Reading "Heart of Darkness" in the Shadow of "Apocalypse Now"

Initial thoughts from one who knew the film before the book

There must be many people, like myself, who read Joseph Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness, after a thorough immersion into the world of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 masterpiece, “Apocalypse Now.” And, if so, that must mean that many others had the experience I recently had of reading that novel while realizing that you had almost no hope of doing so without a running, mental, compare/contrast exercise playing out the whole time. At a certain point, I decided to just keep on and let it play out. So powerful is Coppola’s Vietnam-era recasting of Conrad’s Africa-based novel that I simply could not manage to set it aside while reading the book. But so powerful is Conrad’s world that I really do want to be able to appreciate it out from under the shadow of “Apocalypse Now.” So this post is intended to help me get my own reactions on this score out of the way so that, maybe later on, I can simply read Conrad’s novel divested from such mental exercises.

A few thoughts on the book and the movie in no particular order.

• The tone of both works stand (in my opinion) in harmony: foreboding, pessimistic, philosophically probing, politically cynical, culturally anarchic, and spiritually nihilistic. The book and the movie feel the same to me.

• I could not help but hear the Russian in Kurtz’s camp in Heart of Darkness with the voice of Dennis Hopper from “Apocalypse Now.” I thought Conrad’s depiction of the former and Coppola’s depiction of the latter matched up nicely.

• In their depictions of the native inhabitants of their respective settings (i.e., Africa for Heart of Darkness and Vietnam for “Apocalypse Now”), Heart of Darkness seems to lean heavier into racial considerations. I am always very cautious about referring to this or that book from the past as “racist,” not because I do not think older works can be racist (of course they can be) but because such modern labeling of older works strikes at times as an imposition of modern understandings on older worldviews that discourages readers from engaging works that might have great artistic merit even given their significant blind spots. In other words, some older works are great works that evidence stunted understandings of race but still warrant serious consideration. Other earlier works are clearly intended to be racist and should be seen as such. (This is another topic for another day, but my point would be that there is a difference between, say, the writings of Mark Twain and something like the film “The Birth of a Nation” or The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. I consider the latter two to be racist tripe. I consider Twain to be a great writer of fiction who had some racist views.) As I said, Heart of Darkness seems to reflect more deeply on the racial identity of the inhabitants and to opine on this on a deeper level. Conrad’s handling of this racial dynamic is a topic worthy of consideration. On this point, the great African writer Chinua Achebe is worth hearing. See how he read Heart of Darkness. I found his reflections moving and powerful.

• The figure of Kurtz haunts both Heart of Darkness and “Apocalypse Now,” of course. But Kurtz in Africa certainly seems more frail and broken than Marlon Brando’s Kurtz in Vietnam. (I reminded myself of Coppola’s frustration with Brando showing up to set overweight. In other words, I think Brando was supposed to look much more frail than he did.) So powerful is “Apocalypse Now,” by the way, and so memorable is the collision between Willard and Brando’s Kurtz in the film, that I was genuinely shocked when Marlow got Kurtz on the boat in Heart of Darkness and headed downstream. Also, Marlow’s disdain for Kurtz in Africa seems clearer to me than Willard’s disdain for him in Vietnam, even though Willard kills Kurtz and Marlow does not. What is more, Marlow’s actions after he returns home, particularly in visiting Kurtz’s fiancé, deepen our impression of both Kurtz’s psychic power and his madness. I found Marlow’s encounter with the finacé chilling and pitiful.

• It is hard to say which of these two works is the most powerful. This is subjective, of course, but I think I would have to say Heart of Darkness…and I say that as a big fan of “Apocalypse Now.” That film, again, really captured the spirit of the book. But when Marlon Brando’s Kurtz utters “The horror! The horror!” he really is tipping his cap to the vision that made that amazing film possible: Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

I read Heart of Darkness aloud to my wife, Roni. We both thoroughly enjoyed it. Roni remarked that she liked hearing the flow of the narrator’s words. I did too. There was indeed something haunting in the cadence and tenor of Marlow’s reflections. A truly terrifying and thought-provoking work.