Sydney Liles
Tomasulo talks about the anti-war and pro-war qualities of Apocalypse Now. Also he seems to focus in on Kurtz and Willard. While there is pro-war qualties to this film with Willard acting how he is trained and seeming more normal in his role overseas then when he is in the apartment back in the states, this film seems to be more focused on anti-war issues. Wihen Willard is home he is crazy. He says that when he was one place he wanted to be the other, which seemed fairly evident in this film, though he seemed to want to be overseas more then America. When they came in on the helicopters, the Captain in charge there wanted people to surf while they were being bombed. He seems to have also lost some sanity with the surfing and also when he is just walking while everyone else is ducking with incoming bombs.
Speaking of surfers, there is the one on the boat who seems to me to be the one losing it the most. He sits on the front of the boat doing his war paint different ways so that he blends in. He is on a boat and is in a situation where this is not quite a concern. Then when he gets the dog he continually brings it wherever he goes, including the war ground. When he is on the war ground he gets out of the trench, which made me think of All Quiet on the Western Front, where the lead character stands up in the end and dies. It seemed like at this point he had just no concern if he died. Later when they were attacked on the boat, someone dies and all he has to say is we have to go back and get the dog. And in the final part he becomes part of Kurtz army until Willard takes him away.
Kurtz is pyschotic as Tomasulo points out. All I could think about during this and most of the quest was Heart of Darkness. This character is someone who has gone slightly mental and has a following as he does it. This seems pretty strongly anti-war, in the sense that this movie illustrates what war does to people in different situations at different stages in their careers.