I hope you will forgive me for repeating myself:


Constance wrote: "I have not seen "Apocalypse Now" myself, but if people are interested in discussing it, I'm sure I can pick up a rental copy."


I haven't heard from HD readers about the film yet, I hope you are considering it, I really enjoyed watching it in this context.

Ophelia - if you and the others 'order' me to watch the film - I will.

Can't get motivated.....can't work up the initiative.....you will need to give me strict instructions.......

Hmm, this is a strange one.

I wasn't expecting people to write in answer to every single one of my postings in HD, and I was prepared to give up the postings that got no response.

Still, about "Apocalypse Now", I find it would really be a shame if people didn't have a go at it. I explain in posting XIII-1 that I din't like the film when I saw it over twenty years ago, and the second viewing was such a good surprise.



What can I say to tempt you?
The visual aspect of the film is stunning, this was the main pleasure for me.

The part about the crazy French colonizers in Cambodia is also quite something and very well made.
By the way, get the REDUX DVD version of the film (I'm told "redux" is from the Latin and means "brought back") if you have the choice, it's better.

Marlon Brando is fine, but it would be wrong to think he's the main attraction of the film.

Again, if people told me they did not like the film and had nothing to say, I would leave it at that, but in the absence of such comments, I thought I would mention the film a few times and see what happened.

I'm going to add a few questions in my HD- XIII heading in case that's what is missing.

ginof wrote: While M has established himself as a credible observer, there is always the possibility that he is still blinded by his longstanding reverence for K. This can be a reason why he still supports him in the end. while I'm not completely convinced by this argument myself, I don't think it can be completely discounted. And K's last words: What exactly is the horror? Is it K's own actions? What K saw? What K did? Is it that K couldn't believe that he wasn't 'successful': i.e. made it out of there with his fortune? Is it really a final moment of self reflection that he couldn't believe what he had become or was it that he had not learned anything: the 'horror' of dying among the 'savages'? ...There is just the right amount of ambiguity that people can come to different answers in good conscience. Personally, I don't think Kurtz learned a thing. I think his dying words are his own disappointment at the way things turned out for him. He would do anything for money and felt it was his due. He was the consummate imperialist. Marlow however, is the conscience of the book. The one Kurtz doesn't seem to have.

Thanks very much for this Ginof, these are good comments. I agree that Marlow is blinded by reverence for Kurtz, but I interpret it a bit differently as I imagine Kurtz dying with a sense of self-knowledge. In my reading, Kurtz represents the actuality of Europe's relations to the rest of the world. Marlow represents the liberal intelligent community who are repulsed and fascinated by the colonial enterprise in equal measure. Marlow has these powerful contradictory thoughts of repulsion and fascination, a fruit salad of Marx and Kipling. His sentiments are corrupted as well by the financial benefit the liberal classes received from the loot of empire. No doubt there is an underlying racism, a sense that European invasion of Africa was justified by technological and cultural superiority, and so a sympathy for the 'whatever it takes' approach of Kurtz. I imagine Kurtz as entering Africa with mixed motives, open to partnership with Africans but finding the technological chasm so immense, and his freedom to exploit so untrammeled, that he degenerated into the tragic-comic figure collecting ivory that he would never sell. Marlow, for his part, is impressed by the amazing achievement of Kurtz as we are impressed by any wildly successful entrepreneur, but in this case the impressive achievement is hollowed out by its uselessness, venality and oppression. Marlow falls short of being the conscience of the book as he is too detached. If he really was the voice of conscience he would not have lied to Kurtz's girl about her hero's last words. Really, 'the horror', as a description of the colonial enterprise overall, is the key statement of conscience in the book.

I have a touch of malaria, maybe, am raving a bit like our dear Kurtz, saying essentially the same thing over and over? No, really, I didn't pick up on how the posts are cached and thought mine weren't going through. You all deserve an "A" for your suffering.

Will

I wonder what that long conversation with the powerful African lady was about?

She didn't want him to go did she? She must have known he was dying...but wanted him to stay at the settlement with her.

I keep wondering about her and what she symbolised......because actually there is quite a long description of her appearance......strutting up and down the beach. She, like Kurtz, seems to be a powerful character. Nothing namby pamby about her. Marlow could have told her the truth couldn't he? When he couldn't bring him self to do so to the European woman.

Ophelia,
I'll make an effort to watch "Apocalyse NOw." It's been an awfully long time since I saw it.

The African woman at least seems to have more going for her than her main competition, the lovely Intended!

Another thing to add about Kurtz's final words. Why does Marlow hear them being "spoken" as he visits the Intended? He may be hallucinating, but doesn't his hearing them also bring the "horror" home, so to speak, right back to the Sepulchral City where, we could fairly say, the horror originated? This view seems in line with what RT has been saying about Kurtz realizing, perhaps, what larger forces he has been an agent of.

I don't agree that Marlow ever admires Kurtz for his insane achievements. I think admire would be the wrong word. He's fascinated, I think, by someone who has become so totally a renegade and who has been taken over by the powers of darkness. At least there is something majestic, if still perverse, about Kurtz. You couldn't say the same about the other traders. They are cowardly, venal, and arrogant. His admiration of Kurtz seems to be confined to how he turned out in the end, strangely enough.

Ophelia,
I'll make an effort to watch "Apocalyse NOw."

[quote="Robert Tulip] a fruit salad of Marx and Kipling. [/quote]

that is just bloody BRILLIANT!

Hi Robert,

You have some good thoughts there, along with the great fruit salad. Again, this is why this is an great book: There is so much to think about in such a small package!

Isn't 'the horror' that if the darkness can strip the veneer of civilization from one so strong as Kurtz then it can do the same to anyone?

Tom