Apocalypse Now Essay

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Adam Pester War and Representation assignment – (Q6. “This is not a film about the Vietnam, this is Vietnam. (F F Coppola 1978). Discuss Coppola’s view of his film Apocalypse Now. ) Francis Ford Coppola is an acclaimed director; he has directed some of the most iconic films most notably The godfather Trilogy (Dir. Coppola, 1972) grossing an unprecedented $245,066,411, which inevitably funded Coppola’s biggest picture Apocalypse Now (Dir. Coppola 1972). This essay will focus predominantly on Apocalypse Now (1979) and how Coppola’s view of the Vietnam War translates into his 153 minute epic. My aim is to identify both positives and negatives about his film in relation to the question, eventually summarising my views on Apocalypse Now and how I feel it addresses the Vietnam War. Francis Ford Coppola’s term, “This is not a film about the Vietnam War, this is Vietnam”, will be the main focus of my essay discussing this term in relation to his film and other contexts of the Vietnam War film era. Apocalypse Now is a film during the Vietnam War, it tells the story of the horrors that war brings and the indulgence of morality through the character Capt. Willard, played by Martin Sheen. The plot follows Capt. Willard commanding a Navy patrol boat travelling up the Congo River in search of mysterious Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who has knighted himself the god of a tribe deep in the Cambodian jungle. This part of the narrative is loosely based on the Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, which mimics the journey of Charles Marlow travelling down the river. For Coppola to stay driven in creating his masterpiece he centred it around this novel harrowing the complexities of the Vietnam War. “It appears the company had received news that one of their captains had been killed in a scuffle with the natives. This was my chance, and it made me more anxious to go.”(Conrad

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