Great, but what was the point?

Rating: Null/10 (2 October 1999)

Marlon Brando is a legend. I loved him in all three movies I've seen that feature him (THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, and of course this one). Brando steals the scene (hell, he steals the entire movie!) near the end, but what exactly was the point of this muddled quagmire that critics for some reason like to call a masterpiece? As I understand it, the movie was filmed even before the final draft of the script was complete. And it shows - the movie is mostly episodic: Willard (Martin Sheen) learns of his assignment to "terminate" Kurtz, nuking of Vietnamese villagers, tiger attack, USO girls, trip down the river, and finally the confrontation with Kurtz and his minions. These scenes play a little like short subjects and are weakly linked by Willard's narration. I watched this movie in order to prepare to write an analysis of its content and style and to judge whether it accurately adapted Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness." The adaptation is only superficial. Conrad's novel was about imperialism and race relations in the jungles of Africa, while APOCALYPSE NOW was about patriotism and desertion in the jungles of Vietnam. Both the novel and the movie do explore the theme of an individual's morality versus that of the "civilized" world, but I don't think the theme comes across that way. What exactly made Colonel Kurtz go insane? The horrors of war? Ethical qualms about killing innocent people? Agent Orange? The movie never fully explains the circumstances of his psychosis, though we do see that he has become disillusioned with America's supposedly good intentions in Vietnam. And why must Willard kill him? Sure, Kurtz went AWOL and violated military policy, but was he really a menace? Has he become a martyr to the cause of a greater morality that neither Willard nor anyone else can understand? Once again, the movie never explains that fully. All that aside, the movie is soul-stirring and exhilirating. You can see Coppola's bitter attitude toward the Vietnam War coming out in every scene: the mock glorification of wartime butchery with the "Ride of the Valkyries" theme; the incompetence of the U.S. military, the powerful scene where Willard shoots a woman, having to choose between duty and morality - the scenes obviously show that the director had a lot he wanted to say. And then there's Colonel Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando with stygian candor. His iron grip on his band of Cambodian guerrillas is intriguing in a frightening way, and I loved the penultimate scene (though I didn't exactly comprehend it), where Willard stabs Kurtz several times while the footage is intercut with the sight of a water buffalo being slaughtered. As the movie ends, Willard and his one surviving partner leave Kurtz's jungle fortress, as Kurtz's last words ("The horror! The horror!") echo eerily in the distance. Willard has fulfilled his mission, but what has he really accomplished? Is civilization really safe once the Kurtzes of the world are gone? Or is there a greater evil, the one that drove Kurtz insane in the first place? The audience is left to determine this independently. Despite its flaws, the film is memorable and captivating. The jungle imagery is both beautiful and forbidding, and Jim Morrison provides just the right touch by singing various haunting songs throughout the narrative. APOCALYPSE NOW is an excellent movie. I just wish it wasn't so murky (in more ways than one!).