A few notes: 1) Some of the transitionial words/phrases (alerting the reader that the writer is making come kind of comparison) are in pink. 2) I've also marked the A/B/C constructions throughout. 3) And please note the kind of sources he uses: sometimes opinion, sometimes fact. And note how he incorporates that research. Who wouldn’t like a story about a man running off into the jungle to become some kind of crazy cult leader? Joseph Conrad wrote a book with this plot in 1899, called
Heart of Darkness. Then, in 1979, famous director Francis Ford Coppola made a film called “Apocalypse Now,” loosely based on this book. But, don’t be tricked by this. Because really, even though one is based on the other, the fact is, beyond the superficial, they really don’t have much in common. While the book Heart of Darkness and the film "Apocalypse Now" might seem similar, when one looks deeper, they are in fact very different. As far as similarities go, both the book and the movie involve a dangerous journey down a body of water, and in both, that journey is narrated by a similar character. In the Heart of Darkness, the entire story is told by the main character of Marlow, a seasoned sailor. Similarly, in “Apocalypse Now,” the main character of Willard narrates the film. And while these characters are in very different parts of the world—Marlow is in Africa, while Willard is in Vietnam—there is a key similarity in their settings, in spite of the different countries they are in. Marlow is sailing along the Congo River in Africa, which Marlow describes as “storied, winding, and exceedingly intimidating for the inexperienced mariner” (Conrad 46). Willard, too, is traveling down a river, the Nung river in Vietnam. He doesn’t say it is “intimidating,” like Marlowe, but as viewers of the movie we know it is dangerous, since the movie takes place during the Vietnam War. Note: there are no A/B/C constructions here, as this paragraph is making a few very obvious points--nothing terribly "deep" necessary to prove these points. (Although please note, the quote from the book is still introduced with a little bit of summary.)
Also, the character of "Kurtz" is similar in each. In both the movie and book, Kurtz is a once respectable white man who has apparently gone crazy and disappeared into the jungle. A) In the Heart of Darkness, Kurtz was once a normal white businessman who worked for an ivory-trading company (called “the Company” in the book). But, he has since disappeared into the wilderness somewhere in the area along the Congo, and has stockpiled tons of ivory on his own. We find out during the book that he did this by becoming this sort of cult-leader-type to some different African tribes, and getting them to get the ivory for him. B) When Marlow finally meets Kurtz, he describes him as a “gifted creature, and that of all his gifts the one that stood out pre-eminently, that carried with it a sense of real presence, was his ability to talk, his words,” but then he also describes his words as coming from “the deceitful flow from the heart of an impenetrable darkness” (Conrad 87). C) So, Kurtz in the book is both brilliant and crazy in a kind of evil way. Kurtz from "Apocalype Now" is very similar. A) He is a white military commander who has disappeared into the jungle, who is worshipped by a group of people who live in the jungle, and who has gone crazy. When we finally see Kurtz at the end of the film, we see him talking about the horrors of war. B) He talks about a “pile of arms” he saw during war (like literally a pile of cut-off arms) and says how brilliant it was. C) I could spend some time interpreting this scene, but I think a Washington Post film reviewer puts it best: “Kurtz is fanatical, charismatic, and brilliant enough that his own mind has somehow turned atrocities into miracles” (Ramsicle). In other words, like the Kurtz in the book, the Kurtz in the movie is totally crazy in an evil way. (note how this sentence neatly wraps up this paragraph.)
Transitional paragraph: These very apparent similarities in the Kurtz character, the river setting and the way these stories are told might lead someone to think that means the book and movie are mirror images of each other. But they are not. Turns out, the similarities are only superficial. If you really think about it, the much deeper differences become very obvious.
For example, Heart of Darkness and "Apocalypse Now" are thematically different in a lot of ways. The book is more about greed, and what people will do to make money, but unlike the book, movie is about war. How is the book about greed? A) The whole backdrop to the book is the time of imperialism in Africa (when countries in Africa were taken over by white men representing countries in Europe), and the book is set in the area of the Congo controlled by Belgium. B) According to the New York Times, Belgium forced Africans into slave-like labor, so that Belgium could make money from both trading ivory and growing rubber trees in the Congo, and during that time Belgians committed all kinds of atrocities against Africans, like whipping them and beating them, and over eight million Africans lost their lives (Kakutani). Belgium controlled areas around the Congo from the late 1885 through 1960 (Jameson 3). C) Heart of Darkness was written during then, so “the Company” sailing down the Congo in Heart of Darkness is obviously part of the same Belgium I mentioned a few sentences earlier. It is a white country that did terrible things to innocent African people in order to make money, and “the Company” is part of that. In contrast to this “what white people will do for money” theme is the film. Unlike the book, "Apocalypse Now" is all about how war is horrible. A) Throughout the movie, war is the backdrop, not imperialism. B) It is set in the late 1960s in Vietnam, and the people going down the river are not white people who rule the Vietnam, but soldiers from the American military who are fighting the Vietnam War. The only reason Willard is going down the river is to kill Kurtz (once a military commander) because he has become dangerous, not because he has taken anything worth any money like ivory or rubber, etc. C) Since the whole movie involves a man (Willard) going down a river to kill another man (Kurtz), who has lost his mind and become even more violent because of all the violence he has seen, the movie seems to suggest that war will always come to no good. Willard, too, seems to slowly be losing his mind as he goes to kill Kurtz, so it’s like the movie is saying, no one wins in war.
My other important point about differences involves how people are depicted. The Heart of Darkness seems very racist, while the movie does not. Heart of Darkness suggests that all Africans are savages or animals and that anyone who spends time with them will also become savage. The movie, however, suggests like I already said in the previous paragraph that war is horrific and that anyone who spends too much time around war might become savage--and most of the people we see waging war in this movie are white Americans. In The Education of a British-Protected Child, the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe writes that in Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad writes about Africa in a way that makes it seem like a dark, uncivilized place, and that the people there are presented as prehistoric or stupid or not really human, even (67). I agree with his point, since I definitely noticed this while reading it. A) Over and over and over in the novel, Marlow uses very racist ways to describe Africans. B) Like when Marlow sees an African who works as a fireman, he says it’s like “seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat, walking on his hind legs” (Conrad 74). Later, Marlowe sees that Kurtz has an African girlfriend. He describes her as “a savage counterpart to [a] refined, European woman” (Conrad 103). C) In both cases, even though we never see any Africans doing anything savage, Marlow sees someone African (there are lots of instances like this in the novel) as being like a savage animal. However, in “Apocalypse Now,” we don’t see any of the characters talking this way at all about the Vietnamese people. A) We see lots of savage things happen, but the people doing these things are all white American people. B) For example, Willard, who seems totally un-feeling, is an assassin from the beginning and he’s also white and American. Kurtz, who is so savage he has human heads on bamboo poles marking his camp, is white and American. We even see one commander in the middle of a battle who says “I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” which is a famous line in the movie. According to The New York Times, napalm was used in flamethrowers and bombs used in the Vietnam War and it stuck to your skin and caused excruciating burns, extreme pain and death (Browne). Of course, the guy who “loves” the smell of this is a white American guy. C) So you can see, the true savages in the film aren’t Vietnamese—they are white.
So, after deeper reflection, one can tell how very different the book is from the movie. They deal with very different themes, probably because the book was written a hundred years before the movie was made. The book deals with things that were going on at the time it was written, like imperialism and racism. The Vietnam War was a war that was protested when it was going on, so when the movie came out it reflected a negative attitude towards violence and war and to the people who wage war.
