Apocolypse Now

Apocalypse Now is similar to the novel but has different meaning. The setting of the novel is during the Vietnam War and the narrator in the movie is Captain Willard who is given a mission to kill Colonel Kurtz.  Willard fulfills his mission and Kurtz’s last words “ The Horror! The Horror! “, has a different meaning from the novel. Those words can only be understood by taking a deeper look at the character of Kurtz in the film as well as the novel.

When Willard and Marlow meet up with their Kurtz’s, these two go different ways from their similar structure and start to develop differently. In the novel, Kurtz is told to be a “ a universal genius, the flower of European Civilization”

For Marlow, Kurtz becomes a hope and therefore is searching for him amid. Marlow approaches Kurtz’s place as “ the shack of the universal genius that surrounded by a crude row of posts, holding high the severed heads of rebels” From the quote we can get a image that Kurtz is no ordinary man. Here Kurtz was described as “ an animated image of death carved out of the old ivory” Actually Kurtz has broken down and is being eaten alive as he nears his death. Kurtz explains himself “ My intended, my ivory, my station, my river…”

It could mean that Kurtz thought everything was under his control and Marlow couldn’t believe that Kurtz really had this type of thinking. This shows also in the novel where Marlow is thinking “ Everything belonged to him. It made me hold my breath in expectation of hearing the wilderness burst into a prodigious laughter…” it gives an idea that Marlow does think that everything does really belongs to Kurtz. However saying that everything is under his control is pointless because if we look in the novel there is a quote with tells us “ How many powers of darkness claimed him for his or her own” is also telling that Kurtz is a victim of the jungle.

Kurtz´s mission was to bring civilization, but instead he became like them. Now we can come back to the famous quote that was mentioned earlier “ The Horror! The Horror! ”, can be reflected by his own tragedy, after living in the jungle and taking on the brutal side he had developed. Killing and making them suffer, he faced the consequences and lost his identity. As Conrad puts it “ unable to be totally beast and never again able to be fully human, he alternated between trying to return to the jungle and recalling in the grotesque terms his for idealism.” Kurtz has been transformed and can never go back to his old self.  Even if he tried he couldn’t go back to being himself.  Kurtz has lost all his power and his soul had to be taken. As his soul is leaving in his body, Kurtz´s last words “ The Horror! The Horror! ”, shows his experience of killing and suffering the Africans ends. His last words can also be a message to the Africans but it could also be a message to him because he sees the horror he has created for the Africans.  By seeing at Marlow’s reactions, the horror can also mean all the chaos created by Kurtz.  In this case horror means Kurtz transformation from a stabile man into a different person, an animal.

Now if we look at the movie “ Apocalypse Now” Kurtz in the movie has same view as Kurtz in the novel.  However Kurtz’s issues in the movie is a military one. In the movie the conflict is about the war where in the novel it was about colonization.  Even in the movie Kurtz faces his own darkness. Kurtz creates an “ army” and becomes a ruthless person.  Like in the novel, this Kurtz have also fought like an animal and life became meaningless and empty.  Here also Kurtz faces his darkness and gets engulfed by it. When Willard kills Kurtz again we hear the famous quote “ The Horror! The Horror! ”. In the novel Marlow was told to bring Kurtz back and in the movie after Willard kills Kurtz, he does not take over his “ rule” but leaves. The reason to why Willard has heard Kurtz last words can also be a warning for him. It can mean don’t become like Kurtz. A heartless man who does not have any emotions and has became an animal. In the movie the quote had more of a specific meaning than in the novel. The war that was going on is the horror. The atmosphere and the fighting made Kurtz create a horror. The horror that is going in Kurtz is awful. The Kurtz in the movie is different from the Kurtz in the novel. But they also had similarities; they often acted and talked alike.  Both of them become people who they didn’t want to become. As Willard as in the film “ He broke away from all that and then broke away from himself ”