Now and Then

Apocalypse Now, made in 1979, was a film about the 1954-1975 Vietnam War, along with the psychological effects and how it’s caused a social issue. This war of “aerial bombing and small guerilla skirmishes” was a very “unpopular war”, as Eric Foner says in Give Me Liberty: Fourth Edition. It is also known that this war was America’s longest war lasting a little over 20 years. As shown in the film, it was a brutal, gruesome, and unwinnable war that only one couldn’t imagine. It is quoted in the the film that they would have “rather been in hell” then been there. The timeline, events and “the horror” was depicted greatly in this film, and gave a great picture of what it looked like to be there during the fighting of the Vietnam War. The plot takes…

Apocalypse Now is produced and written by Francis Ford Coppola and co-written with John Milius. It stars Martin Sheen who plays Captain Benjamin L. Willard as well as a U.S. Navy patrol crew that are set out down the Cambodia river on a top-classified reconnaissance mission to assassinate a rogue colonel after the Vietnam War. Apocalypse Now is based on and mirrors the novella by Polish-British novelist Joseph Conrad’s “The Heart of Darkness” it implies that the separation of people from…

In the 1979 film Apocalypse Now, the audience is taken through the dark and perilous adventure of Captain Willard during the Vietnam War. He aims to kill Colonel Kurtz, a once-respected member of the military, but now in his own confines of the Vietnamese jungle reportedly gone completely mad. Throughout the film, Captain Willard portrays deep anxiousness and curiosity of Colonel Kurtz from the files he receives from the military. It is evident that he goes through a rather excruciating and…

America is a country that symbolizes a lot for people, look at the Bald Eagle as an example as to the freedom that America tries to represent. Growing up children are lead believe that America is perfect we’re the good guys, it's shown in movies and books alike. The American badass character kills the Communists gets the girl and lives happily ever after. But of course as people get older they soon discover everything isn’t as perfect as they thought. They become disillusioned with American…

Alexander Tonico Apocalypse Now is director Francis Ford Coppola's film based on Heart of Darkness but set in the jungles of Vietnam. While some critics found the film mostly muddled, most agreed that it was a powerful and important examination not only of America's military involvement in Vietnam, but like Conrad's novel, a disturbing treatment of the darkness potentially inherent in all human hearts. "Apocalypse" means the end of the world, as when the earth is destroyed by fire in the Bible.…

The Symbols of Darkness In the adventures of an ancient civilization in the novella of Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad uses many symbols to explain the underlying theme of the story. Many similar symbols also appear in the 1979 movie Apocalypse Now; director Francis Ford Coppola also uses symbols within the context of a violent and turbulent time of the Vietnam War to provide explanation and context. These symbols help explain the underlining themes and context for the audience to fully…

Apocalypse Now is a film that reflects on the ‘curse’ of the American involvement in the Vietnam War, a civil war that occurred in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos from the mid 1950’s until the 1970’s. It is a revisionary film produced in the post-war US by American director and producer Francis Ford Coppola, which was first shown at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival where it took home the prized Palme d’Or. The story follows Captain Benjamin L. Willard, an unstable, self-destructive, alcoholic ‘assassin’…

By giving a visual portrayal of the degeneration of the mind in a combat zone, the world of “the other,” Francis Ford Coppola’s film Apocalypse Now gives a modern representation of colonization. This visit into Vietnam is both stirring and graphic, however, it also illustrates a pseudo-colonization of the other by an oppressive force. Through this view, the film works to set itself apart from the earlier romanticized depictions of European colonization, as seen in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of…

darkness someone might have is ultimately crafted by the situations they go through and how they perceive them. In the novel Heart of Darkness and the film Apocalypse Now, the development of each characters ' darkness is evident along with the circumstances that lead to those changes within them, even if some of the situations may vary, there are increasing amounts of metaphors that reflect that darkness. The title of the book by…

post-production; among his work on the film are the scene were the boat is patrolling on the river and stopping a Vietnamese boat (he felt like the viewers needed to see what the boat was doing in Vietnam when they were not carrying Kurt to his destination) some of the editing of the movie, but it most incredible contribution was for the sound. His debuts at Apocalypse Now were chaotic, he soon discovered that the crew did not recorded enough ambiance sound on location and that they were no…