Apocalypse now

Résumé du document

Inspired by the novel written by Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1899) and influenced by the film by Nicholas Ray Wind across the Everglades (1958), Francis-Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979) reveals a grandiose imagery that conveys a lavish symbolic charge. Vast opera of death and destruction, the super production denounces the corruptive dementia of the Vietnam atrocities through the spectacle of a nightmare of history. Insofar as it relates the degenerative adventure of a soldier fatally led astray by the lunacy of war, the movie offers a both explicit and implicit panorama of an American trauma. In accordance with the thematic of the course, that is to say the complex interrelationship between the cinema, memory and history, the problematic hereafter surveyed will look into the mirror structure that governs the link between historical cinema and cultural identity.

Extraits

[...] Ultimately, Apocalypse Now enables Coppola to accomplish a double exploit. One the one hand, he rehabilitates the big budget cinema since the production of the spectacular deliberately goes against the tide of the contemporary filmic tradition of his peers who, without elevating incompetence to the status of virtue, advocate a minimalist art by justifying a sort of two-edged amateurism that he definitely denies in his work. On the other hand, he succeeds in restoring the romanesque epic by boldly displaying a belligerent violence to a public still deeply hurt. [...]

[...] The real threat that he embodies consists in the fact that he exposes to the public the genuine face of the war. One can perceive Coppola through Kurz in the sense that the film maker denounces in an analogous manner the atrocities of Vietnam. The descend of the river symbolizes the irremediable collapse of the character into folly. Logically, the more Willard comes closer to him, the more dementia becomes flagrant. Each new stage is more intense than the previous one. [...]

[...] Yeah, I use Wagner scares the hell out of the slopes! My boys love (Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore) love the smell of napalm in the morning! You know, one time we had a hill bombed for twelve hours, and when it was all over I walked up. We didn't find one of them, not one stinking dink body. The smell you know, that gasoline smell - the whole hill - it smelled like victory." (Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore) "Never get out of the boat. Absolutely god damn right. [...]

[...] Accordingly, after a brief introductive section that will provide general information about Apocalypse Now, it seems advisable to closely examine these two stages of construction of what one may call subjective history. Released in the late seventies, Apocalypse Now constitutes an extremely audacious work that propels Coppola's professional career on account of the award won at the Festival de Cannes. In utter opposition to the minimalist creed of that very time, the film director and producer aims to relaunch the big budget cinema. [...]

[...] Killgore : Robert Duvall Photographe : Dennis Hopper Chef Hicks: Frederic Forrest Chief Philips: Albert Hall Lance Johnson: Sam Bottoms Clean: Laurence Fishburne Colonel Lucas: Harrison Ford General Corman: G. D. Spradlin Captain Colby: Scott Glenn 3. Sript (Opening sequel) This is the end Beautiful friend This is the end My only friend, the end Of our elaborate plans, the end Of everything that stands, the end No safety or surprise, the end I'll never look into your eyes . again Can you picture what will be So limitless and free Desperately in need . of some . [...]