To me Apocalypse Now felt like a true war story. Although
Tim O’Brien wont agree with my statement, but the all the intensifying and
brutal circumstances in this movie and in the experience of the main character
Captain Willard was portrayed with so much reality and horror of the war-zone
that it actually felt like a true war story. This movie is also so similar with
Slaughterhouse-Five as Willard gets flashback constantly while sitting on that
hotel room thinking about how he wanted to go back to the war. He missed it. He
felt that the war made him stronger and the walls around him made him weaker
day by day. But then again he wanted to escape from death. There was no
happiness for him on any sides. It felt like he wanted both war and home at the
same time, which was impossible for him to feel. There was always emptiness in
Willard. He couldn’t figure out what he actually wanted. The one scene in this
movie that keeps coming to me, and I believe it made its own space in everybody
else’s mind when Kurtz who was a Green Beret said “The horror… the horror,” as
this one short sentence gave so much reality and meaning to Willard’s own
character’s downfall. The truth of him killing a man was nonetheless than a mission
or homework, but it was so horrific, filled with so much brutality and horror
that it spoke the actual truth of Willard’s perversion within himself. Although
he was the main character in this movie, I couldn’t figure out if he was the
protagonist, or antagonist. It was confusing, sometimes it felt like he was
both at the same time, but sometimes when I saw Willard’s corruption, I felt as
if the movie failed to distinguish his actual characteristics. But, overall the
movie was amazing in portraying the truths about the war and how it can corrupt
an individual so greatly.
I like how you describe how you think it was a true war story. I agree with you that Willard saw a lot of brutal things during the war, and from the beginning of the movie, it looked like he was a little messed up. But throughout the movie, you can see him change, and this is because of all the acts he saw and did during that time. And I also thought the movie was kind of hard to follow because towards the end it seemed to just jump all over the place, but overall I think this movie did a really good job of portraying what some soldiers went through physically and mentally.
ReplyDeleteSumaita—always having great input. :) I really like how you tied in the themes of Slaughterhouse-Five and O’Brien’s theme in “How To Tell A True War Story”. I like how you brought up the fact whether Captain Willard is a protagonist or not. In my opinion, he is the anti-hero. He does not possess heroic qualities; however, he is self-aware of the ludicrousness of war which is why I really liked his journey. His journey to Kurtz is also his journey to the darkness of human nature with Kurtz representing the darkness. Thus, I believe this movie serves well in telling the story of how the human psyche can be so corrupted. War does that to people and this movie, although disturbing, really captured the destruction of human nature realistically. Overall, your lovely blog discussed all the themes of the movie.
ReplyDelete