"The Heart of Darkness" and "Apocalypse Now": The Impact of Literature on Cinema

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Should we read classic novels and films?

It begins with reading. . . .

“Heart of Darkness” (1902): Can a Racist Novel Be a Classic?

Joseph Conrad (1857- 1924)

In the novel, he wrote:

“In some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him — all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men.”

I have read it, but it is very racist. . . I read classics because they are part of our history. I used it when I taught a class on Vietnam War film and literature.

Joseph Conrad himself has been criticized by African novelist, Chinua Achebe as being “thoroughgoing racist” in “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” (Massachusetts Review 18, 1977).He contends that the novel promotes racism.

Can a novel that he argues as being racist be considered a classic?

Achebe wrote an essay trying to show how "Heart of Darkness" cannot be a classic with its perpetuation of racism, for it does not see into the true universal qualities of being human.

The protagonist in "Heart of Darkness" becomes saturated with the dark side of the mind as he goes deeper and deeper into Africa and slowing becomes insane.

Achebe argues that the white man begins as a pure being uncontaminated by the dark jungles of the continent and becoming insane as he merges into the heart of Africa.

Thus, the novel associates Darkness/Blackness with Africa and Africans and Whiteness/European with sanity and purity.

Such a stereotyping mind set helped to defend the state of slavery in America in the nineteenth century and colonialism in Africa well into the twentieth century.

Edward Said (1935- 2003), a postcolonial thinker also criticized the book, "Heart of Darkness."

Postcolonial critic Edward Said wrote against the ruler vs. slave binary which shows how the power of intellectual racism dominates Western discourse.

Thus, postcolonial criticism tries to deconstruct such binary opposites as black and white, or good and evil.

“Apocalypse Now” (1978): Coppola Postcolonial Version of “Heart of Darkness”

Can a Cinematic Classic be based on a Racist Novel?

With the release of "Apocalypse Now Redux :(2001) directed by Francis Ford Coppola (1939- ) , can a film that some deem as racist be considered a classic?

Here the tenets of Postcolonialism are tested. Based on Joseph Conrad’s classic work: "Heart of Darkness: (1902), Coppola resets the novel in Vietnam.

“Tropic Thunder” (2008), a parody with Blackfacing, which is considered racist.

Ben Stiller’s "Tropic Thunder" (2008), a successful parody of “Apocalypse Now,” deconstructs such tenets found in . You even have a charcter in the film Blackfacing.

Can the same thing be said about the film based on the work?

In "Apocalypse Now," Captain Willard, played by Martin Sheen, must execute Colonel Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando. To some, the film is racist because in one sense the Asian essence represented becomes the metaphors for darkness that has caused the White Kurtz to go crazy.

The Asian Other is really left undefined; thus, ignorance is a strong site for racism to thrive.

The film perpetuates the mystic of the Orient that allows Westerners to continue to not see Asians for what they are instead of the myths and lies that such works create.

Kurtz is a god-like figure, ruling over his mostly Asian subjects.

Here we have the ruler vs. slave binary that critic Edward Said wrote against, showing colonial aspect of the war.

Postcolonial criticism tries to deconstruct such binary opposites as Black and White, or East and West.

Thank you so much.

I had a chance to visit Vietnam, and it was one of the best trips ever went on, for it is one of the most beautiful countries in the world.

Where have you traveled?