Apocalypse Now is director Francis Ford Coppola's film based on Heart of Darkness but set in the jungles of Vietnam. While some critics found the film belabored and muddled, most agreed that it was a powerful and important examination not only of America's military involvement in Vietnam, but like Conrad's novel, a disturbing treatment of the darkness potentially inherent in all human hearts. "Apocalypse" means the end of the world, as when the earth is destroyed by fire in the Bible. As the film's title suggests, Coppola explores the ways in which the metaphorical "darkness" of Vietnam causes an apocalypse in the hearts of those sent there to fight.
Coppola retained the basic structure of Conrad's novel for his film. As Heart of Darkness follows Marlow's journey through the different Company stations and eventually upriver to Kurtz, Coppola's film moves in an analogous way. The protagonist is an Army Captain (Willard) who receives his orders, gathers his crew, and creeps up the Nung River until he meets and assassinates a renegade soldier (Col. Walter Kurtz). Both the Company and the Army want their "Kurtzes" dead, because both Kurtzes detest and expose their superiors' motives and methods. Their willingness to go all the way terrifies their superiors, who do not want to be so blatantly reminded of their real goals (ivory in the Heart of Darkness and power in Apocalypse Now) and methods of attaining them.
Like Conrad's Company, Coppola's Army is a disorganized band of men whose hypocrisy is questioned by the central characters. As the Company masquerades as a philanthropic and humane institution bringing "light" to Africa (recall Kurtz's painting), the Army (as embodied by General Corman and Colonel Lucas, the men who give Willard his mission) pretends to be greatly disturbed by the fact that Col. Kurtz has broken from their command and begun fighting the war in his own way. The Army has charged Col. Kurtz with the murder of four Vietnamese double agents, which is the ostensible reason why they want to "terminate" his command. Willard, however, sees through their façade and remarks to himself, "Charging someone for murder out here was like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500." As the Manager feigns great concern over Kurtz's health in The Heart of Darkness, General Corman acts pained and upset when he tells Willard, "Every man has a breaking point. Walter Kurtz has obviously reached his."
