Apocalypse Now

     Apocalypse Now and Tim O'Brien's writing of his war experiences parallel in that the main atmosphere is perpetual chaos. The chaos influences most of the behavior seen; specifically the chaos of the jungle. In The Things They Carried when soldiers have to sit and wait, the jungle is described as making nonhuman noises, strange noises that cannot be identified. Although these soldiers are doing nothing, but listening these types of sounds drive the soldiers mad; something this simple becomes chaotic due to paranoia of a threat that may not exist. In Apocalypse Now when they decide to stop the boat to search a boat of civilians Miller kills everyone on the other boat because he was paranoid one of the riders were going to grab a weapon, even though it turns out she was only trying to hide a puppy. In these situations the soldiers were terrified of a possible threat that it became real and visual reality was fake. The first thing that shocked me in Apocalypse Now was when the soldiers surfed during an attack on a village; this reminded me of when Lemon played with grenades in The Things They Carried. This is a reminder of how catastrophic environments some soldiers try to find a distraction from all of the unjust destruction. However, these activities usually put them in more danger.
   The most important theme of Apocalypse Now is the adaptation of the soldiers. Similar to other Vietnam war stories the soldier typically either becomes a part of the jungle and madness or rejects it. The main characters in the movie were like Mary Anne. Although Willard was told to kill Kurtz because he was insane, reading information on Kurtz only led him to understand him more. Kurtz had become a part of the jungle's soul. An important line the photographer states about Kurtz is that "the man is clear in mind, but his soul is mad". During the war the soul of Vietnam was "mad," which can be linked to Kurtz own madness. Willard still kills Kurtz because he understands the same madness, not because he agrees with the people that originally gave him the orders.