Apocalypse Now

I bet you’d be surprised as to what people know, or rather what they don’t know, about the Vietnam War. I think that a lot of Americans don’t know why we fought the war. I’d say that Americans now, thirty years later, don’t know why we fought the war. I’m willing to say that a lot of Americans don’t even know that we didn’t win the war and that, on the contrary, after 58,000 U.S. troops were killed, we were forced to withdraw our forces from the conflict.

             
            It’s likely that so many people are misinformed about the Vietnam War because, unlike World War II, there have been so few movies about the incident, particularly, successful ones. Easily the most telling film about the Vietnam War is Apocalypse Now. There are no other films that expose the Vietnam War and capture the sense of madness and paranoia of the conflict like this film does.

            

           Surrealism is by far the standout element of this movie. In so many scenes there are factors of nonsense and ridiculousness. For example, one of Willard’s crew, Lance B. Johnson can be seen water skiing in the scene in which he is first introduced. A little later, when Lance comes to his senses, a commanding officer, Colonel Kilgore, forces his own to men to surf the choppy waters in the middle of an all out battle. Kilgore then calls in an airstrike on his enemies, not to carry out a mission seemingly, but to allow him and his men to surf in safety. Perhaps the most removed sequence of the entire film is that that takes place at the Do Lung Bridge. Eerie circus music and wild flashing lights surround Willard and his men as they try to survive through the affair. Lance drops acid and paints his face before going ashore with his captain. It seems that, had Lance not been completely inebriated and Willard nothing else to lose, neither of these men would have ever left the “safety” of their boat, just as Chef wouldn’t, especially after having a run in with a tiger and discovering a new mantra, “never get off the boat, never get off the boat”.  Willard and Lance, with puppy in hand, witness men fighting in the darkness, though no enemy is ever seen. None of the men seem to know who they are fighting, or to what cause. When confronted by Willard, the men simply sit stare into the darkness. One of the men state that every night they rebuild the bridge every night only to have Charlie blow it up again in the morning. While many of these scenes are exaggerated, all of these moments represent the madness and pointlessness of the Vietnam War.

          

           The horrors of the Vietnam War and the ways that it has affected those involved are apparent even in the very first scene of the movie. Captain Willard is seen in the very first moments of the film lying on his bed, remembering. Even the ceiling fan reminds him of fighter helicopters. He reduces himself to his lowest form because of his terrible memories, drinking and drugging himself into oblivion. When Willard looks into the mirror by his bedside he destroys it, as seeing himself is a constant reminder of what happened to him during the war. The captain talks about his family and how, because of his time serving in the war and because of the drastic influences it had on him, they abandoned him. He has no home or family to return to. All he has left is the war. This idea can be seen during the debriefing segment of the film. Willard accepts the assignment despite it being obviously clear that it is a suicide mission. Only a crazy person would accept a suicide mission to kill another crazy person. However, lucky for the U.S. Army, because of the war, Captain Benjamin Willard has lost his mind.

             
          Like his enemy, Colonel Kurtz, Willard has gone insane because of his time fighting in the war.  This similarity between the two characters is just one of many parallels that can be seen throughout the film. Both Willard and Kurtz are distinguished American soldiers and, eventually, both of them abandon their country for their own personal reasons. In one of the last scenes of the movie, both Willard and Kurtz have a sort of unspoken epiphany; they both realize that they have to do something that they don’t want to do, something that utilizes “the horror” that Kurtz references. In Willard case, he realizes that he must take Kurtz’s place as a symbol for rebellion and revolution, and Kurtz recognizes that he must allow Willard to kill him and take his place. Cinematographically as well, the two characters can be compared. For example, in the interrogation scene, where Willard and the audience first get a glimpse at Colonel Kurtz, both the protagonist and the antagonist are lighted similarly. But where Kurtz is mostly shrouded in darkness and only comes into the light a few times, Willard is mostly visible and only is masked by shadows every once in a while. This use of lighting by the filmmakers symbolizes the conflicting good and evil in both of the characters and shows how they both have potential to become either alignment.  

         
          Though there are many metaphors and allusions that can be taken from Apocalypse Now, the reading touched on a few references that I think are a bit farfetched. Like the idea that Kilgore represents a kind of pseudo Fascist monster of war only because he’s always on the right side of the screen? That’s just looking for something that’s not there. While Nazis also might have appreciated Wagner, just because Kilgore and his men utilize Flight of the Valkyries as a stimulus and a scare tactic doesn’t mean that they necessarily represent Nazism.

          
          It is films like this that lend to the way we view The Vietnam War. Thankfully, Apocalypse Now is a complex, wondrous masterpiece that tells of the atrocities and horrors of the Vietnam War.