Assignment 9: What is it good for?--Amir Abou-Jaoude

In Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 magnum opus Apocalypse Now, Willard (Martin Sheen), an officer in the U.S. Army, is sent on a mission to find Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) in the wild jungles of Cambodia. Kurtz was a high-ranking officer in Vietnam. He had honor, respect, and innumerable medals, when he suddenly went insane. He retreated to Cambodia, where he built his own kingdom, causing fear in the hearts of U.S. soldiers and the Viet Cong alike.

The film, based on Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness, alleges that Kurtz went insane because he discovered something. Kurtz's revelation forms the core of the film. Through the narration of Willard, we infer that the war took a toll on him. Kurtz learned in Vietnam that there is no good or evil in war. For him, war was stripped of its heroism, and became a sheer expression of human brutality. Kurtz could not live with this revelation. So he retreated into the unruly wilderness, and built a shrine to the bestiality of human nature. All of the gadgets the army utilizes--the surfboards, the napalm, the helicopters that can play Wagner's operas--all of these are lost in the jungle. By the end of the film, Willard, who was initially sent out to execute Kurtz, has become almost as demented. As he murders Kurtz with a machete, the villagers sacrifice a water buffalo. Truly, he is no less animalistic than the people the army set out to civilize. At the end of the film, everything is engulfed in "the horror" of violence and destruction.

I discuss Apocalypse Now because, to me, it is the ultimate war film. It captures the folly and the destruction of war. Yet, at no point does Coppola's film become an anti-war tirade. The film does not propose that war should cease to exist, it merely comments on it. I believe that there are times when going to war is necessary. Wars do not start overnight. Rather, their causes are numerous and complex, and they are motivated by a variety of factors. It is awe-inspiring when change is accomplished peacefully. The civil disobedience movements of Gandhi and King and even the recent Arab Spring give us hope for the future. Still, when situations do become too complicated, we must resort to an incredibly simple, animalistic nature.

War is often the only way to resolve a conflict. For example, I truly do not believe that the issue of slavery could have been resolved in America had the Civil War not happened. No matter how many compromises Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, and Henry Clay were able to devise, the issue remained decisive in American politics and society, splitting the country into two. The Civil War entailed the loss of thousands of lives. Blood was shed on battlefields across the country, bodies were dumped into mass graves, and at the end of the conflict, a president was assassinated. The war may have been a terrible event, but it ended the institution of slavery and ensured that the American experiment would live on.

Although war may sometimes be necessary, it should never be glorified. War is often portrayed as a heroic activity, as a test of true manhood. Oftentimes, countries are all too eager to get involved in armed conflict, because it will build nationalistic spirit and provide a boost to the country. War should only be the last resort--after all attempts to make peace have failed, after it becomes clear that the differences between the two parties are irreconcilable. War should be seen as brutal, destructive, and foolish. It is only when we see war in these terms can we truly understand the sacrifice of human life that in entails, and only when we see war in these terms can we be grateful for the peace that follows. Coppola's great achievement is that Apocalypse Now is ostensibly a Vietnam War film, and yet, it is not confined to Vietnam--it applies to all wars. Kurtz is merely the expression of the animalistic nature of war. Yet, Coppola does end his film on a slightly hopeful note--after killing Kurtz, Willard sails back toward civilization in his boat, and perhaps he can rescue himself from his own heart of darkness.