9/18/2017 0 Comments Colonel Kurtz Horror MonologueCoppola went through a serious struggle to invent an effective ending for Apocalypse Now. I believe that he succeeded. He was faced with at least two major artistic challenges. How to create a Colonel Kurtz in the flesh who will live up to the expectations created by the Dossier during the journey upriver. The second challenge was how to resolve the plot. What is Willard going to do when he meets Kurtz? What is Kurtz going to do? How is all this going to end? I want to answer these two questions by first making a few general observations about the narrative technique and then move into a detailed analysis of the major scenes from Willard's first encounter with Kurtz to his leaving to go back down river. I again see the influence of Heart of Darkness. Kurtz's defining characteristic is his voice. He is above all portrayed as a man of words- -a man who has the power to mesmerize even Marlow by the force of his eloquence. Marlow looks forward not to seeing Kurtz, but to hearing him. Conrad carefully builds this portrait of Kurtz so that the suspense for Marlow as he draws close to Kurtz is not to see him but to hear him. I think Coppola decided to use the same strategy in creating Colonel Kurtz. All Colonel Kurtz's major scenes are essentially monologue scenes in which he does the talking and Willard listens. Coppola relies on three techniques to make these scenes work. First is Marlon Brando's acting. Brando has the powerful voice and the command of facial and bodily gestures to make these scenes work. Second, he uses dramatic low- key lighting for all these scenes. The strategy of having Brando mostly in shadows, using face lighting at key moments in his speeches, is a powerful means of creating Kurtz as a mysterious voice speaking out of the darkness. Third, is the content of what Kurtz is talking about. Each of his monologues relies on the dramatic power of the unexpected. Who would expect Kurtz to be talking about gardenias or reciting "The Hollow Men?" We'll look later on at the specific content of each monologue. The second challenge for Coppola was how to resolve the plot. He had Conrad's story before him in which Kurtz dies of sickness on the boat going back down the river. And the complex ending of Marlow lying to Kurtz's beloved about what happened together with the framestory of the guys listening to Marlow on a boat on the Thames. ![]() In his 1. 97. 5 script Coppola tried to work that kind of an ending. However, in the film itself, he left Conrad far behind. He completely reworked Kurtz's death scene and Willard's trip back. He did it by the technique of reversing expectations. Willard has come all this way to complete his mission from the General to assassinate Colonel Kurtz. He does not assassinate the Colonel, but helps him to commit suicide. He not only doesn't complete his mission, but he takes on a new mission given to him by Kurtz himself- -to go back and tell the truth about Kurtz and the war. Quite a dramatic reversal. What makes these shocking actions make sense is the interplay between Kurtz's monologues and the three very important Willard scenes in which his first- person narration explains his actions. Let's explore the major scenes to see how they work. Willard's first encounter with Colonel Kurtz. The opening shot of the scene is crucial in establishing the nature of the encounter. Willard has been brought to the entrance to Kurtz's room. His voice- over sets up the suspense of the encounter: "This was the end of the river all right.". The construction of the scene is simple. It consists of a conventional shot/counter- shot dialogue scene. The first shot is a long take in which the camera, which had been tracking Willard's walk to Kurtz's room, stops for a moment while Willard is made to kneel. Then the camera moves in on Willard and slowly turns. While the camera is moving in, Kurtz begins to speak before the camera shows him. This shot is effective because it does two things. First, the camera movement creates the suspense. What will we see as the camera slowly turns the corner and moves in on Kurtz? Second, the shot helps focus on that distinctive quality of Kurtz: his voice. We hear him before we see him, a voice speaking out of the darkness. A perfect dramatic introduction to Colonel Kurtz. The success of this scene depends on four elements. Brando's physical appearance, his acting, the dramatic low- key lighting and the content of the speech. Willard's role is primarily to react to Kurtz's speech. Willard is almost completely static in the whole scene, in which his same MCU reaction- shot is repeated eight times. '/videos/search?format=&mkt=en-us&q=colonel+kurtz+horror+monologue&ru=%2fsearch%3fformat%3d%26mkt%3den-us%26q%3dcolonel%2bkurtz%2bhorror%2bmonologue&view=detail&mmscn=vwrc&mid=F387FAB60FBDDE5F8862F387FAB60FBDDE5F8862&FORM=WVFSTD' h='ID=SERP,5742.1'>Watch video · Warning - Item Apocalypse Now - Marlon Brando (Horror) might contain content that is not suitable for all ages. By clicking on CONTINUE you confirm that you are 18.Marlon Brando’s monologue as Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. Set during the Vietnam WarTruly disturbing: “ .Horror. Horror has a faceAnd you must make a. · Colonel Kurtz’s Monologue. March 15, 2017. The scene pays homage to the book’s Kurtz’s last words by repeating horror throughout. ![]() Coppola, again, is influenced by Conrad's conception of Kurtz. Marlow's first sight of Kurtz reveals him to be a sick man, with a focus on his bald head as a dramatic sign of his illness. Notice the way Coppola shoots this scene. He keeps Kurtz in the darkness throughout the scene. The low- key lighting illuminates parts of his body, primarily parts of his head and face. The first image of Kurtz that emerges out of the shadows is his bald head. '/videos/search?format=&mkt=en-us&q=colonel+kurtz+horror+monologue&ru=%2fsearch%3fformat%3d%26mkt%3den-us%26q%3dcolonel%2bkurtz%2bhorror%2bmonologue&view=detail&mmscn=vwrc&mid=2EF70E33753600EDCE3D2EF70E33753600EDCE3D&FORM=WVFSTD' h='ID=SERP,5740.1'>Watch video · (movie clip) "Apocalypse Now" - Colonel Kurtz's monologue. Colonel Kurtz: "I worry that my. the horror, horror Views: 27147. ![]() · “Horrors of War” by Marlon Brando (Apocalypse Now). Colonel Walter E. Kurtz. http://simonamooon.deviantart.com/journal/Apocalypse-Now-Horror. Apocalypse Now: Col. Kurtz's monologue on war and horror. Latest. Search: Options: Help: Login: Apocalypse Now: Col. Kurtz's monologue on war and horror. Notice, too, how the lighting serves the dramatic build- up of the scene to its climax. Kurtz's face remains hidden in darkness and shadow, with parts illuminated as he talks. But at the climax of the scene when he raises up to accuse Willard of being an errand boy, his face moves into full- lighting. The beautiful integration of the composition of the shot with the content of the speech. Brando is constantly using his body gestures to create his character. The cupping of the water in his hands, the patting the water on his head, the clenching of his fist, all are bodily gestures that are perfectly in sync with the dramatic lighting which isolates attention on each key gesture. All of this creates the sense of Kurtz as a sick man. Finally, the most important aspect of the scene is the content of Kurtz's speech. It is a key speech in establishing the character of Kurtz. Again, it is a reversal of expectations. The first thing Kurtz begins talking to Willard about is gardenias along a river in Ohio: "All wild and overgrown now, but about five miles you'd think that heaven just fell on the earth in the form of gardenias." What? This kind of statement is the last thing one would expect from the so- called insane killing- machine who the General. And that's the point. This speech indicates that Colonel is a sensitive, perceptive man with a poet's command of language. Remember that the Photojournalist called him the "poet- warrior" who enlarged his mind. Willard and the Photojournalist. I have discussed the significance of this scene in The Role of the Photojournalist. The point I want to make here is about its plot function. This is the key moment which sets up the following action scenes. By means of the Photojournalist, Coppola introduces the idea that there will be a complete reversal of expected meanings. Willard's Mission will be redefined. Kurtz, Willard and Chef. This brief scene without any dialogue has several functions. It does indicate that Kurtz is insane. But it also indicates that he is ruthlessly consistent in his clarity about what he needs to do. Chef would have soon called in the bombers, so he needed to be eliminated. Finally, Coppola couldn't resist a dramatic homage to The Godfather. The Hollow Men". What is the point of this scene of Kurtz reciting T. S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men?" It serves the same function as the Gardenia speech: reversal of expectations. Kurtz is reading poetry in the midst of this savage war. And the kind of poetry he reads is extremely important because it reveals his character. Coppola adds another level of complexity in relationship to Heart of Darkness. Kurtz also reads poetry to the Russian who was mesmerized by Kurtz' eloquence. But the poetry Kurtz reads is very different from the poetry Colonel Kurtz reads. The distinction is crucial in understanding how fundamentally different the two Kurtzs turn out to be. Conrad's Kurtz reads love poetry and his own poetry. We never hear any of it but we can imagine the kind that is consistent with his character: romantic poety full of high sounding but empty phrases. Remember Marlow points out that Kurtz is blind to the emptiness of his beautiful rhetoric about bringing enlightenment and civilization to the savage Africans. Kurtz is "hollow at the core." So imagine the kind of poetry he reads. Colonel Kurtz reads a different kind of poetry. We know that he read T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. F. Prufrock" and Rudyard Kipling's "If" to the Photojournalist. And in this scene he reads the first stanza of "The Hollow Men." As the title and the first stanza indicate, the poem is a withering indictment of the moral emptiness of the modern world: the empty heads and the empty speech. So what kind of a man reads these kinds of poems? A man who has self- awareness and an acute sense of the ironies and contradictions of the world. Certainly not the Kurtz of Heart of Darkness. The final bit of cleverness that Coppola adds to the scene is a nice in- joke for anyone who has read the Eliot poem. The poem is Eliot's meditation on Heart of Darkness. The epigraph to the poem is a line from the novella: "Mistah Kurtz he dead." The fundamental image of the poem- -hollow men- -is taken from Marlow's words: Kurtz was "hollow at the core." Coppola has his Kurtz reading the poem about Conrad's Kurtz. Willard's Reflection Scene. This brief scene is a key scene for setting up the subsequent action. Coppola uses reaction- shots and pov shots combined with the voice- over to create a sense of Willard struggling to decide what to do. The three pov shots are very important because they show important details about Colonel Kurtz that establish his character. The first pov shows Kurtz's uniform and slowly tilts down to reveal his name tag. The detail established Kurtz as the Colonel. Also that Kurtz is not wearing his uniform, which signals his having gotten off the boat. Dramatic Monologue for Men - Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now. I’ve seen horrors, horrors that you’ve seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that, but you have no right to judge me. It’s impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face. And you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies. I remember when I was with Special Forces, seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate the children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for Polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn’t see. We went back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile, a pile of little arms. And I remember, I, I, I cried, I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized, like I was shot, like I was shot with a diamond, a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought, my God, the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not monsters. These were men, trained cadres, these men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love, but they had the strength, the strength, to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. 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. Sad Monologues for Men. In this sas monologue, Bob Johnson, an American GI in the British countryside of Canterbury, laments the fact that he hasn't received a letter from his girlfriend in 7 months.
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