An Artistic Recreation

As a British novelist of Polish origin, Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) occupies an important position in the literary world for his special experience, outstanding achievement and artistic features. His Heart of Darkness(1902) remains an indisputably classic text and arguably Conrad's finest work.Many directors have to give up this marvelous novella for the obscure language, the complexity and multi-layered meanings of the novella. Coppola recreates the novella and transforms the African jungles of Conrad's Heart of Darkness into the Vietnamese jungles of Apocalypse Now. The thesis will deal with two pieces of classical art from the perspective of the comparisons between novella and film.This thesis tries to make a comparison in terms of story plot, characterization and thematic concerns. As for plot, the film makes some additions, deletions, and alterations. The narrative of the film changes the third-person narrator of the novella into a voice of the first narrator who recounts his journey by using the disembodied voice of a narrator (voice-over action). While the novella opens with four men on the deck of the Nellie listening to Marlow's tale, the film's opening scene is full of smoke and haze enveloping trees, with the protagonist lying head over heel. The new opening obviously gives audience a sense of depression and fear in this vision of the end of the world. Not unique but as a double, the ending of the film is set in the tone of the smoke, haze and this kind of music. The big difference from the original book is Kurtz is killed by Willard who rescues Lance, the young surfer finally. In the second part, Coppola makes some important changes in terms of characterization. With an introduction of Kilgore, the chef, the black soldier and Lance, the surfer, a small American society on the battlefield is well set up. To some extent Coppola retains the narrative of the novella by using the Willard as a narrator equivalent to Marlow in the novella. Compared with Marlow, a seaman, Willard is a soldier who is forced to return to the battlefield. Willard is an on-looker as well as an operator of the mission. Willard has more painful experience and profound reflections on the irrationality of the war and moral vulnerability for his dual identity in comparison with the onlooker, Marlow. Conrad employs lots of adjectives to make his novella more expressive, which contributes to the presentation of Marlow's great shock and his painful value reassessment during his journey in the African jungle. With the help of film making techniques, Coppola frequently finds more exact cinematic keys to the mood and color of particular scenes in the novella which give them visual and aural density. The shocking pictures in the beginning and the ending are accompanied by the song"The End", producing a great impact on the audience. It seems to be a cruel joke after watching the juxtaposition of Wagner'overture "The Ride of the Valkyries" that accompanies the bombing sequence in Vietnam village. Like the novella, the film uses the black and white as its fundamental colors. The film is especially vivid in its use of pastel smoke such as red, purple, green and yellow. Coppola successfully recreates Conrad's profound reflections on the civilization and human nature in visual forms of multi-audio-visual technique and montage.