Modern Literature in Film

1. Modern Literature in Film ConradandCoppola

2. Modern Literature – at a glance • 1915 – 1945 • Exposed an overall “darker” and edgier mood. • Authors influenced by WWI, WWII, and the Great Depression. • Unique forms of writing, such as Realism, became popular. • Controversial subjects introduced.

3. Joseph Conrad • Author of Heart of Darkness, a novella which is an exploration of hypocrisy, ambiguity, and moral confusion. • Heart of Darkness was written in 1898. • Reflects on divisive issues like slavery and racism. • Taken from his personal experience while in command of a Congo steamer. • Exposes human brutality and “savagery” within ourselves, and in regards to civilization.

4. Gauguin and Conrad • Heart of Darkness influenced by Gauguin’s Tahitian paintings. • One critic wrote, "In all likelihood, Conrad knew Gauguin's Noa Noa when he wrote Heart of Darkness and that his characterization of Kurtz's reversion to savagery and Marlow's temptation to abandon Eurocentric values is in part a response to Gauguin."

5. Francis Ford Coppola • Director of Apocalypse Now. • Conceived as an action-adventure, Apocalypse Now was based upon the novel “Heart of Darkness” by Conrad, changing the setting from 19th century Africa to Vietnam in the late 1960’s. • Coppola began work on his most ambitious film in 1976. • Released in 1979, the acclaimed film won a Golden Palm Award at the Cannes Film Festival, and two Academy Awards. • [On his film, Apocalypse Now, at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival] "My movie is not about Vietnam...my movie is Vietnam."

6. Willard and Marlow Captain Benjamin L. Willard • Sent to “terminate” a renegade Green Beret (Kurtz) who has lost his sanity. • The war has shell-shocked him. • In his search, he becomes more alert to the absurdities of war and the darkness of human nature. • Points out the disturbing ironies of war and attempts to include a faint view of morality. Charlie Marlow • Adventures down the Congo River in an effort to support the African ivory trade, as well as a personal quest to meet the seemingly great, multitalented thinker Kurtz.

7. Kurtz vs. Kurtz • Conrad’s Kurtz is well-educated, and is seen as a Renaissance man. • He slowly becomes a thief, murderer, raider, persecutor, and he allows himself to be worshiped like a god by the natives. • His insanity wins him control of men through fear and adoration. • His health declines throughout the story, along with his morality. • Coppola’s Colonel Walter E. Kurtz is a renegade soldier who, after a grotesque self-awareness, loses himself (and his sanity) in the dense jungles of Vietnam. • Kurtz is clearly insane, but his genius is just as clear. • He too has set himself up as a god through the idolization of the natives, and looks to Willard to dethrone him and accept the darkness that everyone possesses within their hearts.

8. Symbolism • The Congo River is the key to Africa for travelers. • Africa is reduced to a series of two-dimensional scenes that flash by Marlow’s steamer as he travels upriver. • Marlow’s struggles with the river as he travels upstream toward Kurtz reflect his struggles to understand the situation in which he has found himself. • The ease with which he journeys back downstream, on the other hand, mirrors his submission to Kurtz and his “choice of nightmares.”

9. Movie Trivia • Marlon Brando was unprepared for the role of Kurtz. • Coppola spent days reading Conrad's source novel "Heart of Darkness" out loud to Marlon Brando on the set. • The photojournalist quotes two T.S. Eliot poems. • In a late scene in the film, a slow pan over a table in Kurtz's room shows a copy of "From Ritual to Romance", a book by Jessie Weston that inspired Eliot's poem "The Wasteland". • Kurtz reads from the T.S. Eliot poem "The Hollow Men". Eliot was inspired to write this poem by "Heart of Darkness" by Conrad. • Taken from the same poem's famous last two lines; "This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but with a whimper."

11. And Finally… • Kurtz’s famous last words…“The Horror…The Horror.” • What can be taken from “The Secret Sharer” and “Heart of Darkness” that applies to the theories of Modern Literature? • Are there any other novels that have been made into films from the Modern Era?