Apocalypse Now as Adaptation: Conrad's Heart of Darkness

Introduction: The Significance of Comparing Both Texts

Examining Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now specifically as an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness reveals a number of important things about either text that would otherwise remain hidden were they considered independently. Firstly, one may consider the ostensibly simple name change, because it reveals how the texts differ in their relation of the disturbing narrative to the individual and to society. Secondly, examining the choice to set the story during the Vietnam War highlights the continued hegemony of empire and colonialism, and forces one to consider the substantial difference in either text's view of that hegemony. From there, one must consider the possibility that far from building upon whatever anti-imperialist tendencies are visible in Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now actually presents an ahistorical approach to empire and its atrocities that ultimately serves to reinforce that empire by "softening" it in the form of spectacle.

Title Change: From Heart of Darkness to Apocalypse Now

One must first address the choice to alter the name of the story from Heart of Darkness to Apocalypse Now. On cursory examination this choice seems only natural, and almost unimportant; the story does not precisely follow Conrad's novella, so why bother keeping the name, which might lead audiences to expect a more faithful adaptation? However, this name change also reveals something important about the way each text frames its story.

While Conrad's Heart of Darkness is a deeply personal story, based partially on his own experiences in the Congo, it nevertheless contains a strong undercurrent of political criticism, linking Marlow's experience to the imperial project of Belgium as a whole (Firchow 18). Though Conrad has frequently been criticized for including what appear to be racist or colonialist views in Heart of Darkness — mainly due to his unsatisfactory representation of native Africans — the larger movement of the narrative is towards a realization that "whenever and wherever the question about a potential victim's full humanity is answered negatively, the targeted group is in great danger of being subjected to genocide" (Firchow 152). Dehumanization is a central theme of Conrad's novella, and the title reflects this by centralizing its representation of "darkness" as a human body; the descent into Kurtz's world of madness and horror is a descent into the darkest regions of humanity as a whole (ignoring for a moment the problems inherent in the use of "darkness" as representative of evil when the story takes place in a country populated mostly by dark-skinned individuals).

Conversely, Coppola's film appears to expand the subject matter of the story by framing the Vietnam War as a kind of eschatological event while simultaneously making Willard's psyche the actual bounds of the "darkness" considered. The name Apocalypse Now, as well as the apocalyptic title sequence, initially leads the viewer to expect that the story will address its themes on a worldwide, humanity-encompassing level, but as the film progresses it becomes clear that this is mere effect. In reality, the horrors and violence of Vietnam are not the target of the story but rather a metaphor for Willard's internal experience. As Kerry Grant notes, "Coppola reveals the bias of his particular reading of Heart of Darkness, which leads him consistently away from the more political dimensions of that text" (Grant 214). Instead of reiterating Conrad's critiques of imperialism in light of the Vietnam War, "in Coppola's reworking, the apocalypse of the opening is held finally within the confines of the interior landscape of Willard's tortured musings," so that "a move that ostensibly holds up to scrutiny America's morally bankrupt jungle adventure nonetheless frames its commentary in terms that invite psychoanalysis rather than public-policy debate" (Grant 214). Thus, the choice to change the name of the story from Heart of Darkness to Apocalypse Now reveals not only the different approaches either text takes to the core theme of the story, but also the more problematic — and actually somewhat dishonest — consideration of violence and horror provided by Apocalypse Now.

Narratological Differences and Narrative Authority

This thematic change is made all the more apparent when one considers the narratological differences of either text. In Heart of Darkness, the story is actually relayed by an unnamed narrator, and although "his presence is so subtle that either we never really notice him or we soon forget that Conrad has positioned this disembodied voice between Marlow and us," the fact remains that Marlow is not granted total narrative authority. Instead, his narrative and inner experiences are related as a story within a story, such that his subjective interpretation is not given the imprimatur of authority (Cahir 181). Marlow's story is only one of the many "yarns" told by the passengers aboard the Nellie, and as such the reader may regard it not as strict documentary fact but rather a kind of allegorical approach to the issue of Belgian imperialism (Conrad 65, 68). Recognizing this detail allows one to see how Apocalypse Now, like its name change, uses a different narrative approach that undermines its political potential while centralizing the internal, individual experience of Willard.

In her essay "Narratological Parallels in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now," Linda Cahir argues that this use of the unnamed narrator "functions much in the same way as the camera in a film," because "both interpose themselves (near-invisibly) between the teller and the listener; both function as narrators who control what we hear and what we see; both are subtle, ongoing structural presences which somehow fade from our consciousness" (Cahir 181–182). However, Cahir's interpretation falters because she fails to recognize an important difference between the novella and the film. In the novella, Marlow's voice is relayed to the reader through the narrator, but in the film, Willard's internal dialogue is rendered directly to the audience through voice-over. While Heart of Darkness' narrator may function like a camera, this says nothing about the audio track. By relaying Willard's internal dialogue directly through voice-over, the film grants Willard far more narrative control than Conrad ever grants Marlow. Thus, once again, the film centralizes the internal psyche of Willard at the expense of the larger world, making his perspective paramount and totalizing rather than one among many.

Conclusion: Anti-Imperialism Subverted

While Apocalypse Now and Heart of Darkness have been critically examined almost since the moment of their release, considering them in conjunction reveals a number of things about either text that would otherwise have been more difficult to spot. In particular, addressing both texts sharpens Conrad's criticisms of empire and demonstrates how the personal journey of Marlow is representative of a more general human phenomenon. On the other hand, the comparison reveals how Apocalypse Now strips these anti-imperialist inclinations from the story by confining the horror portrayed within the bounds of Willard's internal psyche, so that instead of Willard's story being representative of a larger issue in human society, the Vietnam War becomes representative of Willard's — and the audience's — internal psychological issues.