"Apocalypse Now": Enlightenment from modern to barbaric

Marc 2022-03-21 09:01:02

[SS] "Apocalypse Now" took me on an adventure to explore the edge of human nature.

The first layer of the film is the criticism of the Vietnam War. The most impressive thing is that in the classical music of Wagner's "Valkyrie", the Vietnamese fled in panic; after that, the US army swooped from an absolute height to the Vietnamese soldiers and civilians like ants; The thunderous explosions, the roar of helicopters, and the blasting of machine guns gradually overwhelmed the "Valkyrie". The film staged a majestic killing amidst the calm command of the US military and the panic howling of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians. Justice and evil, strong and weak, beautiful and ugly, needless to say, war is actually a game where the strong builds on the pain of the weak, and the sacred is just a lie.

The second theme of the film is the torture of human nature, not to mention that Colonel Colz looks like a certain Italian French dictator, Colonel Colz, a man who lost sympathy and discipline in the war, and hated the lies of the US military. , Very early decided to go deep into the jungle and fight alone. He established a small kingdom there and became a dictator. Colonel Kelz’s barbarism is not unreasonable. The protagonist goes upstream all the way. It is the process from modernity to barbarism, and is also repeating what Colonel Kolz has gone through. Path: Ignore life, lose awe, go lost, yearn for power and violence. And all this leads to dictatorship and barbarism.

The desire for power, the indifference to life, and the habit of lies are the beginning of mankind’s transition from modernity to feudalism and barbarism. Beware of the darkness in people’s hearts. This is the Apocalypse for Modern Times.

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Extended Reading
  • Nora 2021-10-20 18:58:55

    The photography is awesome, the sound effects are awesome, and all kinds of other are awesome, but it’s only strange that this kind of movie will be watched by the audience.

  • Brandt 2022-03-24 09:01:02

    Coincidentally, three months before the premiere of the Vietnam War in Cannes, China launched a self-defense counterattack against Vietnam. Marshal Xu Xiangqian and General Xu Shiyou wiped out 110,000 Vietnamese soldiers and occupied more than 20 in a month. This is an important city, but did not love the war, and immediately withdrew from Vietnam after the lesson. On the contrary, the United States has been trapped in the quagmire of the Vietnam War for 20 years! The death price of nearly 60,000 people was paid, and ultimately ended in failure. Therefore, it has become a very deep, ugly and obvious scar in American history, and it also has the disillusionment of patriotism in "First Blood". All Americans have discovered the absurdity of this war, which almost caused PTSD for all people. And Coppola used his opera-like performance to use a captain to assassinate a mutinous colonel, which accurately and cruelly portrayed the tragic, absurd, painful and crushing reality of this war, and won the Palme d’Or. The dissolving transition produces a sense of psychedelic, and the sound also participates in the narrative, so it won the Oscar for best photography and sound. The most ironic thing is that the United States still hasn't received any enlightenment, and it has launched wars such as Iraq, and continues to be deeply mired in self-torture.

Apocalypse Now quotes

  • [first lines]

    Willard: Saigon... shit; I'm still only in Saigon... Every time I think I'm gonna wake up back in the jungle.

    Willard: When I was home after my first tour, it was worse.

    [grabs at flying insect]

    Willard: I'd wake up and there'd be nothing. I hardly said a word to my wife, until I said "yes" to a divorce. When I was here, I wanted to be there; when I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the jungle. I'm here a week now... waiting for a mission... getting softer. Every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker, and every minute Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger. Each time I looked around the walls moved in a little tighter.

  • Kurtz: I've seen horrors... horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that... but you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror... Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies! I remember when I was with Special Forces... seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate some children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went back there, and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms. And I remember... I... I... I cried, I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out; I didn't know what I wanted to do! And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it... I never want to forget. And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought, my God... the genius of that! The genius! The will to do that! Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we, because they could stand that these were not monsters, these were men... trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men, our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment! Because it's judgment that defeats us.