LANCE. Where'd the dog go? Where's the dog? We gotta go back and get the dog! Chef crawls to Clean and turns him over. Sees that he is dead. CHEF. Clean! Hey! Bubber, you can't die! You fucker! Hey, bubber! CLEAN'S MOTHER (INTO RECORDER). "I'll have a lot of grandchildren to love and spoil,
and then when your wife gets them back, she's be mad with me. Even Aunt Jessie and Mama will come to celebrate your coming home. Granny and Dad are trying to get
enough money to get you a car. But don't tell them, because that's our secret. Anyhow..." Clean lying dead, flat on his back. Chief turns him over and holds his wrist to try
and take his pulse. CLEAN'S MOTHER (INTO RECORDER. "...do the right thing, stay out of the way of the
bullets, and bring your hiney home ask in one piece...'cause we love you very much. Love, Mom."
PHOTOJOURNALIST. The man's enlarged my mind. He's a poet-warrior in a classic sense.
I mean, sometimes he'll-well, you say hello to him, right? And he'll just walk
right by you and he won't even notice you. And then suddenly he'll grab you and
he'll throw you in a corner and he'll say "Do you know that the 'if' is the middle word in 'life'? If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and
blaming it on you. If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you." I'm a little man, I'm a little man. He's a great man. "I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas."
WILLARD. They told me, that you had gone...totally insane. And that your methods
were unsound.
KURTZ. Are my methods unsound?
WILLARD. I don't see any method at all, sir. KURTZ. I expected someone like you. What did you expect? Are you an assassin? WILLARD. I'm a soldier. KURTZ. You're neither. You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill.
Operation Brute Force. That's what the soldiers, marines, and sailors are being rewarded for with the Playboy Bunnies. As I said in class today, this is a parody of the USO shows that traveled around Vietnam, entertaining the troops: always popular in those shows were the Hollywood starlets like Ann-Margret and Rachel Welch, singers and dancers, comedians, professional athletes, and even Playboy bunnies—though not like this. Critics often have commented on their costumes—cowboys, Indians, and cavalry. Just like another war not too dissimilar to Vietnam. And critics—and viewers watching closely—can't help but notice the swipe of the nose by the Playmate of the Year. A little toot of cocaine perhaps to get her up for the show?
Arguably the film loses steam with the entrance today of Kurtz: Brando overweight and having improvised much of his own dialogue. But the attack on the village by Kilgore; the Playmates scene; and today, the deaths of Clean and Chief: they can't help but elicit a reaction from an audience. As Emma said in class today, the Playmates make no sense here. Then again, we're in a world of Generals who send assassins to kill their own officers; helicopter attacks set to the music of Wagner; and the horrific state of Kurtz's compound. More than ever, I feel unsettled as we make our way down the river in the movie. I can't see what you all look like during the movie: I hope you're all paying attention as difficult as this movie is.
Pick the first or the second question to answer. And everyone do number two and three.
1. The Playboy Bunny scene. Reaction to it? After you write that: why do you think it's here? The women egg the men on—act provocatively, entice them to come over (although I don't think they thought they actually would swim the moat)—but when the men come over, they begin happily signing the posters the men have: no one is groping them, just hoping for an autograph. At the same time we hear very clearly Lance (who loves puppies) shout, "You fucking bitch!" The guys on the boat are some of the loudest in the crowd of men—but they also are the most humanized men we see in the film. So: why? Are we supposed to feel disgust for the behavior of the men? At the behavior of the women? Both? Something else?
or
1. The death of Clean. We've seen Clean rake the sampan with his machine gun, killing a group of civilians. He calls the girl a "slope bitch" (I believe). Yet after all the carnage is done, as he lifts his shades, the look on his face says he can't—or almost can't—believe what he's done. At the Do Long bridge, he's like the scared kid he is as he watches the men get blown off the bridge. And Chief, as he's done throughout the movie, takes care of him. And when Clean is killed, Chief breaks down in tears as he holds Clean's hand. Some of you may have hated these men when they killed the civilians. What do you feel about them now, in and after this scene? And what was your reaction to this scene?
2. What stayed with you from today's viewing? And why?
3. The film is about.... Finish that thought in a thoughtful sentence. You may love the film or hate it or not care about it: but don't just give a quick, throwaway respone.
For one or two: give a detailed, thoughtful response as well. Not three sentences, but several.
We'll finish the film Monday. Look at the writing topics: tell me Monday what you're doing to write about.
1. My reaction to this scene was sadness. Clean was so young. You can hear on his mother's tape that he had people at home who loved him. Chief loves him too. It's horrible to see him die because we have been following him throughout the movie, and we have a connection with him. We see his quirks and his funny side. We also see him kill innocent people, but we have context for it. That context doesn't make it okay that he killed the people, but we still have a more fleshed out understanding of him as a person, and what might have motivated him to do the wrong things he did. When Clean dies it shows us how we should feel about many of deaths we've seen thus far. Many of the people we have seen die have had a very similar situation to Clean, but we just didn't know them personally like we know Clean. The Vietnamese people getting bombed and fighting back and killing Americans are just like Clean. We can create sympathy and understanding for most of the people in the movie because of our sympathy for Clean. After seeing his story, we can see why people are doing the terrible things they are doing. They are in over their heads, in a world they don't understand, in constant stress and danger. These circumstances get to people and make them do things they wouldn't normally. This scene made me feel both anger and sadness for all the people involved in this war.
ReplyDelete2. I came in a bit late and missed the first few minutes, but when I entered I saw the crew we had been following was in the wilderness with some other men. They were fighting people in the forest, but they could not see their opponent. They could only hear their cries. I don't know if I missed some of the context for this scene, but the part that really stuck with me was when one of the men fires some big 'bomb' or something (I don't know about weapons) into the darkness of the forest and it silences the cries. Then Willard asks the man if he knows who is in charge of him. The man just says 'Yeah' and walks away. It was eerie to see these soldiers surrounded by the unknown, and without anybody to guide them. The man says he knows who his leader is, but yet he makes a large decision to kill many people without the consent of his leader. He's out of control. His surroundings have pushed him to do what he would not normally do.
3. The film is about how lies or justifications can pile up into layers and push humans to change who they are (and possibly become insane).
To address Mira's question about weapons: the soldier is firing a grenade launcher. The scene is pretty much straight from "Dispatches," a book by Michael Herr, who was a correspondent in Vietnam. He also wrote the voice over by Willard.
ReplyDelete1. I don't think I hated the crew on the boat but I was pretty disappointed with their behavior because I put them on a pedestal unlike the rest of the soldiers I saw like Kilgore. That being said, I also didn't feel connected to them which did allow me to see their faults easily. Even though they seemed to be more in touch with their humanity than Kilgore, who was –in my opinion– batshit crazy, they still had little regard for the human life. Obviously war is war and killing is apart of the deal, but they shot at everything that moved which were mainly civilians. This was best displayed in the scene where the crew stopped and searched the sampan and when the woman, having no weapon on her, moved and Clean shoot about twenty times. This could be because he was careless and didn't really care about the woman's life but it could've also been because he was scared. I find the latter to be more plausible; Clean –and every other soldier– has seen so many deaths and horrific things in the war that he became overly suspicious of anyone and anything that he didn't absolutely know was on his side. This doesn't make what he did okay, but it does make the blame only partly his. Because of this, I felt a certain sadness for him when he died. I say “certain sadness” because I wasn't sad about the fact that he got killed but because of the way he died. I was sad because of the life he could've potentially had after the the war and his mom’s message only intensified that feeling for me. Clean and all the other men weren't just soldiers and the war was going to end someday, and only when they loose their lives do we realize that they were once and would one day be people too.
ReplyDelete2. What stayed with me from Friday's viewing was the bridge scene especially when Willard was behind the fort-like wall with two men. He kept asking them who their commanding officer was, but none of them gave him an actual answer. The first man actually went on to say “ain't you”. This signified how unorganized the war was. There was so much chaos and they had no real orders from what I could tell which is probably why so many of the soldiers ended killing civilians instead of the actual “enemy”. I think this scene showed what can happen when people are put in a situation where they're supposed to kill but are given no clear orders.
3. The film is about how war, especially one without order, can change anyone into something unrecognizable to the point where their humanity becomes compromised.
1. Jane Harmon used to say that every book worth reading incorporates the death of a young, innocent character as a means of furthering some argument. I suppose that, in Apocalypse Now, Clean would fit this role, though he’s not as innocent as the typical martyr. In some ways, Clean is so pure, so lovable. He loves singing and dancing and misses his mom, yet he’s also indisputably a murderer. And as much as I naturally feel compelled to grieve for him, I keep reminding myself that he was the one who slaughtered four innocent people. However, it’s not as though his death brought some sort of justice to the world. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
ReplyDeleteAfter all that has happened, however, I still feel a strong emotional attachment to the men on the boat. We’ve seen their human side, and that’s not something I can easily forget. I don’t think that they’re innocent or should be absolved of their guilt, but I could also easily see myself in any of their positions. Honestly, I could see myself panicking and blindly shooting civilians if I thought one of my friends might be attacked. I realize this is not a good thing, but I’d be a hypocrite if I condemned Clean while realizing my own potential to do the same thing.
2. Definitely the dialogue with the American photographer (who was based on the russian in Heart of Darkness) is what stuck with me most from the viewing. I felt so incredibly uncomfortable watching him blather on about Kurtz’s greatness and genius, etc, etc. I can’t describe it very eloquently, but listening to him felt almost indecent, as though I were intruding upon a man reverting to a childlike state of reverence. I was physically repulsed by this man’s idolization of kurtz. I don’t know why I reacted so strongly to this man and to this scene. Maybe it has to do with my deeply held fear of fanaticism, something that has always creeped me out, whether the object of the fanaticism is a person, a religion, or something else altogether.
3. The film is about our innate mental instability and how easily it can be uncovered when the normal constraints of society aren’t present.
1. I don’t think I ever hated the crew. They were quick to pull the trigger on innocent people, and it cost many their lives, but they weren’t cold blooded killers. Their perception of right and wrong may have been severely distorted, but they themselves were not evil. Clean was a murdered, yes, but he was following orders. He was doing as he was taught to do. He was a soldier fighting the enemy, and to do that, he had to separate himself from them, the Vietnamese. This isn’t meant to excuse his actions, merely explain them as I saw them, and with my interpretation of said actions, comes my response to Clan’s death: shock. He didn’t deserve to die. His death came out of nowhere, just as is often the case I suppose, but I don’t know…I’ve always held on to the idea of karma as a universal law, and although by that standard, his death was clearly deserved (an eye for an eye and that), but at the same time, it wasn’t. War is evil; it breeds horror and destruction and hardens the heart of man, but Clean could still be saved. He hadn’t lost himself yet; he wasn’t Kurtz or Willard. He was still a boy, a kid who liked rock-n-roll and loved his mama. He’d barely lived. Where’s the justice in that? Those Vietnamese on the boat didn’t deserve to die, that’s true, but neither did Clean. The more I watch of this movie, the less I can understand our country’s eager and endless involvement in wars all over the world. How can we send our boys off to die in far off lands every day? It’s not as though we don’t know that they are going to die. We can’t claim ignorance, or at least I can’t. We can’t just say that they’re dying for a greater cause or that they’re making their nation proud. Clean didn’t die the valiant death of a hero fighting for peace; he died a kid wielding a gun, shooting blindly at the unknown. His death means nothing. It wasn’t brave or cowardly; it was sudden and unimportant, but it hurt all the same. It hurt me because I could see no real reason for it…or for any of it…the war. So many deaths, and what for? Clean’s death forced me to ask that question.
ReplyDelete2. I think the American reporter who has fallen under Kurtz spell has stuck with me the most out of all the outrageous things I’ve seen. Just the degree to which various horrors, such as bodies hanging from trees and heads lining the staircases, become normalized to him really astounds me. It’s completely insane, yet at the same time, I sort of understand it. He’s been seduced by Kurtz’s poetry and godly sense of self. Just as a teacher has a certain degree of power over their students, Kurtz having dubbed himself God has given him an unhealthy amount of power, the power to drive the mind to insanity, the man to murder, the heart to darkness. This kind of control is the most startling thing to me because it doesn’t seem too far-fetched. Young, impressionable boys have been cast under the spell of charismatic rulers throughout all of history, as seen with Hitler among many other. Kurtz isn’t some outrageous figure of the imagination; he’s real, and so are the horrors he’s capable of making men do. The reality of Kurtz scares me, and it’s that fear, especially with the upcoming elections, that has stayed with me the most.
3. The film is about a man’s disillusionment with an institution, the army, that he has trusted and given his life to. The haze of patriotism that led his gun blindly through god knows how many people’s skulls is finally lifting and all he’s left with is the horror and hypocrisy of it all.
1. I was shocked—appalled—disgusted, a bit by the Playboy Bunny scene. I think that the Playboy Bunny scene is here to create juxtaposition, to shock the audience. It is grotesque in its vibrant colors and bright lights and loud music. The women are props, objects; I was disgusted by the objectification and the way American society appeared, as so materialistic. We see the Vietnamese peering through the metal of the fence, their wide-eyed shock and wonder at this event—this juxtaposition is what really struck me. I felt disgusted by the behavior of the men, and I think that my reaction was an appropriate one: they are supposed to be fighting a war, being stoic soldiers, and yet they are going crazy over some women dancing, acting like children. It was really quite sickening to me.
ReplyDelete2. I was very impressed by the filming of Kurtz when we first meet him. The use of shadow, so that we can only see bits of his face, creates an ominous atmosphere so effectively. I kept having to remind myself that this movie was made in the 1970s because the cinematography is so incredible. Kurtz’s place—the bloody bodies hanging all over, the terrified yet jaded followers—is such a vivid manifestation of what I had imagined when reading Heart of Darkness. The insanity of the cameraman struck me. He speaks nonsense, talks himself into circles. He is so deeply devoted to Kurtz that he has completely blinded himself to logic or reality. When he has moments of clarity, he explains them away with another twisted lie. The whole place is one big lie.
3. The film is about the darkness, the corruption, within all of us that is brought out by the horrors of war.
1. For some reason, I always empathized with the crew. Yes, they killed defenseless civilians, and there's no excuse for that. Unless you're in a war zone. When reading Heart of Darkness, I felt like men blamed the darkness for their own shortcomings. Yet after witnessing the sheer amount of suffering and twisted experiences that these men have had to go through, I understand the argument that the darkness is too much for people to resist. Imagining myself in that situation, I feel like it is inevitable I would have gone almost insane as well. One not only becomes more prone to violence but desensitized to it, like Kilgore. I think, again, that the historical distance between us and Colonialism gave us a moral high ground to make pronouncements about what the men in Africa could and should have done. But there's not much we can say about Vietnam. That could have easily been us, or our parents at least. Yet, at the same time we can't completely let go and say their behavior is acceptable. There is such thing as a war crime. If we absolve the crew of their guilt, what is the difference between what they are doing and what Kurtz is doing? Does that mean we have to absolve him too? Where's the line?
ReplyDelete2. I was definitely taken aback by Kurtz's followers. While I expected his followers to be loyal, the information in the dossier sets that up, I didn't expect them to to worship him in such a god-like manner. Besides the reporter, they acted with absolutely no sense of self, especially when they encircle Willard and start to bring him down to the ground.
3. The film is about how easily our minds can revert back to primal insanity when confronted with horror and destruction.
1. The Playboy Bunny scene made me really uncomfortable. How normal this was to the people in the movie was what made the situation weird to me. It was like they were just taking a break from work but it's obvious that they don't have ordinary jobs that people just take breaks from. The scene was just oddly placed to me and it felt like a concert almost in the middle of pretty serious series of events. They come to relieve the tension of the war and in doing so, they provoke this reaction from the men that I wasn't expecting. I wasn't sure what the scene was trying to tell the audience and why it was significant. I got that it was portraying what actually happened during this time, but it felt like there was a deeper meaning to it. It exposed a side of the soldiers that needed to be seen, but for what purpose?Everything being so casual in addition to the offensive costumes the girls were wearing, the crude language, the oddness of the scene and why it was put into the movie just made me feel awkward.
ReplyDelete2. The thing that stuck with me was the man hanging from the tree. It shouldn't have been so casual, and I know I keep saying this but it's like nobody in the movie is seeing how psycho everything is right now because they're so used to it. The crew obviously sees it, but honestly it's only a matter of time before they become indifferent too. Or at least that's how it seems from the reactions of previous characters in the movie. The body hanging from the tree was just so inhuman and disturbing. They're all just living among the dead. At one point I couldn't even decipher whether some of the dead people were sleeping or if they were really dead because of how everyone was just hanging around the bodies.
3. I think the movie is about how repetition and justification trap people in an illusion that can potentially create a sense of normalcy in situations as inhumane as the ones we've seen in the movie.
The Playboy Bunny scene might be one of the most disgusting things I have seen so far in the movie, including the slaughters, because of how the USO show forced both the men and women into a base interaction. The show seemed analogous to restraining a bunch of starved dogs on a leash while you dangle marbled ribs at a distance. But I do not feel disgust towards the men or the women in the situation; the women are getting paid to support the troops, and I couldn't imagine men acting in a more decent way after being thrust into some of the most inhospitable regions on Earth. What I believe the scene is trying to show is how far the military is willing to go in order to keep their troops complacent and their operations running. The movie has already given examples of how the troops often need reminders of home in order to keep morale up, Kilgore's beach parties being the foremost. But Kilgore's parties were for men who seemed to stay away from the worst of the fighting, the fought from the air with overwhelming technological superiority. The men inland, like at the Do Long bridge, have to face unceasing attacks while defending an untenable position, one that the generals need to keep so that they can say that the “bridge is open.” So it's natural that these men need ridiculous entertainment in order to not lose their minds or commit subordination. The USO show seems to show the perverse lengths the US military will go to perpetuate their imperialism: they degrade their own men.
ReplyDeleteThe Do Long bridge scene stayed with me. When the boat first approaches the bridge, countless men throw themselves into the water, screaming and calling out for the boat. They seemed more content to drown themselves than to stay in that place. Later in the scene, as Willard passes through a bunker, a flare goes off overhead, revealing four men sitting against the dirt wall staring at him, with emotionless faces. You have to think about their lives: whether or not they will go on much longer, whether they ever will leave that place? As the flare fades, and the faces are plunged back into darkness, I'm inclined to think that they won't. But maybe the most heartbreaking scene for me was Raoch's minute of screen time. As he stands there, aiming his grenade launcher, the only sounds that the viewer hears are the ones that Roach hears: the sounds and moans of a dying VC soldier. You see yet another flare pass overhead, but you don't hear it. The earth shaking hi-hats of the mortar rounds have ceased. You're trapped in Roach's world, a soldier's world, and the only thing you can hear is despair.
This film is about the absurdities of US imperialism. The military destroys villages, assassinates their own officers, defends destroyed bridges, all in order to keep some grasp on a country they have no business being in. And poor Willard stands at the center, a drunk errand boy sent to the middle of the jungle. His countenance seem to hold firm against the world outside, but he's collapsing on the inside: he murdered a young girl, and when Clean and Chief die he doesn't bat an eye. Willard is the ultimate victim, along with Kurtz, Roach, Lance, and Chef. They are crushed under their own government's boot.
1. My reaction to the Playboy Bunny scene was mostly negative - I understood that the soldiers liked taking a break from the carnage and fear, but at the same time it catered to the idea of physical satisfaction. It made guns seem cute and sexual, and after watching the attack on the village I found it incredibly disturbing. Violence and sex are both physical things, and the line started blurring when the soldiers began jumping on stage and leaping at the helicopter. My first reaction was that the women were in real danger, and they may well have been. The soldiers don’t register boundaries anymore - they’ve crossed lines and done things that no one could do without being traumatized. Getting riled up is the last thing a soldier needs (and, with boundaries gone, dangerous for those around them), but it’s their only connection to the world back home, so they latch onto it the way they did Kilgore’s barbecue. Meanwhile, Vietnamese people look on through the fence - this war IS IN their homes. They don’t have the luxury of dreaming about returning safe and victorious to families so carefully out of harms way. The show flaunted materialism and simple pleasures as a way for them to escape the horrors they’re committing and witnessing, while everyone else in the country is left to dwell in reality - it’s unfair, and grotesque. Mostly, I think this scene was meant to disturb viewers. This whole movie is supposed to disturb you - to disrupt any and all romanticized views of warfare. Even supposedly “good” things - like a Playboy show - unsettle and confuse with its surreal setting and frenzied dispersal. It shows real people acting in realistic ways - the women do their jobs, with no knowledge of the bloody horrors just beyond the fence, and the men do theirs, with so much violence under their belt that they don’t understand that violence isn’t really acceptable. These people are traumatized or ignorant, favoring simplistic ways of thinking about what they’re doing - entertaining, fighting, just doing their jobs - because really thinking about it is just… too much. They wouldn’t be able to function if they thought about it. It’s very human, and very disturbing.
ReplyDelete2. The bodies in the trees. There were so many, and no one seemed concerned, like they were USED to it. It hit me hard, and I found myself looking away from the screen. Just the brutality of it stayed with me - vicious, mindful, intentional brutality. Murder in the first degree, over and over and over again, up in trees - displayed. Kurtz was displaying what he’d done, like it was good - like he loved it, and wanted everyone to see. It is disgusting in every way possible.
3. The film is about human faults, much like Heart of Darkness. Even good people - living breathing humans, people who wanted to be chefs, who like puppies, who sing along to the radio - do horrible things. It is about how everyone can do horrible things, and how we are even INCLINED towards awful behavior in certain circumstances. It’s so easy to write off violent, despicable behavior as something that OTHER people do, but no - never your family, never your friends, never you. This movie says that anyone can be dark - everyone has the capacity to commit atrocities, to lose their mind. Yet, we are still upset by our own actions. Human beings are upset about what they do - I’d argue that allows room for hope. Everyone on the boat - save Willard - wanted to help the woman they’d injured. Kilgore, even with his tragically short attention span, had intended to give water to the dying soldier. We are just as capable of good as we are of evil - it’s just that, sometimes, it’s easier to make the wrong choice.
1. The USO show is bizarre. I see it as a comparison to the horrible cost of being a soldier. The playboy bunnies have been forced to do things they never wanted to do. They have been objectified and don't want this. Similarly, we see young men who have had to go into the army. Chef says that all he ever wanted was to learn how to cook, but he's had to do terrible things. I don't think it's a mistake that this scene is not long before the sampan scene. Both show times in which men and women respectively do things they never expected to have to do. And yet they urge each other on. The army is one of the most dehumanizing organizations around, pushing people to fit a certain type and reducing people to their physical capabilities in a fight. Pornography glorifies an idealized standard of beauty turns people into nothing more than sexual objects. Both make it hard for young men and women to break out of the clearly flawed system in place.
ReplyDelete2. Chief is the very image of a reserved and calm military professional. He does it by the book, never loses his head, and maintains tight control of his boat. His death scene is a strong break from this pattern. Seeing Chief stop steering and shoot wildly into the jungle is jarring. He loses control. This is the culmination of his frustration with Willard withholding information. He is one of the few "good soldiers" who don't get to trigger happy. Here, we see that happen, and it's the death of him
3. This movie is about trying to figure out what to choose when there are no good options.
1. I felt so terrible watching this scene (of Clean’s death). Death is so much more difficult to handle when it is thrown clearly in our face as it was in this scene, when it is harder to detach yourself. I felt for Clean’s family (and thought it was very powerful to hear his mother’s voice as he is dead on screen), and for the other men on the boat. I didn’t hate the men in this scene (I don’t think I hated them when they killed the civilians either, though I was angry and upset). I hated their situation. I don’t think that makes them bad people. Without Clean’s death, it may have been easier for the audience to absorb the deaths in the movie. It’s hard to remember that each deceased leaves behind mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and friends who mourn their death. Clean’s death reminds us.
ReplyDelete2. The scene that stuck out to me most was probably the scene with Clean’s death (combined with the next one, with Chief’s death), but I wrote about that for the last question. The next memorable aspect for me was the amount of death where Kurtz was. Bloodied bodies everywhere: littering the ground, hanging from trees. And everybody else moving about ignoring it (I don’t recall Lance, Chef, or Willard even reacting to the bodies). The lack of disrespect for these humans astounded (but didn’t necessarily surprise) me.
3. The film is about understanding (or trying to understand) the complexity of human nature, the complexity of our characters and our thoughts.
1. I found that I couldn’t hate Clean and the rest of the crew even after watching them murder the civilians in the boat. I just found myself hating the circumstances that lead to that horrible event. The main emotion I was feeling was sadness as I watched Clean’s death. I think the movie was trying to make me feel this way because of the voice over of clean’s mother that really emphasises that he should “stay out of the way of the bullets” and that he has a bright future once he returns from the conflict. It is clear to me that Clean feels awful after he killed the civilians in the boat, and he has an instinctual fear and aversion to violence as he watches the battle at the bridge. All this leads me to believe that most of the reason he shoots the civilians is due to fear. Yet I also can’t feel good about that claim because I don’t think there was enough fear created by the situation to warrant the shooting.
ReplyDelete2. The battle that was spears and arrows against machine guns really stuck with me. I thought it was really interesting how Willard says, “they’re just sticks” and the fight continued and Chef got hit with a spear resulting in his death. This scene is almost identical to the scene from Heart of Darkness, and I think that it is significant that it is included in the film adaptation. The vast exaggeration of the difference in technologies of these two groups and the effectiveness of the not as powerful technology represents the futility of the military struggle from the United States’ perspective.
3. The film is about how people are irreversibly altered when they are exposed to war.
1) I couldn't bring myself to feel sorry for any of the characters. War is hell, and they're just victims of that simple truth. They were victims just like the civilians of the village and the ones on the boat they killed. It's hypocritical to think that they didn't deserve to die when they're just suffering from the same system they're participating in. The ugly truth of war is that it is just mass killing. Kilgore kills, the Vietnamese kill, Clean kills, and Millard kills. In the end, Clean and the Chief are just another part of the system that causes their death.
ReplyDelete2) The scene in the trenches stuck with me the most, specifically when the soldier shoots the grenade launcher at the unseen enemy. The “yeah” that he responds to Willard’s question with really got my mind racing. What did mean by “yeah?” The other soldier, who was blindly shooting into the darkness accomplishing nothing, didn't know who his leader is, and there obviously wasn't one around. But the soldier who’s able to kill the enemy in one simple shot dies know who his leader is, and I think he meant himself. I think his clear head on who he follows (himself) makes him more effective, allowing him to kill enemies so quickly and easily. There was repeated use of N**** (the n word) in this scene, and it couldn't have been a coincidence that all the soldiers there were Black.
3) The film is about the uncensored truth of what war is, and people’s struggle in protecting their morality while participating in it.