Apocalypse Now/Ashley Bergman
Apocalypse Now is an overwhelmingly anti-war movie. I was going to write that it is also an anti-American movie but this is not the case as we can see through the portrayal of Willard and most of the men on his boat who are simply trying to fullfill their duties and nothing more or less. Also Kurtz, while portrayed as crazy, is highly-idolized by his minions even though he, too, is an American. More accurately, it is a anti-Vietnam war film which some mistakenly translate to mean anti-American as America was the major force behind the Vietnam war. There is nothing in this entire film that suggests war is a good thing or that America was right to get involved in Vietnam. All we see in the whole film is a lot unnecessary violence, a lot of death, destruction, and people going crazy.
Frank Tomasulo argues that the film is both anti-war and pro-war. He has two major pro-war arguments. He claims the attack at the so-called Charlie's Point was meant to inspire a patriotic, gung-ho response from the viewers. By using overhead cameras to show the Vietnamese as faceless and tiny, Ford shows them as unimportant, Tomasulo argues. Furthermore, the usage of Wagner's "triumphant" "March of the Valkyries" is meant to inspire more patriotism from American viewers. I disagree with Tomasulo on both these points. The music seems to show how Americans trivialize the war. Furthermore, while Coppola was intending to show the Vietnamese as faceless and tiny, he was only doing so to further explain how American soldiers, especially Kilgore, belittled and disregarded the Vietnamese.
As for Tomasulo's second argument, he claims that Kurtz is shown only as a hero and that he is potrayed as correct. While this may be true, we have to consider what has happened to Kurtz. At first Kurtz had an "impressive career", he was being molded into a future general or someone of equal importance, he was a highly valued American soldier. Yet the film focuses on Willard's journey to find and kill Kurtz on a government mission. Clearly, the American government is no longer impressed with Kurtz, the man who is being constantly idolized throughout the film, and wants him gone. Willard even notices at the end just how different Kurtz is from the men who want him dead. Kurtz is idolized because he's not like the rest of the American government, so to argue that this is a pro-war stance is completely off-base: Apocalypse Now is a decidedly anti-war film.