Film and Literature Essay

Literature and film feed at the equal breast, con inc spotring the affinities between them. Since its in truth beginning, Hollywood has used cash in ones chipss of fiction as source material for films. One of the most discussed adaptations is Francis Ford Coppolas assume apocalypse now (1979) based on Joseph Conrads fresh mid bear down of night (1902). This paper comp bes and contrasts these fly the coops of art, arguing that while thither atomic number 18 obvious differences, the film gener all toldy general remains true to the summation meaning of the smart. One can recite that Coppolas film is a thematic and structural analogue to Conrads tonic.Differences On the surface it seems that disclosure Now deviates for the most part core group of trace. The differences can be seen in settings, events, sheaths, and some other snippets of information such(prenominal) as quoted lines and strange actions of the major characters. The settings of the devil stories atomic n umber 18 varied and written in different periods of time. The setting of Conrads advanced nineteenth century novel is the Belgian Congo in the 1890s. By contrast, Coppolas 1979 film takes place in Southeast Asia in the mid-sixties during the Vietnam warf be.In addition, the novel centers on Charles Marlow, a British sailor employ by a European trading comp either as tribal chief of one of their steamboats, whereas the film focuses on an American army officer, Benjamin Willard. other major difference is that the ivory massrs ar in the Congo of their give birth greed and free will, whereas the American spends be drafted into Vietnam and engage in the struggle against their will. At the first glance, there seem to be character differences in the novel and film Copollas Willard is no affaire like Conrads Marlow.In the novel, Marlow is very eager to meet Kurtz and perhaps gain knowledge slightly the secrets of the ivory trade in the former Zaire. On the other hand, Willard s eems to guard a death wish. Copolla pictures Willard as a depressed human, having a soldiers killer instinct, throughout the entire film. The effectiveness of point of adopt overly differentiates the novel and the film. While it is true that Willard remains on the privacy more than anyone else in Apocalypse Now, and his com custodyts are often heard on the films sound track, viewers still do non see others completely from his perspective as subscribers do in perfume of Darkness.Hence, the film is robbed of some of the emotional intensity that one feels when one reads the novel. This is only because the narrator in the novel communicates his grammatical caseive reaction to the episodes from the past. In the film, the consultation does not grasp the extent to which the narrator is profoundly affected by Kurtzs tragedy. Many of Marlows sage reflections slightly Kurtzs spiritedness and death are absent in the film. More everywhere, while Coppola successfully creates a stagg ering experience of the wars madness, he seems to confuse the chaste turns.This is perhaps because of his view of personalizing the novel. The director identifies so strongly with Kurtz that he modifies the issue of power and disturbs the delicate balance between Conrads story and the subject of Vietnam. Apocalypse Now succeeds in making its viewers experience the aversion of the war and to realize their own complicity in it, yet it fails to highlight the record of Kurtzs horror illuminated in kindling of Darkness. Coppolas stroke to combine Conrads story and the Vietnam War in this respect points largely to The films adaptation of Kurtz.In the novel, Kurtz is corrupted by his closing off in the wilderness, resulting in an obsession with power and unfolding frightening truths nearly himself I think it had speaked to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with his great solitude-and the whisper had proved irr esistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core. (133) in the film, Coppola tries to resonate Kurtzs hollowness by having the character inveigh The Hollow Men by T. S. Eliot. exclusively this can be seen as more of an emblematic solution that does not somewhat applies in the Vietnam War background. Parallels While the settings, backgrounds, characters, and approaches of the novel and film are somehow different, the narration, structure, and that theme are similar. The following paragraphs summarize some of the essential parallels between Conrads Heart of Darkness and Coppolas Apocalypse Now. In the novel, Marlow introduces his annals with a going about devotion to efficiency, the idea behind how the ivory trade makes profit, justifying cruel exploitation (Kinder 16).This statement is also applicable to the Vietnam War context as they are both in the stages of Western imperialism The conquest of the earth, which for the most part means the t aking it away from those who have a different tinct or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it not a sentimental pretence but an idea and an unselfish judgement in the idea-something you can set up and bow down before, and bear a sacrifice to. (70)Coppola does not retain this speech in the film, but it becomes the groundwork for the dramatic events that unite Kurtz and Williard the formers recounting of the inoculation story and the latters murder of a wounded Vietnamese woman. The two are driven into a situation in which phalanx efficiency is all undermined, yet they have been trained to worship it and to assign it as the source of their own personal pride (Kinder 16). In the novel, although Kurtz embodies all of Europe, he can be viewed as a universal grandeur who shows what lies ahead for those who take the challenge to look into the abyss. disdain the shortcomi ngs in the discussion of Kurtz, Copollas conception of film remains a masterful work that concomitants the power of Conrads vision. The novel and the film embody the theme of aberration and madness and insanity caused by the evil of imperialism. Madness in the novel is the result of being removed from ones normal environment and how people wangle with their new environment. The same theme is explored in the film. Many soldiers who are drafted into Vietnam are barely 18 or 19-year-olds. Their mental stability is shaken when they are thrown into a harsh environment, where their lives hang on by the minute.Soldiers such as Lance and Chef are ready to snap at any moment due to the shock and realization of what kind of situation they are in or what is the purpose of fighting fellow men. They also upkeep the fact that they do not know where they are headed. Copolla and Conrad literally and metaphorically confront the madness and insanity brought about by Western imperialism and colon ialism. finished Kurtz and the American soldiers, Copolla is able to portray what war is like for them, and why so many of them suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. The film suggests that wars are an imperialist tool that drives the weak into their destruction.On the other hand, Conrad exposes how the imperialist agenda leads to the exploitation of foreign lands and its people, leaving the imperialist agents themselves deranged and empty (Papke 583). Both the novel and the film also give rise to a race discussion. Conrad and Coppola portray White men as the dominant. They not only rule over their respective crews they also dominate the local peoples. Marlow and Willard look at the primordial people as if are the tearing culture and White men are the civilized one. But it is interesting to note that each(prenominal) of the two main characters see a little of himself in Kurtz, a degenerated savage White man.Coppolas take on Conrads Heart of Darkness has gained much attent ion from film scholars. In The antecedent of Adaptation in Apocalypse Now, Marsha Kinder states that Coppola rarely hesitates to change Conrads story-setting, events, characters-whenever the revision is requisite by the Vietnam context. (14) Moreover, the dialogues in the film, especially Willards voice-over narration, have been attacked by some(prenominal) film critics for sounding more like a parody of cause Raymond Chandler than an adaptation of Conrads novel. But a deeper look suggests that Willards character and tone are not intended to be Marlows.To suit the Vietnam context, Willard has been totally transformed into a trained assassin, whose life has been drained of all meaning. Coppola retains Conrads focal figure of the river. In the film, just as in the novel, each of the main characters embarks on a literal and metaphoric central journey. Marlows description of the Congo is an enormous snake uncoiled that fascinates him as a snake would a bird. The films structure is controlled by the image of the river that snaked through the war like a main circuit cable, carrying Willard to Cambodia.The novel and the film begin with the protagonists explanation of how they got the appointment which necessitated their excursion upriver. Marlow is dispatched to steam up the Congo in to find Mr. Kurtz, while Willard is mandated to journey up the Mekong River in a navy patrol boat to find Col. Kurtz. Moreover, while they affect up a primeval river to fulfill their respective assignments, they speculate about the character of the man they are seeking, with the help of the information they have pieced in concert about him.In both novel and film, the river eventually leads Marlow and Willard to Kurtz and his dying course of horror (Kinder 15). This final destination for both men is their soul-altering confrontation with Kurtz. Overall, it is an field day of discovery into the dark heart of man. It is also a close hazard with mans capacity for evil. Coppola agre es with this observation and stated that he also saw Willards voyage upriver as a mold for the journey of life that people take within themselves and during which they decide which side to take good or evil.The horror of the world dominated by hollow men is at the center of both Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now. Kurtz, in his god-like acousmatic voice and righteously terrifying manifestation, is invested with much splendour He fully understands existence in all its repugnance. Repelled and terrified Kurtz pushed himself to go into the very heart of darkness, to fully engage in the dualism (good and evil) of Being. To call Kurtz brave or rapacious or good or evil, is to miss the point entirely. He is forever shaped by a dark satori, by an understanding of the omnipresent nature of darkness.Marlow and Willard are arguably Kurtzs phantasmal sons, and they experience the same realization. Both of them look full face at the great condemnation, at the dark obscurity of Being. Eac h of them faces moral apprehension in the shape human conduct forced beyond fitting limits and each of them is profoundly transformed by this experience. In her book, Double characterization apologue Into Film, Joy Could Boyum states that in substituting Willard for Marlow, a madman for a sane one, Coppola creates a character incapable of any shock of recognition, a man unable to know evil when he sees it (114).Boyum also argues that there is no discovery for Willard he is a murderer confronting a murder, a madman face to face with madness-it amounts only to a tautology. Thus, Copollas Apocalypse Now can be argued as a movie that has no moral center. Unlike Willard, Marlow returns from the river experience with intact moral perspective and sanity, inviting the readers trust and identification. But one can also say that, like Apocalypse Now, Conrads Heart of Darkness, itself, is a novel that has no moral center. The book suggests that Marlows great realization is that existence itself has no moral heart.The character has not sustained the river journey with his intact moral perspective unchanged. Towards the end of the novel, Marlow is a transformed man, largely isolated and very different from those people aboard the Nellie. He is alienated forever in his wisdom. Willard, too, in the end, is vastly separated by his new knowledge. While many critics see Willard as immoral, insane, and unchanging, Kurtzs view of him is more fitting. In the film, Kurtz describes Willard when he sees him for the first time as an errand boy sent by mart clerks to collect a bill. But in the end, Willard becomes wiser. He has been transformed, humbled by his face-to-face confrontation with the darkness natural in Kurtz, in himself, in existence. Therefore, the separate stories of Willards and Marlows river experiences follow a similar narrative pattern and arrive at a similar truth. Apocalypse Now is a thematic and structural analogue to Heart of Darkness. This is perhaps becau se, Copolla, in his authorial wisdom, fully understood that theme and technique, meaning, and structure are intrinsic entities. To tell a story differently is to tell a different story.It seems that, ultimately, Copolla and Conrad tell the same story. Conclusion This paper looks at the differences and parallelisms between Conrads Heart of Darkness and Coppolas Apocalypse Now. In comparing and separate the novel and the film, this paper suggests that the film has some significant deviation from the novel. Despite this, however, Apocalypse Now generally remains true to the core of Heart of Darkness. Both the novel and the film follow the same story line but Conrad and Copolla have different ways of presenting this story. This results in surface differences.But a deeper and closer reading of both the novel and the film reveals that they complement each other. This is one of the most important things in adapting a work of literature into a film. Works Cited Boyum, Joy Gould. Double Ex posure Fiction Into film. New York Universe Books, 1985. Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York New American Library, 1950. Kinder, Marsha. The Power of Adaptation in Apocalypse Now. Film Quarterly 33. 2 (1979-1980) 12-20. Papke, David Ray. Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness A Literary Critique of Imperialism. diary of Maritime Law and Commerce 31. 4 (2000) 583-592.