In the opening scenes of the documentary film "Hearts of
Darkness-A Filmmaker's Apocalypse," Eleanor Coppola
describes her husband Francis's film, "Apocalypse Now," as
being "loosely based" on Joseph Conrad's Heart of
Darkness. Indeed, "loosely" is the word; the period, setting,
and circumstances of the film are totally different from those
of the novella. The question, therefore, is whether any of
Conrad's classic story of savagery and madness is extant in
its cinematic reworking. It is this question that I shall
attempt to address in this brief monograph by looking more
closely at various aspects of character, plot, and theme in
each respective work.
The story of Heart of Darkness is narrated by its central
character, the seasoned mariner Marlowe, a recurring figure
in Conrad's work. "Apocalypse Now" features a corollary to
Marlowe
in Captain Willard, a U.S. Army special forces operative assigned to go
up the Nung river from
Viet Nam
into Cambodia in order to "terminate the command" of one Colonel Walter
Kurtz whom, he is
told,
has gone totally insane. It is fitting that Marlowe's character should
be renamed, as Willard differs
from Marlowe
in several significant ways: 1) He is not the captain of the boat which
takes him and a party
of others
up the river; 2) He does not reflect the deep psychological and philosophical
insights that are a
signal
feature in Marlowe's character, and 3) He is sent on his mission specifically
to kill Kurtz, unlike
Marlowe
who is simply piloting others in the capacity of captain of a steamboat.
However, Willard does
communicate
Marlowe's fascination (growing, in fact, into an obsession) with Kurtz.
Also significant is
the fact
that he holds the rank of captain, tying in with Marlowe's occupation.
As to the
character of Kurtz, it is worth noting that while significant discrepancies
exist between the
depictions
of Conrad and Coppola, the basic nature of the man remains fairly similar.
The idea of
company
man turned savage, of a brilliant and successful team-player, being groomed
by "the Company"
for greater
things, suddenly gone native, is perfectly realized in both novella and
film. In the film, Kurtz
is portrayed
by Marlon Brando, the father of American method actors, who lends weight
(both physically
and dramatically)
to the figure of the megalomaniacal Kurtz. Brando's massive girth is all
the more ironic
for those
familiar with Heart of Darkness who recall Conrad's description: "I could
see the cage of his
ribs all
astir, the bones of his arms waving. It was as though an animated image
of death carved out of old
ivory
had been shaking its hand with menaces at a motionless crowd of men..."
[1]. One could speculate
that Coppola's
Kurtz is a graphic analogy of the bloated American war machine dominating
and
perverting
the innocent montegnards of Cambodia; however, after viewing Eleanor Coppola's
documentary,
one finds that the casting was more based on a combination of Coppola's
wanting to work
with Brando
(remember "The Godfather") and Brando's own weight problem.
Heart of
Darkness is brilliantly and subtly updated by Coppola in a foreshadowing
scene in which
missives
to Willard from headquarters are intercut with scenes of newspaper clippings
about Charles
Manson.)
Also present
in Coppola's film is the loveable, addle-headed harlequin/fool figure who
meets Marlowe's
boat upon
arrival at Kurtz's station. This role is rendered in grand, demented style
by Dennis Hopper,
replete
with a plethora of cameras (he is an American photojournalist) to update
his fool's motley. Much
of his
dialogue is taken directly from Conrad, although his character does not
flee the scene as does his
doppelganger
in Heart of Darkness.
Regarding
plot, as stated earlier, Coppola's rendering of Heart of Darkness diverges
wildly from Conrad.
Conrad's
story depicts a turn of the century riverboat captain transporting members
of an unnamed
"Company,"
an ivory trading concern, up a snake-like river winding its way into the
Belgian Congo in
order
to locate their top "agent" and relieve him of his independently-stockpiled
ivory. The Company
has judged
Kurtz to be a renegade whose methods are "unsound." Coppola's film gives
us Willard, an
Army captain
who is sent by Army intelligence up a similar river in Viet Nam to kill
a certain Colonel
Kurtz.
Again, Colonel Kurtz is considered by the parties in charge to be insane,
his methods unsound (a
direct
dialogue echo from the text.) This last fact, however, that Willard is
from the beginning an
assassin,
is a fundamental difference between the film and the book. It changes the
whole psychological
dynamic
between that of Marlowe and Kurtz. In Conrad, Marlowe is in awe of Kurtz,
comes to identify
with him
in some dark recess of his own psyche; Willard, on the other hand, is more
impressed with
Kurtz's
credentials than moved by his force of mind and will. His mission to kill
Kurtz gives him some
measure
of pause, but his military protocol mentality ultimately rules the day.
Compared with Marlowe's
deep,
searching ruminations on the dark, enigmatic Kurtz, Willard is a government-issue
automaton.
Add to
this the fact that the first two thirds of the movie "Apocalypse Now" are
concerned with the Viet
Nam war
and have absolutely nothing to do with the plot of Heart of Darkness, and
it seems as if there is
an unmendable
rift between the film and its purported inspiration. To be fair, however,
it is important to
mention
that the two plots do converge at the point just before the boat parties
arrive at Kurtz's station,
when a
thick fog envelops each boat and a rain of arrows showers down on the passengers.
From here we
witness
the death of the black helmsman by a spear, the greeting of the fool figure,
and, finally the
meeting
with the mad Kurtz.
Which brings
us to the question of theme. The dominant theme of Heart of Darkness is
man's
vulnerability
to his own darker nature and the various ways in which this terrible, savage,
proto-man can
be unleashed;
power, the jungle, "the Company," all serve as catalysts for the emergence
of this hidden,
voracious
id-thing within us all, most realized in Kurtz. In "Apocalypse Now," Coppola
is right on target
in exploring
this theme, his choice of Viet Nam in the sixties providing all the requisite
elements: power,
the jungle,
and "the Company" are all present, the latter being represented by the
U.S. Army, or
perhaps
the U.S.A. as a whole. This last touch is ingenious, as it calls up a whole
series of speculations
regarding
the various forms of imperialism. In Conrad, set at the turn of the century,
the imperialism is
traditional,
overt. In Coppola, the U.S. presence is just as overt, yet the pretense
upon which it is based
is more
ideological, geopolitical. Both situations provide the possibility for
endless abuse of power by
foreigners
in a primitive jungle setting, a setting which tends to bend their minds
and release their
dormant
savage energies. Heart of Darkness depicts gun-crazy members of "the Company"
firing wildly
upon anything
and everything as they progress up the river. Likewise the men in the PBR
in
"Apocalypse
Now," even more so, in fact, due to the circumstances of the Viet Nam war.
The ultimate
extreme of man's dark side, as explored in Conrad and Coppola, is madness.
The
embodiment
of this madness is Kurtz, and it is explored more thoroughly, in fact,
in Coppola. One might
argue
that no credit is to be given to Coppola for this, that so many men went
mad in Viet Nam, that the
war was
madness itself. But the way in which Kurtz's madness is portrayed must
be examined: the way
Brando
is filmed in perpetual half-shadow, as if darkness is pouring over him
in some black ooze; the
strange,
nonsensical yet at the same time compelling ruminations he shares with
Willard; the scene in
which
he beheads one of Willard's men and presents the trophy to Willard in full
camouflage make-up.
These
are examples of the filmmaker's craft and should not be overlooked.
To sum
up, the question must be answered as to whether Conrad's Heart of Darkness
has survived the
passage
of seventy-five years and a cinematic treatment by Francis Ford Coppola.
I would say yes, in its
basic
thematic elements, it has. Much has changed, but the basic feel of the
novella, the brooding,
mysterious
jungle energy, its maddening influence over those who would try to tame
it, and Kurtz, whose
soul went
mad, whose last words were "The horror, the horror," all remain relatively
in tact. I wonder
what Conrad
would have thought.
http://www.georgetown.edu/irvinemj/english016/conrad/conrad.html