XIII-2- Renting Apocalypse Now: Penelope needs convincing.
Rent a video of Apocalypse Now? ( Francis Ford Coppola, 1979).
If you do and you are given the choice, take the
Redux DVD version of Apocalypse Now, released in 2001. This is what I got (by chance or because it's the main version in circulation), it has an added 49 minutes that are worth it.
3- Madness in HD and "Apocalypse Now".
I'll start with a quotation from a site entitled Cyberessays.com (no author mentioned):
I'm not really convinced by the examples in history given by the author in the next paragraphs, but do you want to write about what happens when two very different cultures meet in HD and A. Now?
Does this cause madness, or "perceived madness"?
Is there " a loss of self that leads us to discover about our true selves:
For Marlow, for Kurtz, or in the film for Captain Willard or Kurtz?
Is this is a journey of self dicovery, what do those four characters discover about themselves?
Have they learnt anything from their ordeals by the end of the story?
Coppola and his actors (Cyberessays)
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| Quote: Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now
Even more intriguing, however, is the similarity between the
transformation of the characters in Apocalypse Now, and the cast and
crew that created it. In Hearts of Darkness, (a documentary about the
making of Apocalypse Now.) Eugene Coppola becomes the narrator (a
Marlow or Captain Willard) and Francis becomes Kurtz.
"Francis believed that only if he could duplicate Willard's
experience, could he understand his moral struggle. In other words, he
had to lose control of his own life before he could find the answers
to the questions that his narrative asked (Worthy 24)." Coppola's main
horror was his fear of producing a pretentious movie. "Eleanor
repeatedly calls the making of Apocalypse Now a journey into Coppola's
inner self. Coppola, like Kurtz, is regarded as a deity. Moreover,
while Willard stalks Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, Coppola stalks himself,
raising questions which he feels compelled to answer but cannot,
finally announcing his desire to "shoot himself. " He means suicide,
but the cinematic connotation of the term, "to shoot," jointly
criticizes both the U.S. and Coppola's film for exercising a demented
self-absorption (Worthy 24)." Coppola had to deal with perhaps the
most agonizing of his troubles: his shriveling self-confidence. As the
budget soared, as the producers worried, as the crew and actors grew
restless and dispassionate, Coppola worried that he did not have what
it takes to finish the film. He struggled with the ending, with his
own creative ability, and with his sense of purpose.
Martin Sheen, who plays Captain Willard, is the one who really
faces the horror. During the filming he has a nervous breakdown and
later a heart attack. Some of his co-actors believed that Martin was
becoming Captain Willard, and was experiencing the same journey of
self discovery.
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