Apocalypse Now
Warriors Journey of
Willard suffering from Soul Shock from his first tour. It
strangely enough both broke him and enticed him to come
back for more. It was the stimulation of the combat zone
that made him feel alive. Stateside was comfortable but
boring, he needs the rush for the Fisher King has bitten
him hard. Fisher King is an archetype of addiction to a
grander felt reality, once felt it can never be forgotten.
Hillman called this the terrible love of war.
Be careful what you ask for! This is not a normal
mission though, it is a warriors journey of personal
redemption into the Heart of Darkness (the
psychological wound of war) Willard can no longer
lead a normal life within the confines of civilization.
He has tried and failed, and now he feels
compelled to return to combat.
The mouth of the river is wide and lazy, there is little current and
plenty of manoeuvrable protection. The further upstream it went
The River has several meanings. It is the
path, the means to get there; the mother
field of the boat; both the protector and the
danger; the ascension to meaning. It
enables the characters descent into literal
and metaphorical darkness and fog.
Homers the Odyssey of Odysseus is a Bronze
Age War Vets re-integration journey back to
civilian life. It is the first western narrative of
how to deal with ‘Soul Shock’
Personal Redemption
Achilles (heroic warrior) is
sent into depressive
mourning when Patroclus
(innocence of youth) is
killed by the Trojan hero
Hector
The top brass had already decided Kurtz had crossed the
boundary. Not of moral deprivation, but of authoritative
control. Loose canons are a threat to the hierarchy regardless
of their in-field combat effectiveness.
General Corman: “In this war, things get confused out
there—power, ideals, the old morality, and practical military
necessity because there’s a conflict in every human heart
between the rational and the irrational, between good and evil.
And good does not always triumph”. The infamous Green
Beret scandal line of ‘terminate with extreme prejudice’ is used
in the meeting to indicate the intended outcome.
Mr. Clean is a naive kid from the Bronx (if thats possible)
Shoots from fear and kills many but is not admonished
because it was within protocol. This demonstrates the
paradoxical hypocrisy of war Joseph Conrad described as
fundamental to all forms of imperialism. He is killed while
listening to an audio tape from home, representing the
avoidance approach many took due to the emotional toll it
The attack under the auspices of the Ride of the Valkyries. A
modern mechanised army slaughtering peasants from the
paddy fields fighting for their lives.
the more narrow and less protection from enemy attack. The
closer to the target the more danger lurked representing the
double edged sword of profound introspection.
The sampan raid was showing the hypocrisy of hubris
clouded combat operations. Kids with big guns and
without a cool head. Whereas the crew saw no
problem with Clean shooting everyone within protocol,
but because Willard didn’t they no longer trusted him.
After Willard shoots the survivors he muses “It was
the way we had over here of living with ourselves.
We’d cut them in half with a machine gun and give
them a Band-Aid. It was a lie—and the more I saw of
them, the more I hated lies.”
The PBR was the vehicle that transported the
archetypes or characters. It was a safe haven
karma shield, they falsely believe it exonerates their
for the crew and their personal moral postures.
Along the way they would all loose this
connection to innocence with each bloody
situation. The boats name is Erebus which is
Greek for thigh wound.
Chef represents the attitude of many of the draftees, they
simply don’t want to be there. Chefs head is tossed into
Willards cage (the cost of war). He like Lance uses drugs
to get emotional distance from the ugliness of their
took on innocent minds.
I love the smell of Napalm in the morning.
The last of the cowboys with a John Wayne wild west mind set
and likened to the Cyclops in Greek mythology. The use of
mechanised cavalry motifs is deliberate. It alludes to how the
west was won, with much imperialistic bloodshed and
everywhere the war machine goes the result is the same, it
doesn’t really matter who they are because they are the alien
that they have what you want. According to Hesiod, the
Cyclops were strong, stubborn, and "abrupt of emotion." Their
every action ebbed with violence and power.
Willard becomes ever more obsessed with
Kurtz, increasingly seeing his plight as the end
of the road for his own personal trajectory.
This narration is the silent voice of the descent
into madness, it allows us to avoid disengaging
from repulsion and to stay in touch with them
as they plummet downwards.
Kurtz balance of his Psyche is The Recycling of evil – a fresh beginning
blown apart from the horror of what
he had become by his archaic
regression to the primitive
unmoderated jungle mind.
Willard emerges from the primal swamp he
has been in, to end the control of the
malignant forces of the unconscious (the
Chief is the protector of the crew and steers the
horror of the psychological wound) so that he
course on the river. Military protocol is their bad
may create a new life once again.
futile attempts to cling to innocence. He sees no
problem with Clean slaughtering the sampan crew
but abhors Willards killing of a wounded women.
Colby was Willards predecessor but did not finish the
mission as he was seduced by the doctrine and
absolute power from the dark side. He was the
warning to Willard what could happen if you lost your
focus and will to finish the mission.
Hopper is Kurtzs doctrine salesman. He is continuously over-
hyped like anyone selling an illusion. Without any material
substance to archaic regression, despite its military utility,
many hypo words are need to disguise the hidden bad karma.
immediate environment.
Willard arrives at Kurtzs camp to an array of regressive archaic
archetypes. Stone Age tribesman, stupefied commandos sent in to
capture Kurtz, and a cult salesman US photographer. His entry is
Peeling away the tinsel
like Virgil from Dantes Paradiso into the bowels of Hades.
thin mask of civilised
conduct to reveal the
tribal archaic mind that
still rules Hominids lives.
The main message of
Conrads Heart of
Darkness poem.
Chief is killed by a tribal attack but tries
to kill Willard while he is nursing him
The Armageddon Man
Lance the happy-go-lucky innocent surfer was initially
more concerned about his suntan than the war. But as
the journey progresses his gentleness is trashed and he
becomes quickly traumatised and uses drugs to buy his
distance from his immediate environment
Anima taunting. Playmates shaking Last Post is the gates of Hades. It is the
some booty in Nam set off a riot. This chaos of combat zones and the sheer
was indicative of the lose of feminine terror of animalistic regression so often a
comforts and the disgust of combat zone successful survival strategy.
lifestyles and the cravings to obtain The rivers run red – The Warriors world
homely comforts and sanities.