During ‘Apocalypse Now’, Francis Ford Coppola uses plenty of imagery to get across to the viewer the confusion and horror of war. The first example of this is when we hear the voice recording of Kurtz in the jungle. He talks about his nightmare where he sees “a snail crawling along the edge of a straight razor”. This snail represents Colonel Kurtz as, in his insanity, he is confused between good and evil and the temptation to play God. Kurtz does end up playing God. He calls him Vietnamese followers his “children” and they also worship him like a God. In the intelligence compound at the start of the film, the officer there describes how war causes a “conflict in every human heart”. Kurtz is a good example that, although choice and free-will are the building blocks of mankind, making the wrong choices can also corrupt mankind. ‘Apocalypse Now’, it is shown to us that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
‘Apocalypse Now’ gets across to its viewers how little the some of the American soldiers care about other human beings. Firstly, they send out young men to war. Willard describes the soldiers accompanying him on the boat as “kids”. It can be considered inconsiderate of the Americans to send these boys out because they are young with no war experience and yet have their whole life ahead of them. Secondly, the Americans do not care for any Vietnamese who are killed by them. The best example of this is when a Vietnamese man is dying and is in desperate need of water. Just as Kilgor is about to pour some water into the mans mouth to help him another, ‘more pressing’, issue comes up and Kilgor throws away the water bottle and walks away leaving the man lying helplessly on the ground.
The reason that the American soldiers do not seem to care about Vietnamese death is not because they are insensitive. We can see they do have sensitivity when an American on the boat gets shot by an arrow. Apart from Willard, every member of the boat shows aggrieve over his death. They do not care, however, when multiple Vietnamese people die because they consider themselves untouchable by the Vietnamese as the Vietnamese are so poverty-stricken and primitive whereas the Americans are so rich and advanced.
Kilgor also demonstrates to us how insignificant the Vietnamese culture is to him and, of course, to most Americans. He asks his companions, “What’s the name of that village? Dop or Yop…?” It gets across the message that, during the Vietnamese War, the Americans treated the Vietnamese people as if they were animals. In my opinion, this theme in the film is quite likely to have an element of historical reality. The Americans clearly believe that they are superior to the Vietnamese.
I believe that Kilgor’s represents the whole of America and how people felt at the time of the war. Kilgor is arrogant and glorified. He is also overconfident which, in his case, leads to slight complacency. We see his complacency when Willard is trying to deliberate over important situations with him but he only listens for a while before beginning to mock Willard and his mission.
Another incident that happens during ‘Apocalypse Now’ shows the viewer that the Americans have no mercy in comparison to the Vietnamese. When Willard’s boat is ambushed, the Vietnamese fire burning sticks in their direction but one of the crew notices that they are blunt and therefore, not meant to kill the Americans but, only to warn them away. On the other hand, the Americans go into the war with a mind only to kill and devastate.
There is one scene in particular in ‘Apocalypse Now’ which shows us what Francis Ford Coppola thought about America’s covering up of the true events of the war. When the soldiers are in battle, there are camera men filming the events but directing the soldiers at the same time. Back home, the aim would be to make them look heroic and noble. It would appear, from that, that the war was all going to plan but, in fact, the Americans were deliberately covering up the truth about all the deaths and the trauma of the men fighting – mentally and physically.
The truth was that the Americans outnumbered the Vietnamese massively in both men and in fire-power but were still struggling. As a result, they are lying to cover this up. The Americans do not want to show the rest of the world the chaos and madness this war has caused.
The chief example of insanity in ‘Apocalypse Now’ is Colonel Kurtz. Even though he abandons the Americans and goes into the jungle, his cause is still not the wrong one. It is very clear that Kurtz has lost his insanity and he is now a dictator to his followers. He can be compared to Satan another way in that he hides away all day in the shadows (i.e. in evil) and on his entry to Kurtz’s room Willard states that the room “smells of nightmares”.
‘The Deer Hunter’ deals more with the effects of war once it is over but, at the start, we see the steel factory the workers live in seems like hell. The workers also ‘live in the shadows’. However, the reason for this is that their lives do not have much meaning – they work hard then play hard.
Even though ‘The Deer Hunter’ portrays their lives as lives we would not want, they like their lives how they. Saigon is the only place they know. At the wedding we can see by their traditions that their families have lived in the area for many generations. This is summed up when Michael says, “The whole place is here – I love this place!”
We can see from quite early on that war starts to break them apart. Due to numerous practical jokes, they cannot always trust each other.
It is only when one of the workers plays the piano before the leaving that they actually start to think about what they are going in to. Unto this point, they had been ‘living a lie’. At this point they atop pretending that everything is fine and begin to fear for their own and each other’s lives. They realise that their lives will never be the same again from this point onwards. This scares them because they can’t imagine live any differently.
Whereas ‘Apocalypse Now’ portrays the Vietnamese as defenceless, the first war section we see in ‘The Deer Hunter’ shows them as more advance and powerful. They dare to play Russian Roulette with the American’s lives. This clip could be seen as ‘The Deer Hunter’ salving for a wounded nation.
Very similarly to ‘Apocalypse Now’, ‘The Deer Hunter’ shows viewers how quickly war can drive a man to insanity. They clearly all have their breaking points because, when they come back after the war, everyone has changed. What had once been fearless young men break down during the war. On the outside, the war appears to affect Michael the least but, after the war, he has clearly changed on the inside. It shows the viewer how war even affects the strongest of minds.
It also appears the Michael wants to change. He deliberately misses his welcome party because he no longer wants to live the lifestyle that he used to. The hardships of war have turned him into a gentleman. Another possible reason for him avoiding his welcome party was that he did not feel like a hero and, as a result, didn’t want a hero’s welcome.
They are two occasions whereby we can tell Michael has changed by what he says. Firstly he says, “I feel a lot of distance – I feel far away”. We can now tell that he feels displaced in the society he lives in. He has changed and no longer fits in. Another time is when he is asked, “Just like old times?” He doesn’t reply to this showing that he doesn’t agree. Steve also shows that he feels slightly like Michael. He pleads, “Don’t take me home, I don’t feel fit”. He is now also distancing for his community.
Although it is not as dramatic, Michael can be compared to Captain Willard in ‘Apocalypse Now’. War has affected them both so much that they both feel outcast from society. Willard stays indoors all day before he goes to war which shows that he feels no longer like a part of society.
Another time he is asked, “Do you really think life would turn out like this?” To this he replies “no” which again shows how war has changed his life.
It is still unclear though as to whether Michael has more respect or less respect for life because of the war. Due to the many games of roulette, it appears that he disrespects human life and even more so his own life. He becomes far too ready to place other people’s lives at risk as well as his own.
However, it seems that he has more respect for the life of animals as shown when he chooses not to kill the deer. I believe this is because he has seen the capability of man to do evil and it has shocked him. However, animals are innocent and cannot do evil so he cannot bring himself to kill something that has done no wrong.
In ‘The Deer Hunter’, Russian Roulette is a recurring theme. It shows us how fragile and breakable life actual is.
It is clear that Michael does not dread getting shot. He sees it as an excuse to instantly save him from his post-war life in which he feel dejected and outcast. He wants to be put out of his misery and knows that, should he continue to play, his death is inevitable.
Another similarity to ‘Apocalypse Now’ is that, by the closing stages of the book, Kurtz and Michael are both already dead on the inside. They both appear emotionless and detached from the rest of the world.
Overall, it is my opinion that both ‘Apocalypse Now’ and ‘The Deer Hunter’ are, to a large extent, interested in capturing the historical reality of the Vietnamese War. They are both illustrating to us the affect war has at an individual level. As all the commotion of war is captured on a personal level, however, it is hard to assume that the films were seeking to provide alibis on behalf of America.
