and God. And once he lost judgment and disconnected from his humanity he could fight the VC on its level. Also, in the background, behind Willard, Lance is doing Tai Chi, mirroring Willard from the 1st scene in the film where Willard is in the room in Saigon. In that scene, Willard was disconnected from humanity and this scene echoes the fact that Lance is also disconnected.
Title 34 (3:06:37—3:15:34)
Summary
Willard kills Kurtz with a Machete as the Montagnards sacrifice a water buffalo. When Willard Completes his mission he takes Lance to the boat and they leave the jungle.
Analysis
Willard kills Kurtz and replaces him as God over the Montagnards. But instead of staying in the jungle he leaves and begins his journey back to civilization or his lost humanity. The jungle or his repressed nature is still apart of him as illustrated by the film’s final image of his face covered in tribal paint is superimposed over the face of a god, as Madame Sarrault told Willard at the French plantation: “you are both animal and God.” This scene also shows command disconnecting itself as Willard leaves the Montagnards.
