Colonel Kurtz Is Not Mad
A Journey To The Apocalyptic Abyss
“You have to have men who are moral… and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling… without passion… without judgment… without judgment. Because it’s judgment that defeats us.”
— Colonel Kurtz, Apocalypse Now
The iconic masterpiece by Francis Ford Coppola about war and madness Apocalypse Now (1979) was on Film 4 last night and I watched it one more time. It is impossible not to watch it all the way through once you start. Impossible.
The film set during the Vietnam War between the Vietcong, the NKV and South Vietnamese forces with colossal support from America with personnel and military hardware uses the novella Heart of Darkness (1899) by Joseph Conrad to reimagine a similar story of atrocity and the descent of civilization — personified by the character of Mr Kurtz (in Conrad’s book) and Colonel Kurtz (in Coppola’s cinematic version) — into barbarism and madness. But it is not Kurtz who is mad but warfare. Period.
Colonel Kurtz played by Marlon Brando has refused to relinquish his command by order of his superiors at MACV. Kurtz has achieved everything asked of him and then some. He has created his very own army loyal only to him as they follow him like a God. They are the Montagnards, an…
