Futility and Fragments

Apocalypse Now (1979)

The 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB) landed on the beaches of Da Nang on March 8, 1965, reaffirming the United States’ determination to support and defend the South Vietnamese government in defending itself against increasing Communist military pressure from Viet Cong (VC) forces and the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) (Major Telfer, Lieutenant Colonel Rogers and Fleming, Jr.).

The decision to assist the South Vietnamese government was not popular among citizens of the United States; protests broke out across the country disputing the United States government support to, repressive, South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, the Selective Service System’s draft policy, and napalm-maker Dow Chemicals. (Protests and Backlash)

On April 30, 1975, approximately ten years after the amphibious assault on Da Nang, the People’s Army of Vietnam (North Vietnamese Army, NVA) stormed the gates of the Presidential Palace in Saigon, effectively ending the war (Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute).

Following the evacuation of the remaining United States troops still in South Vietnam, North Vietnamese Colonel Bui Tin, accepted the South Vietnamese surrender, stating, “You have nothing to fear; between Vietnamese there are no victors and no vanquished. Only the Americans have been defeated.” At the cost of 58,000 United States lives, despite a peace agreement signed in Paris in January 1973, one of the most unpopular foreign wars in United States history was lost. (HISTORY)

Just four years after the Vietnam War, American film director, producer, and screenwriter Francis Ford Coppola’s eighth film, Apocalypse Now (1979), seeking to challenge the indulgence of war by demonstrating its futility in the fragmentation of the human psyche, released.

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Apocalypse Now follows a United States Army officer serving in Vietnam tasked with assassinating a defected Special Forces Colonel who sees himself as a deity, illustrating the tipping of scales—the principles of moral conduct that fell victim to the horrors of war. Further, Coppola likens the experiences of troops to the end of humanity (compassion, empathy, benevolence, etc.) in the derangement induced by the United States government subjecting another human to something they, themselves, cannot comprehend—reality. According to the Harvard Gazette, a study found that nearly 19% of the more than three million United States troops that served in Vietnam incurred a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), sustaining invasive memories, nightmares, loss of concentration, feelings of guilt, irritability, and major depression (Cromie).

Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) suffers repeated trauma by order of the United States government, who are placed in isolation from the realities of war, making decisions that affect the sum of experiences and actions that constitutes existence, for those whom families and friends love, committing themselves to a verdict of horror without appropriate empathy nor understanding. These horrors are repeatedly shown to the audience bluntly; the first minute of the film shows an innocent, vibrant Vietnamese jungle ignited with napalm reducing it to ashes. Meanwhile, a non-diegetic “The End” is played over the cataclysm with lyrical ascription: “This is the end” (Morrison, Densmore and Manzarek).

The psychedelic rock number reinforces the nature in the vitality of the jungle with the destructive nature of the napalm by representing release patterns communicated via the rhythm, phrasing, and instrumentation. These release patterns are then paired with the tragic lyrics setting the poetic illusion fading to a man’s, later identified as Captain Benjamin L. Willard (Martin Sheen), self-consummation, sense of hopelessness, and attempt to cope with fate.

Using a dialectic approach, Coppola considers the principles of moral conduct investigating the dichotomy of conflict in the war of opposites. First, Kurtz’s individual conscious values, which can be assessed by observing the attention he gives to various aspects of the war. (Sam) Kurtz led a mission to inoculate the children of a small village for polio, and when asked to return to the village, he and his unit discovered that the Viet Cong had dismembered any child that had been injected with the vaccine; reaching his breaking point, Kurtz defected (Milius, Coppola and Herr).

“The essence of traumatic stress is helplessness—a loss of control over one’s body. The mental imprint of such frightening experiences sometimes takes the form of loss of control over parts of one’s mind—identity, memory, and consciousness,”

(Spiegel)

—suggesting those who know horror, i.e., Kurtz, must cleanse themselves of morality and use their primordial instincts to carry out their actions, lest their conscience be violently reduced to mere fragments, and ultimately lead to utter derangement. The abuse by an authority figure, in this case the United States government, created a sense of helplessness in Kurtz, and thus generated a dilemma: the entity to which he is subservient inflicted suffering upon him, yet he is emotionally and physically dependent on them.

Kurtz maintains two diametrically opposing views of the United States government, which creates tension and confusion in his mind. Jung developed the concept of individuation—the lifelong psychological process of differentiation of the self out of each individual’s conscious and unconscious element. Kurtz clarifies his own boundaries in order to manage the anxiety that came with risking further assimilating into the indulgences of war, instead he chooses to separate himself from pointless annihilation of fellow human beings.

Like Kurtz, many United States citizens not only felt it unacceptable to support a repressive regime but that the cost of victory in a foreign war to be regressive and futile. The collective unconscious, the part of the unconscious mind derivative of experiences common to all humankind, influences the personal unconscious significantly as

“an accumulation of predispositions and potentialities which in its totality forms the frame of reference with which we view the world.”

(Sam)

These inclinations and capabilities manifested on August 24, 1970—a culmination of years of dissent and despair over the Vietnam War when Sterling Hall at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was bombed. (Erickson)

The Vietnam War not only cost the lives of military personnel, but the innocent lives of children, who fell victim to raids and bombings. These acts took a tremendous toll on the collective conscience of United States citizens rejecting participation in the war.

Ensnared, Captain Willard is held captive in the camp, and looks up at a figure, enveloped by darkness, donning the mask of woodland camouflage face paint in symbolic representation of the United States military ideology. Kurtz executed Jay “Chef” Hicks (Frederic Forrest) who was attempting to call in the airstrike—Almighty. Dropping the decapitated head on Captain Willard’s lap, Kurtz completes the evolution of judge, jury, and executioner, a concept and role in which the United States has been criticized for playing by meddling in the affairs of others’ issues.

However, still suffering from trauma, Kurtz must wear the mask most congruent to the social situation he finds himself him, presenting his persona (mask) to Captain Willard in order to shield his ego (the way Kurtz interacts with the external world, and responds to internal conflict) from negative images. Developing this social mask, containing his primitive urges, impulses, and emotions not considered socially acceptable, allowed Kurtz to adapt to the world around him, and to fit into the society in which he found himself in. Still, Kurtz had become too intimate with the mask, and too closely identified with this archetype, leading to him losing sight of his true self. (Cherry)

Evolving from long, repeated experiences, Jung “believed that certain archetypes have evolved further than others, among them the persona…But he held that the central archetype is the self-concept since it integrates both the conscious and unconscious aspects of the psyche” invoking the ideal of individuation and complete realization. (Sam) Jung believed that disharmony between the unconscious and the conscious mind would cause psychological problems; therefore, bringing these conflicts into awareness and accommodating them in the conscious awareness was necessary in the process of individuation.

Kurtz attempts to resolve the conflicts by bringing the horrors of war to the attention of any one of the collective-conscious, aiming to achieve a sense of cohesive self. Captain Willard, notes that he felt as though Kurtz was waiting for him to kill him, to take the pain away, but standing up, like a soldier. Coppola is suggesting that Kurtz, and the United States citizens are all too far removed from their sense of cohesive self, and would prefer to regress to their former self to be relieved of the psychological turmoil endured at the hands of the Vietnam War.

Upon entering the temple, Willard overhears a restoration from his archetypal chaos, whereby Kurtz broadcasts his readaptation:

“We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won’t allow them to write ‘fuck’ on their airplanes because it’s obscene.”

(Milius, Coppola and Herr)

Subsequently, Captain Willard puts Kurtz to sword, returning to the darkness and fog of war, granting bereavement from his condition of persistent and incapacitating grief that preoccupied him with extreme bitterness over the loss of innocent lives.

Coppola asks the audience to examine their own beliefs and opinions with the war in Vietnam by appealing to the power of actual life experience through an evocation of pity and sympathy for those involved with the war. Captain Willard arrives at the settlement received by an American photojournalist (Dennis Hopper) who had been covering the war since 1964.

Coppola uses the photojournalist to establish the fundamental moral element determining the underlying sentiment that argues the customs and practices occurring within the compound are well-grounded and warranted. The photojournalist leads Captain Willard further into the complex, eventually reaching a small group of heterogenous guerilla warfighters standing in opposition to the new arrivals. Said band of irregular troops, arranged in an interrelated formation, are enveloped in a thick fog, indicative of the fog of war experienced by military operatives.

Yet, Coppola enshrouds the composition of American troops, standing in conflict, among Vietnamese military, women, and children, in the fog, implying they are confused in their station. Against the country they ought to show devotion, support, and loyalty to, the troops become an instrument for Coppola to argue that kindness and benevolence prevails over patriotism as Captain Willard approaches an American man (Scott Glenn) with a familiar face and blood-stained hands. “Colby” he whispers.

Colby represents the hundreds of thousands that find it impossible to do normal, daily activities after suffering a traumatic event. Without so much as meeting Captain Willard’s gaze, Colby denotes the avoidance many combat veterans embody by internalizing the thoughts and feelings associated with having the blood of the innocent on his hands.

Understanding the historical context in which produced Apocalypse Now is crucial to understanding Coppola’s rhetoric as he argues that military-industrial complex that joined “ the immense military establishment” with “a large arms industry” (Ike's Warning Of Military Expansion, 50 Years Later) is inhumane.

NPR's Tom Bowman told Morning Edition co-host Renee Montagne, Eisenhower warned,

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist."

(Ike's Warning Of Military Expansion, 50 Years Later)

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References

• Apocalypse Now. By John Milius, et al. Dir. Francis Ford Coppola. Perf. Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando and Robert Duvall. Paramount Pictures Studios, 1979. Digital. 11 May 2022.

• Cherry, Kendra. "What Are the Jungian Archetypes?" Personality Psychology (2022). Online. 11 May 2022. <https://www.verywellmind.com/what-are-jungs-4-major-archetypes-2795439>.

• Cromie, William J. "Mental Casualties of Vietnam War Persist." The Harvard Gazette (2006). Article. 10 May 2022. <https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2006/08/mental-casualties-of-vietnam-war-persist/>.

• Erickson, Doug. "When Bomb Tore Through Sterling Hall 50 Years Ago, He Was Inside: 'I Still Have Flashbacks'." (2020). Online. 11 May 2022. <https://news.wisc.edu/when-bomb-tore-through-sterling-hall-he-was-inside-i-still-have-flashbacks/>.

• HISTORY. "U.S. withdraws from Vietnam." This Day in History (2022). Article. 10 May 2022. <https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-withdraws-from-vietnam>.

• "Ike's Warning Of Military Expansion, 50 Years Later." NPR (2011). Online Transcription. 12 May 2022. <https://www.npr.org/2011/01/17/132942244/ikes-warning-of-military-expansion-50-years-later>.

• Major Telfer, Gary L., Lane Lieutenant Colonel Rogers and V. Keith Fleming, Jr. "The Situation at the Start of the Year." U.S. Marines in Vietnam, Fighting the North Vietnamese, 1967. Vol. 4. History and Museums Division Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1984. 3. Publication. 10 May 2022. <https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Publications/U.S.%20Marines%20in%20Vietnam%20Fighting%20the%20North%20Vietnamese%201967%20%20PCN%2019000309000_1.pdf>.

• Morrison, Jim, et al. "The End." The Doors. Prod. Paul A. Rothchild. Hollywood, 1967. Film. 12 May 2022.

• Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute. "Ending the Vietnam War, 1969–1973." Office of the Historian (n.d.). 10 May 2022. <https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/ending-vietnam>.

• "Protests and Backlash." American Experience (n.d.). Article. 10 May 2022. <https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/two-days-in-october-student-antiwar-protests-and-backlash/>.

• Sam, N. "Jung, Carl Gustav (1875-1961)." (2018). Article. 10 May 2022. <https://psychologydictionary.org/jung-carl-gustav-1875-1961/>.

• Spiegel, David. "Coming Apart: Trauma and the Fragmentation of the Self." Cerebrum (2008). Article. 10 May 2022. <https://dana.org/article/coming-apart-trauma-and-the-fragmentation-of-the-self/>.