'Apocalypse Now'

A detailed Summary of 'Apocalypse Now'

Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness and Francis Coppola's film Apocalypse

Now share a number of common features that make them similar from a structural

point of view and share some of the same events and many of the same characters.

These similarities are not coincidental as when making his film, Coppola based it in essence on Conrad's book. Whilst the film is based on the novella there are also distinct differences between the two pieces with regards to their mood, their focus, the motivation for some characters and most notably, their endings. Contrasting the film and book and recognising the similarities and differences between the two contributes to the reader/viewer by giving them a greater understanding of the pieces

On a technical level Apocalypse Now and Heart of Darkness share a significant

common feature. Despite the differences in the stories, Linda Cahair writes that "the narrative of each is splendidly similar. Both Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now are framestories with mediating narrators. In each the mediating narrator is simultaneously present and not present in the text. In both works, the tale proper is narrated in first person retrospect and the pattern of taletelling is remarkably similar"(Cah

Recognising the similarities and the differences associated with Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Coppola's Apocalypse Now gives the reader a better understanding of the messages that each author is wanting to convey. Firstly, the general story and narrative structures of both the film and book share similarities that make it easier to grasp the idea of the 'darkness' that both Conrad and Coppola portray in their respective works. Yet whilst the idea of 'darkness' may be more firmly grasped after analysing the common features and difference between the pieces, questions could also be raised by the analysis especially when the 'degrees of darkness' are measured from both the novella and the film - Apocalypse Now being the 'more dark' of the two. Coppola's film is set in a war, the Vietnam War to be specific, and thus is

Dorall, E.N. 1988. 'Conrad and Coppola: Different centres of darkness'. In Heart of Darkness: A Norton Critical Edition, ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: Norton.

Coppola, Francis Ford. 1979. Apocalypse Now.

A major difference between the novella and the film that Dorall describes is the 'total darkness' of Apocalypse Now as opposed to the 'darkness and light' of Heart of Darkness. In his text, Conrad uses Marlow, the accountant, and the Russian as positive forces within the 'heart of darkness'; Dorall also states that Conrad's positive view of the British Empire as translated through Marlow's description of it as having conquered the darkness and being a source of light now. These models of light are not found in the film; "

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1046
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Movies