![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skreidleJust finished Apocalypse Now, followed by the director's commentary on an alternate ending (destruction of the Kurtz compound, not included in the actual release), and the Maltin summary.. Maltin described the ending as "murky and cerebral", so at least it's not just me. :)
Maybe it's just because I was tired and not hearing all of what Kurtz was saying, but it really didn't seem like he'd transcended the war--apparently Coppola's point--but instead that he'd become a delusional cult leader who had taken the power of life and death into his own hands.
I liked the movie overall, but it made less and less sense after the arrival at the Kurtz compound.
Maybe it's just because I was tired and not hearing all of what Kurtz was saying, but it really didn't seem like he'd transcended the war--apparently Coppola's point--but instead that he'd become a delusional cult leader who had taken the power of life and death into his own hands.
I liked the movie overall, but it made less and less sense after the arrival at the Kurtz compound.
no subject
Date: 2001-10-28 09:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2001-10-28 10:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2001-10-28 12:42 pm (UTC)Seriously though, I'm told the movie was meant to be a retelling of _Heart of Darkness_, only set in Nam. *shrug* The basic plot of Heart of Darkness is: Marlowe sails upriver into the heart of the Congo to find Mr Kurtz, who's gone native and become revered as a kind of god. Kurtz dies (maybe vaguely realising what he's done at the end of his life; his last words are "The horror! the horror!"). The natives realise that he's not much of a god. Marlowe returns. The end.