John Simon’s objections to Coppola’s use of Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” in Apocalypse Now, is very brutal. He suggests that the movie wasn’t well thought out and that money made the movie. He also asks the question if the money spent on the movie was worth the price. Simon Says that it is “puerile and self serving” to believe that Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”could provide the basis for a large scale attack on the Vietnam war.” This is to say that for Coppola to think that “Heart of Darkness” was written to direct hate against war is childish. Also, Coppola used his own opinion of what he thought the book meant to make his film. Simon Suggests that “the Conradian plot elements are forcibly and fuzzily superimposed on unrelated matter” (SIMON, 1650).
He thinks Coppola’s use of some of the plot from “Heart of Darkness” is far fetched. He believes that the “Conradian” plot used in his film is not related in anyway to what its use played in the movie. Reading John Simon’s argument about Coppola’s use of “Heart of Darkness,” it seems that he doesn’t have the insight for intertextuality. Intertextuality is the relationship of one story to another. The passage about intertextuality found in “Text Book” says, “artists and writers do not simply look at nature – or into their own hearts” (130), when they create works. This is because “the very act of looking is already shaped by the art and writing of the past” (130).
The Essay on Heart Of Darkness Vs Apocalypse Now
In the article, Narratological Parallels in Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness and Francis Ford Coppolas Apocalypse Now Linda Costanzo Cahir compares and contrasts both the novella and the film. Both writers had the same theme and meaning in mind, but their structure and technique was what made the stories different. In both the novel and the film, we see the central character (Marlow or Willard) as ...
This is also true for movie writers and producers. When a movie writer starts to write his / her movie, it is not entirely original. Some of the material is borrowed. Their ideas may be derived from something they have seen or read growing up. Sometimes this occurs on purpose and sometimes not on purpose. When a movie writer does “steals” (130) on purpose, he doesn’t completely take someone else ideas and claims them as his own.
He gathers his own ideas and another person’s ideas and relates them to one another. Sometimes a writer does this so that the viewers may start to think about the original idea in a new way. In Apocalypse Now, there seemed to be a lot of intertextuality or a lot of things related to Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness.” Captain Willard from Apocalypse Now and Marlow from “Heart of Darkness” may seem to be the same person. They were both narrating the story, they both went on a journey, and they both used a boat to get through the journey.
Another idea from the “Heart of Darkness” used in Apocalypse now, is the whole idea behind Kurtz’s (Apocalypse Now) frame of mind. He’d jumped ship and started to live in the wild. He made his living on things surrounding him. This is similar to the character of Mr. Kurtz in “Heart of Darkness.” He went off to explore Africa and never came back. He lived off of his surroundings as well as Kurtz in Apocalypse Now.
The two ideas of both of the Kurtz characters are that they had gone mad. The Kurtz in Apocalypse Now had gone mentally insane and the Kurtz in “Heart of Darkness” had turned savage. This is what the people who’d last seen them started to believe when both Kurtz never returned. Watching Apocalypse Now gave me a better understanding of why the people in “Heart of darkness” may have thought Kurtz turned savage. As in Apocalypse now, Kurtz was very intelligent and well respected. The thought that he would give up everything to turn to this kind of life was not comprehendible.
The Essay on Apocalypse Now Vs Heart Of Darkness
The most important difference between novella and film is the development of their main characters, Marlow and Willard, respectively. In Heart of Darkness, the reader is introduced to Marlow through his various philosophical ruminations about imperialism, morality, and human nature. He learns of the mysterious Kurtz through first-hand accounts of his accomplishments and his bizarre behaviour. As ...
Why would he do this? At the time, only two logical explanations could be given. Kurtz had either gone mad, turned savage himself, or maybe both. The movie kind of gave me a view of how maybe Kurtz’s new surroundings may have changed him. It could have been that Kurtz saw this “un colonized” place and decided that he could make this a place of his own.
The people would listen to what he said and they would be like in Apocalypse Now, “his children.” Kurtz may not have felt a need to go back. Maybe staying in this new found place was his get away from everything. Kurtz may not have been leading the life he wanted to lead. This could also be another possibility for his sudden disappearance. Watching Apocalypse Now and comparing it with “Heart of Darkness” in the process, put all of these possibilities in my head.
I don’t think John Simons criticisms of Apocalypse now are justified at all. To me, it seems as though he was looking at the movie in terms of it being a rip off of “Heart of Darkness.” He was not looking at the big picture. Simon seemed not to have been able to clearly separate the two as being different. The only difference that he was able to depict is things that were not like “Heart of Darkness” and that it had no relations to the book. Simon’s attitude toward Apocalypse now is that Coppola was trying to remake the “Heart of Darkness” and that he did a bad job. He criticizes the use of a boat like in “Heart of Darkness” rather than a helicopter that would have been “faster and Safer” (SIMON, 1650).
The choice of using a boat made more sense. It allowed us to see changes of attitude in each character as well as the trials and tribulations they went through. The choice of using a helicopter may have been “faster and safer,” but it would not have been as effective in the movie as the boat. Simon failed to realize that Apocalypse Now may have helped in making “Heart of Darkness” understandable and helped it to be read.
