3 ms·
Terrible article. Daney is reading all sorts of his own fixations into the movie, and I pretty much tuned out after he started on about homosexuality and Oedipu
by kstenerud 4y ago
Terrible article. Daney is reading all sorts of his own fixations into the movie, and I pretty much tuned out after he started on about homosexuality and Oedipus complexes (he's starting to sound as batty as Freud).
The thing to understand about Apocalypse Now is the environment it was released in. The Vietnam war (and all accompanying photos and footage) was still VERY fresh in the minds of Americans (the audience this movie was intended for), and so it was the perfect setting for a modern adaptation of Heart of Darkness: Far enough away to be exotic, yet familiar enough to show the barbarism and the depths of man's hubris and madness.
- rurban 4y agoExactly. E.g. he criticize the strongest part, the ending, without even knowing the source material. Which also has the strongest part in the ending, "the horror, the horror", and the aftermath, realizing the horrors are us, not them. The typical Vietnam veteran conflict. All the parts he is criticizing are from the source material, and he doesn't even acknowledges where the film adaption surpasses the master novel. The curious homosexual Oedipus part might come from the fact that Brando was half-known as homosexual, at least to the insiders, and from his fixation that all warriors are homosexual. Well, not really. Esp. not our hero. Maybe historical materialists, such as Daney, invested too much into their Spartanian trauma.