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Apocalypse Now The Movie Essay

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Apocalypse now redux is an American movie set during the Vietnamese War , directed by Francis Ford Coppola and first released in 1979. It is inspired by Joseph Conrad’s novel : Heart of Darkness. The movie takes place in Vietnam in 1970 and narrates the journey of Captain Willard up the river to find and kill Colonel Kurtz. In this essay the question : How and why is a social group represented in a particular way? will be analysed by looking at the depiction of the american troops in the first battle scene of the movie. The use of music , the atmosphere as well as of dialogues will be explored to show how those aspects contribute to this depiction. The scene opens with the bombing of a Vietnamese village led by Colonel Bill Kilgore and his helicopter troops. The use of music to convey a particular atmosphere is then outlined as Coppola made the arrival of the helicopter emphasized by the classical piece of Wagner ; “ the Ride of the Valkyries” . This choice …show more content…

This therefore reinforce the madness of the scene and of the war by outlining the immorality going on as the american soldiers going to the war are portrayed as both heroic but also lacking morality to justificate their act. This lack of morality is furthermore emphasized by Coppola’s choice of the reason of the bombing as Colonel Kilgore set the attack with the aim to find a surfing position . The dropping of napalm to create a surfing wave relates to the absurdity of modern warfare. However , Coppola did focus on the horror of the war coming from both sides which is outlined as a panicked soldier is shown being terrified by the sight of a wounded american.Coppola therefore also focussed on the horror resented by the American experiencing the

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