As I previously mentioned in piece that featured The Ring, the J-Horror Remake genre became a hit in the early 2000's, which stemmed from the success of a parent film, Another horror sub-genre followed the same path, the "Found Footage" genre. Being pretty self explanatory, this genre shows films that appeared to be filmed on a handheld camera, during the events of the movie, and being filmed by a character in the movie, as if to appear that the footage was filmed, lost, and then found and displayed.
The parent film of this genre is often considered, though not technically the first to use this technique, The Blair Witch Project. Following three students filming a documentary in Maryland countryside, over the urban legend of a local witch. After interviewing several locals, the students venture out to get footage of the woods where the witch is supposed to inhabit. After losing the map, the students are appeared to be stalked throughout several nights and end up turning on each other,
What made this film so successful in the Found Footage format is lack of scripted dialogue. The script of this film only included an outline, which left all dialogue to be improvised, which portrayed a very real and natural dialogue in the film, which contributed greatly to viewer immersion. The actual harassment of the characters was much more subtle and less direct then that of Alien (which along with The Omen and The Shining are credited as influences, and all films I've covered earlier) with audience getting in sight of the witch.
The second biggest film to come out of this sub-genre was 8 years later, Paranormal Activity. Instead of our protagonists being lost in the woods with a camera, Paranormal is set in the home of a young couple, being filmed by several in-home security cameras that are set up after strange events. With each occurrence becoming worse and worse, the couple begins to question humor of the situation they began with.
Spawning many on-going sequels, Paranormal Activity struck a cord with it's audience by allowing us to see the action as it was going on, but with apparition actually being naked to the eye. This allowed for two things, 1: The viewers imagination was able to run wild, and 2: Related to the audience. Because let's be honest, a lot of people have been sitting at home and a door begins to creak open by itself or something of that nature. This is similar to The Blair Witch's decision to never portray the witch directly but rather play off the viewers imagination, often the most powerful tool for a horror director.
Both these movie do a very good job of what they set out to do, which is to a create a real feeling and looking horror film. Well I personally don't believe either one of these are groundbreaking or terrifying. There is once scene in one of the movies the sent chills down my spine that has never been done before by anything on screen. Watch both of them to find out which one.
Sunday, October 25, 2015
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Monster Movie Madness pt 4: Holy Hell,
Horror films centering around demonic beings are personally some of my favorite. Really well written ones will delve into deep cabalic lore and use atmosphere and tension to create a terrifying film. During the 70's we saw a surge of these occult based movies, often attributed to the success of Rosemary's Baby.
Often the most praised demonic possession movie is The Exorcist. This film follows the attempts of a old, ill-faithed priest and his younger counterpart, along with a mother, to rid 12-year old Regan MacNiel of a demonic possession. After playing with a Ouija board, Regan invites a demon into her home and subsequently her body. After a fatal incident and strange behaviors, Regan's mother, Chris, enlists the help of the Church to perform an exorcism. During the process Regan's humanity begins to tear away as the demon takes control of Regan's body.
The Exorcist was widely known for it's gore at the time, which seems mild in today's climate, and it's use of vulgar language spouting from the a young actress, both of which were to unsettle the audience, and were very effective in doing so. The film also explores the relationship strain the mother of Regan endures during her possession, The film clearly portrays the Chris loves her daughter and her possession is tearing away at her as well. This adds a struggle a lot of viewers can identify with, seeing a loved one be destroyed by something that is beyond there control.
Another movie that is often considered a sister film the The Exorcist is The Omen. Dealing with a slightly different scenario, The Omen follows the story of Damien, a child who is adopted at birth by a couple who had a stillborn child, unbeknownst to the mother. When the child turns of age strange and evil things begin to take place around them, only to become increasingly more life threatening the closer the parents come to finding out the truth that Damien is actually the Antichrist.
The Omen spins a similar but different tale then The Exorcist. Instead of seeing the process of a girl being torn apart from the inside against her will, we see a boy who bestowed unimaginable power and uses it for himself, to the ill of other. The films horror techniques are different are more subtle than that of The Exorcist's, while the use of blood is still in play, it is much less grotesque, and in my opinion creates a better atmosphere. Just like The Exorcist, The Omen plays with the relationship of a loving parent pitted against an malignant child. We see her denial throughout the movie the pain she goes through being forced to choose between her own life and the life of the boy she raised.
Both these films create an excellent portrayal of demonic evil and the terror it would bring on a family. Using different techniques while telling similar tales, these two movies are an essential coupling for the Halloween season.
Another movie that is often considered a sister film the The Exorcist is The Omen. Dealing with a slightly different scenario, The Omen follows the story of Damien, a child who is adopted at birth by a couple who had a stillborn child, unbeknownst to the mother. When the child turns of age strange and evil things begin to take place around them, only to become increasingly more life threatening the closer the parents come to finding out the truth that Damien is actually the Antichrist.
The Omen spins a similar but different tale then The Exorcist. Instead of seeing the process of a girl being torn apart from the inside against her will, we see a boy who bestowed unimaginable power and uses it for himself, to the ill of other. The films horror techniques are different are more subtle than that of The Exorcist's, while the use of blood is still in play, it is much less grotesque, and in my opinion creates a better atmosphere. Just like The Exorcist, The Omen plays with the relationship of a loving parent pitted against an malignant child. We see her denial throughout the movie the pain she goes through being forced to choose between her own life and the life of the boy she raised.
Both these films create an excellent portrayal of demonic evil and the terror it would bring on a family. Using different techniques while telling similar tales, these two movies are an essential coupling for the Halloween season.
Sunday, October 11, 2015
Monster Movie Madness pt 3: Home, Sweet Home
The Haunted House is one of the oldest tropes in the Horror genre, that can be traced back to tales of cursed temples in the ancient world. It has been done so much that it hard to have a haunted house tale that stands out from the rest. You must either have a very competent director, or a very clever marketing to create a success. The two films I will be discussing do exactly those.
Now I know I have mentioned my admiration for Stanley Kubrick on this blog before. And I will readily admit that I tend to be a bit biased towards his films. But I truly believe that he created one of the greatest, and by greatest I mean top 5 of all time, horror movies. I could probably write an entire dissertation over The Shining, and it's pretty much been done before, but for the readers sake and my own needs of sleep tonight, I wont. The Shining takes places in a closed-for-the-winter Hotel in Colorado, where Jack Torrance and his wife and son begin their tenure of being the hotels care takers for the winter. Having a natural psychic ability, Jack's son Danny begins to have ominous visions of the hotel and seeing ghostly figures. Months into the job, Jack's mental state begins to deteriorate as begins to have hallucination and conversations with dead patrons of the hotel. After becoming violent towards Danny and his wife, Wendy, Jack's last bit of sanity leaves as he begins to hunt his family down, all while the hauntings of the hotel become more and more vivid and real.
Kubrick's stunning cinematography and script coupled with Jack Nicholson's performance, portrays the devolution of the human psyche with astonishing subtlety and effectively. This film is riddled with little tid-bits that viewer subconsciously consumes but still feels the weight of. Kubrick uses little jump scares and almost solely relies on atmospheric eeriness and and unsettling imagery to do all the frightening that is needed. If there were truly ever haunted place that sought to destroy its inhabitants, Kubrick captured it flawlessly.
A lot of horror films use the "Based on a true story" tag pretty liberally and it has lost a lot of its weight in today landscape. However in 1979 when The Amityville Horror was the marketing ploy was fairly new and with the recent release of the tell-all novel by the same name, the film grabbed some attention and though a critical failure, it was a commercial hit. The Amityville Horror centers around a family who moves into a house that recently was plagued by a murderous father slaughtering his entire family. Immediately they notice strange phenomena as the house rejects a priest who attempted to bless it, and begins to drive the father into violent obsessive shut-away (sounds familiar right?) As the house haunting continue to get worse and worse, information comes to light about the houses satanic past. After a final terrifying night, the father comes to his senses and the families flee the house for good.
This movie gained a lot of attention for being based on a true story, and then subsequently because it wasn't quite so true. Many of the details were embellished or altered drastically, resulting in several law suits and tainting the movies legacy a bit. However purely from an objective standpoint the movie itself while succumbing to much more generic tropes than The Shining, still manage to produced a truly haunting and malevolent atmosphere. Even though it was a much more traditional haunted house moive, this film conveys cliches well and tastefully, to the point where it's well done enough you don't really mind them, and given it's age you can understand how influential it is to modern day horror films.
Both these films are excellent for different reasons. Though similar in the tale of a house tearing a family apart and driving the patriarch mad, they separate by taking two different routes down the road of conventionality and both ending up and the same destination of well done horror movies.
Now I know I have mentioned my admiration for Stanley Kubrick on this blog before. And I will readily admit that I tend to be a bit biased towards his films. But I truly believe that he created one of the greatest, and by greatest I mean top 5 of all time, horror movies. I could probably write an entire dissertation over The Shining, and it's pretty much been done before, but for the readers sake and my own needs of sleep tonight, I wont. The Shining takes places in a closed-for-the-winter Hotel in Colorado, where Jack Torrance and his wife and son begin their tenure of being the hotels care takers for the winter. Having a natural psychic ability, Jack's son Danny begins to have ominous visions of the hotel and seeing ghostly figures. Months into the job, Jack's mental state begins to deteriorate as begins to have hallucination and conversations with dead patrons of the hotel. After becoming violent towards Danny and his wife, Wendy, Jack's last bit of sanity leaves as he begins to hunt his family down, all while the hauntings of the hotel become more and more vivid and real.
Kubrick's stunning cinematography and script coupled with Jack Nicholson's performance, portrays the devolution of the human psyche with astonishing subtlety and effectively. This film is riddled with little tid-bits that viewer subconsciously consumes but still feels the weight of. Kubrick uses little jump scares and almost solely relies on atmospheric eeriness and and unsettling imagery to do all the frightening that is needed. If there were truly ever haunted place that sought to destroy its inhabitants, Kubrick captured it flawlessly.
A lot of horror films use the "Based on a true story" tag pretty liberally and it has lost a lot of its weight in today landscape. However in 1979 when The Amityville Horror was the marketing ploy was fairly new and with the recent release of the tell-all novel by the same name, the film grabbed some attention and though a critical failure, it was a commercial hit. The Amityville Horror centers around a family who moves into a house that recently was plagued by a murderous father slaughtering his entire family. Immediately they notice strange phenomena as the house rejects a priest who attempted to bless it, and begins to drive the father into violent obsessive shut-away (sounds familiar right?) As the house haunting continue to get worse and worse, information comes to light about the houses satanic past. After a final terrifying night, the father comes to his senses and the families flee the house for good.
This movie gained a lot of attention for being based on a true story, and then subsequently because it wasn't quite so true. Many of the details were embellished or altered drastically, resulting in several law suits and tainting the movies legacy a bit. However purely from an objective standpoint the movie itself while succumbing to much more generic tropes than The Shining, still manage to produced a truly haunting and malevolent atmosphere. Even though it was a much more traditional haunted house moive, this film conveys cliches well and tastefully, to the point where it's well done enough you don't really mind them, and given it's age you can understand how influential it is to modern day horror films.
Both these films are excellent for different reasons. Though similar in the tale of a house tearing a family apart and driving the patriarch mad, they separate by taking two different routes down the road of conventionality and both ending up and the same destination of well done horror movies.
Monster Movie Madness pt 2: Stalker
The idea of being stalked by an unseen predator is on of the most primal fears human beings, dating back to our times as cavemen. This fear is very easy to be used in horror movies by simply shrouding your antagonist in mystery and having them kill characters one by one. Often this gets very formulaic and predictable, but if the director plays it out just right, it can create some very well crafted films.
Currently in the Sci-Fi world, few names hold as high respect as that of Ridley Scott. Not always a Sci-Fi director, Scott's first film, The Duelists, actually won best film at the the 1977 Cannes Film Festival. However inspired by Star Wars, Scott looked to take on an effects heavy film, so he took the job directing Alien. This films takes place on board a futuristic commercial spacecraft headed back to earth, during the trip the crew inspects an alien ship that is broadcasting a strange signal. During the inspection, one crew member is infected with a parasite, causing his stomach to later burst open by an escaping baby alien. From then on the alien feeds and grows, picking crew members one by one in the shadows.
Alien has become one of the most influential SciFi/Horror movies with a lot of credit to Scott's visual talent. However visuals can only take a film so far, without proper tension building, Alien would not of been as much of a success. Scott uses bluff's and long drawn out scenes to continually build up tension on the viewer. With the setting being on their own ship, the crew members own home is being invaded, the place they are supposed to feel safe is where they are now constantly at risk of there life. This creates a constant on edge vibe that reflects back at the audience.
Around the same time, another legendary director was leaving his first boot prints on the scene. In 1978 John Carpenter released Halloween, the influention slasher flick I covered in my last article. In 1982 Carpenter released released his own SciFi/Horror film, The Thing. This film is very similar to Alien (the two often pitted against each other for prominence in the genre), but at the same time stands tall on its own merits. The Thing follows the crew of an Antarctic research base that is infiltrated by a body stealing alien. Starting out in a stray dog the team takes in, the alien quickly begins to makes it's rounds through human bodies. Once the crew figures out that the alien could be inside any of them at any moment, they begin to turn each other, which only works in favor of the alien.
Both directors in these films use location of the antagonist to not only create an edge for it, but inflict a psychological terror as well. Alien's creature is crawling through there, ship, which has been their home for months. They are constantly in the presence of it, and because of the ships many crawlspaces and vents, they have no idea where it could be. This same technique is used in The Thing, but in this Film the alien is inside there literal bodies. They could be standing next to their killer, having a coffee and chat with him, and have no idea, and neither does the viewer. In my opinion this is what makes The Thing such a great film, because Carpenter keeps the audience in the dark, we share the paranoia that the protagonists feel, which forms a connection between the two. Both these films do a wonderful job creating tension that effects the viewers, and that makes them stand out among normal horror films that have something stalking a group of people. Both of these are essential viewings for the Halloween season
Currently in the Sci-Fi world, few names hold as high respect as that of Ridley Scott. Not always a Sci-Fi director, Scott's first film, The Duelists, actually won best film at the the 1977 Cannes Film Festival. However inspired by Star Wars, Scott looked to take on an effects heavy film, so he took the job directing Alien. This films takes place on board a futuristic commercial spacecraft headed back to earth, during the trip the crew inspects an alien ship that is broadcasting a strange signal. During the inspection, one crew member is infected with a parasite, causing his stomach to later burst open by an escaping baby alien. From then on the alien feeds and grows, picking crew members one by one in the shadows.
Alien has become one of the most influential SciFi/Horror movies with a lot of credit to Scott's visual talent. However visuals can only take a film so far, without proper tension building, Alien would not of been as much of a success. Scott uses bluff's and long drawn out scenes to continually build up tension on the viewer. With the setting being on their own ship, the crew members own home is being invaded, the place they are supposed to feel safe is where they are now constantly at risk of there life. This creates a constant on edge vibe that reflects back at the audience.
Around the same time, another legendary director was leaving his first boot prints on the scene. In 1978 John Carpenter released Halloween, the influention slasher flick I covered in my last article. In 1982 Carpenter released released his own SciFi/Horror film, The Thing. This film is very similar to Alien (the two often pitted against each other for prominence in the genre), but at the same time stands tall on its own merits. The Thing follows the crew of an Antarctic research base that is infiltrated by a body stealing alien. Starting out in a stray dog the team takes in, the alien quickly begins to makes it's rounds through human bodies. Once the crew figures out that the alien could be inside any of them at any moment, they begin to turn each other, which only works in favor of the alien.
Both directors in these films use location of the antagonist to not only create an edge for it, but inflict a psychological terror as well. Alien's creature is crawling through there, ship, which has been their home for months. They are constantly in the presence of it, and because of the ships many crawlspaces and vents, they have no idea where it could be. This same technique is used in The Thing, but in this Film the alien is inside there literal bodies. They could be standing next to their killer, having a coffee and chat with him, and have no idea, and neither does the viewer. In my opinion this is what makes The Thing such a great film, because Carpenter keeps the audience in the dark, we share the paranoia that the protagonists feel, which forms a connection between the two. Both these films do a wonderful job creating tension that effects the viewers, and that makes them stand out among normal horror films that have something stalking a group of people. Both of these are essential viewings for the Halloween season
Saturday, October 10, 2015
Monster Movie Madness pt 1: Past Transgressions
In the spirit of October I've decided my next few posts will be centered around iconic horror movies. And specifically the reoccurring and often formulaic themes they tend to have.
A common fear of human beings is the fear of what the future holds, which is rooted from our primal fear of the unknown, not knowing what lies ahead is scary for us, we don't know what to expect, if we don't know what to expect then we can't prepare, and if we can't prepare often we fail. However the two films I will be talking about aren't about the fear of the future, but rather our fear of the past, the fear of what we or did, or in these cases what someone else did, and how they will come back to haunt us.
One of the most played out sub-genres of Horror is the slasher flick. Usually characterized by a lone antagonist slaughtering promiscuous teenagers one by one, only to be temporally handicapped by the last surviving girl and possibly her love interest at the end of the movie, only to return with vengeance in the following sequels. This entire sub genre can be all traced back to arguably the first of it's kind: John Carpenter's Halloween. Set in the quaint little All-American town of Haddonfield, Illinois, Halloween follows the escape of Michael Myers, a criminally insane patient who murdered his older sister when we has 6. After escaping the hospital, Myers begins to stalk local teenage babysitter Laurie Strode. After several dismissing several sighting of Myers, Laurie's friends begin to be methodically killed off. After discovering the bodies of her friends, Laurie faces off with Michael in the final showdown of the film, which afterwards, forever impacting the horror genre, Michael's body seemingly disappears, leaving him open to much more mischief in the following sequels
One of the themes of Halloween could be interpreted as Isolation. We know from an early age Michael was disturbed and disconnected from conventional morality. It is important for children, especially young ones, that they are taught the difference between right and wrong. For whatever reason Michael did not absorb this lesson. To no fault of his own he was severely disillusioned, it was an almost unconscious act when he killed his sister. After being institutionalized he was isolated from the world, he received no love from his doctors, this traumatized him. We know from psychological studies that often childhood trauma places the victim at forever that mental age, stagnating any emotional growth. For this reason Michael never learned not to kill. Even his psychiatrist in the film, Dr. Loomis, expresses his regret for not handling Michael's case more in a more caring manner, he admittedly treated Michael as a puzzle to be fixed, not a human to be cared for. We see his mistakes, as well as the parents, come back to destroy the lives of others, most importantly Michael's.
During the 2000's another horror sub-genre seemed to kick off due to the success of a movie that was the first of it's kind. "J-Horror Remakes" are horror films that were original released in Japan, but were remade for the American market. J-Horror Remake is arguably not a genre by itself, but for the sake of this article it is. In 2002 the Japanese film Ringu was remade and released as The Ring. This films follows a cursed video tape, who's viewers are doomed to day 7 days after they watched it, and it's affect on one woman and her attempt to break the curse. After the death of her niece, Rachel Keller begins to investigate the rumors that her niece had watched the video a week before. Finding her way to the location of the tape, she proceeds to watch it, and is left a cryptic message by phone. Growing concerned, Rachel studies the tape which leads her to a lighthouse, where she recognizes a woman from the video tape in a picture. Research shows her the woman is Anna Morgan, who was a local rancher that commited suicide after her horses mysterious deaths. Following her lead, Rachel tracks down the husband of the late woman. She learns that the girl from the tape is Samara Morgan, the daughter of Anna Morgan. She is informed that Samara had psychic abilities and was responsible for the horse drownings, as well her mothers suicide. After being informed that Samara's father abused her and locked her away. Going another location Rachel recognized from the video, she finds a well and accidentally falls in it, finding the corpse of Samara, and receiving a vision of Anna throwing Samara down the well.
Here we see again the past mistakes of caregivers creating monsters of the present. Samara was a child gifted with extraordinary abilities. However being a child she naturally did not understand how to use them and what to use them for. She began to be seen as a curse by her parents, who treated her like an animal. Scaring Samara, this treatment and abandonment led her becoming an evil anomaly. Treated and cared for properly, she may have been able to do wonderful things with her powers.
Both of these films exemplify our fear of what our past mistakes could do to us, or even other people.
A common fear of human beings is the fear of what the future holds, which is rooted from our primal fear of the unknown, not knowing what lies ahead is scary for us, we don't know what to expect, if we don't know what to expect then we can't prepare, and if we can't prepare often we fail. However the two films I will be talking about aren't about the fear of the future, but rather our fear of the past, the fear of what we or did, or in these cases what someone else did, and how they will come back to haunt us.
One of the most played out sub-genres of Horror is the slasher flick. Usually characterized by a lone antagonist slaughtering promiscuous teenagers one by one, only to be temporally handicapped by the last surviving girl and possibly her love interest at the end of the movie, only to return with vengeance in the following sequels. This entire sub genre can be all traced back to arguably the first of it's kind: John Carpenter's Halloween. Set in the quaint little All-American town of Haddonfield, Illinois, Halloween follows the escape of Michael Myers, a criminally insane patient who murdered his older sister when we has 6. After escaping the hospital, Myers begins to stalk local teenage babysitter Laurie Strode. After several dismissing several sighting of Myers, Laurie's friends begin to be methodically killed off. After discovering the bodies of her friends, Laurie faces off with Michael in the final showdown of the film, which afterwards, forever impacting the horror genre, Michael's body seemingly disappears, leaving him open to much more mischief in the following sequels
One of the themes of Halloween could be interpreted as Isolation. We know from an early age Michael was disturbed and disconnected from conventional morality. It is important for children, especially young ones, that they are taught the difference between right and wrong. For whatever reason Michael did not absorb this lesson. To no fault of his own he was severely disillusioned, it was an almost unconscious act when he killed his sister. After being institutionalized he was isolated from the world, he received no love from his doctors, this traumatized him. We know from psychological studies that often childhood trauma places the victim at forever that mental age, stagnating any emotional growth. For this reason Michael never learned not to kill. Even his psychiatrist in the film, Dr. Loomis, expresses his regret for not handling Michael's case more in a more caring manner, he admittedly treated Michael as a puzzle to be fixed, not a human to be cared for. We see his mistakes, as well as the parents, come back to destroy the lives of others, most importantly Michael's.
During the 2000's another horror sub-genre seemed to kick off due to the success of a movie that was the first of it's kind. "J-Horror Remakes" are horror films that were original released in Japan, but were remade for the American market. J-Horror Remake is arguably not a genre by itself, but for the sake of this article it is. In 2002 the Japanese film Ringu was remade and released as The Ring. This films follows a cursed video tape, who's viewers are doomed to day 7 days after they watched it, and it's affect on one woman and her attempt to break the curse. After the death of her niece, Rachel Keller begins to investigate the rumors that her niece had watched the video a week before. Finding her way to the location of the tape, she proceeds to watch it, and is left a cryptic message by phone. Growing concerned, Rachel studies the tape which leads her to a lighthouse, where she recognizes a woman from the video tape in a picture. Research shows her the woman is Anna Morgan, who was a local rancher that commited suicide after her horses mysterious deaths. Following her lead, Rachel tracks down the husband of the late woman. She learns that the girl from the tape is Samara Morgan, the daughter of Anna Morgan. She is informed that Samara had psychic abilities and was responsible for the horse drownings, as well her mothers suicide. After being informed that Samara's father abused her and locked her away. Going another location Rachel recognized from the video, she finds a well and accidentally falls in it, finding the corpse of Samara, and receiving a vision of Anna throwing Samara down the well.
Here we see again the past mistakes of caregivers creating monsters of the present. Samara was a child gifted with extraordinary abilities. However being a child she naturally did not understand how to use them and what to use them for. She began to be seen as a curse by her parents, who treated her like an animal. Scaring Samara, this treatment and abandonment led her becoming an evil anomaly. Treated and cared for properly, she may have been able to do wonderful things with her powers.
Both of these films exemplify our fear of what our past mistakes could do to us, or even other people.
Thursday, October 8, 2015
The Gloriful Apocalypse
"War. War never changes"
When people think about war they often think of a handful of things that go along with it. Tragedy, Honor, Death, Destruction, Salvation, and Duty to name a few among other. Now I have never been in a war, and I probably never will be. But I like believe I have read and studied enough about it understand the basic emotions and conflicts it elicits. Often during during war the conflict of Duty v Conscious takes place. What your told to do vs what you ought to do. A lot of war movies play on this to the point where it's almost a cliche. But if the trope is done well enough, it can leave a powerful impact on the viewer.
One of the most celebrated war films of the last century is Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. This visually stunning war epic follows Cpt. Benjamin Willard in the Vietnam war as he takes on a mission to hunt down a rouge Colonel who has taken his men to Cambodia. We see from the start that duty is being questioned by a fairly high ranking individual going completely off the grid. Willard is tasked to keep the mission as secret as possible, presumably because the US Govt would like to keep such a high level mutiny off the public radar. During his journey, Willard witnesses many things that cause him to question his own duty, the death of bystanders, deaths of his own men, and the shadiness of the military's own top brass. The film's conclusion resonates the questionable morality that comes with blind duty, but it also reflects the torture and pain soldiers go through when they are simply asked to do their jobs.
Now when I would tell most people I would compare Apocalypse Now to a Stanley Kubrick film, most people would assume it would be Full Metal Jacket, Kubrick's war film that is also set in Vietnam, also one of his most famous. But instead I'd like to use a lesser known Kubrick film and one of his first, Paths of Glory. This film follows the consequences that befall French soldiers during WWI who are, at the command of an eager General seeking quick promotion, tasked into a suicide charge against a well defended German anthill. After heavy losses, some men begin retreat from the battlefield, with one company refusing to leave their trench at all. Condemning them as cowards, their General court martials three soldiers as an example, if they are found guilty the penalty will be death. The soldiers commander, Colonel Dax, is determined to defend them in court, risking his own life as well. In this film we see what happens when a man is pinned against his duty to his higher ups, who this case were not concerned for the well being of their men, and his duty to underlings, his duty as a leader. Even facing his own death, Colonel Dax did not waiver his own duty to protect his soldiers, even against the likes of his own commander. The film also the conflict between duty and one owns self-interest. In some cases obviously one should choose their duty, but Paths of Glory argues that in a situation where the duty being tasked is pointless and is only out of the self-interest of someone else, you are a not a coward for protecting your own life.
Both these films portray a man who is tasked to perform a duty given to him out of self-interest by their commanders. While Apocalypse Now follows the man who does his duty, despite the moral ambiguity, and his own internal conflict with it before and after, it contrasts with Paths of Glory, which shows a man who fails his practical duty of following orders, but maintains his moral duty to protect his men and the consequences he must face from doing so. Both these films are made by two of best American directors that have graced the world of cinema. These two masterpieces are essential to anyone who yearns for a deeper understanding of war and the personal and moral conflicts soldiers must face.
When people think about war they often think of a handful of things that go along with it. Tragedy, Honor, Death, Destruction, Salvation, and Duty to name a few among other. Now I have never been in a war, and I probably never will be. But I like believe I have read and studied enough about it understand the basic emotions and conflicts it elicits. Often during during war the conflict of Duty v Conscious takes place. What your told to do vs what you ought to do. A lot of war movies play on this to the point where it's almost a cliche. But if the trope is done well enough, it can leave a powerful impact on the viewer.
One of the most celebrated war films of the last century is Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. This visually stunning war epic follows Cpt. Benjamin Willard in the Vietnam war as he takes on a mission to hunt down a rouge Colonel who has taken his men to Cambodia. We see from the start that duty is being questioned by a fairly high ranking individual going completely off the grid. Willard is tasked to keep the mission as secret as possible, presumably because the US Govt would like to keep such a high level mutiny off the public radar. During his journey, Willard witnesses many things that cause him to question his own duty, the death of bystanders, deaths of his own men, and the shadiness of the military's own top brass. The film's conclusion resonates the questionable morality that comes with blind duty, but it also reflects the torture and pain soldiers go through when they are simply asked to do their jobs.
Now when I would tell most people I would compare Apocalypse Now to a Stanley Kubrick film, most people would assume it would be Full Metal Jacket, Kubrick's war film that is also set in Vietnam, also one of his most famous. But instead I'd like to use a lesser known Kubrick film and one of his first, Paths of Glory. This film follows the consequences that befall French soldiers during WWI who are, at the command of an eager General seeking quick promotion, tasked into a suicide charge against a well defended German anthill. After heavy losses, some men begin retreat from the battlefield, with one company refusing to leave their trench at all. Condemning them as cowards, their General court martials three soldiers as an example, if they are found guilty the penalty will be death. The soldiers commander, Colonel Dax, is determined to defend them in court, risking his own life as well. In this film we see what happens when a man is pinned against his duty to his higher ups, who this case were not concerned for the well being of their men, and his duty to underlings, his duty as a leader. Even facing his own death, Colonel Dax did not waiver his own duty to protect his soldiers, even against the likes of his own commander. The film also the conflict between duty and one owns self-interest. In some cases obviously one should choose their duty, but Paths of Glory argues that in a situation where the duty being tasked is pointless and is only out of the self-interest of someone else, you are a not a coward for protecting your own life.
Both these films portray a man who is tasked to perform a duty given to him out of self-interest by their commanders. While Apocalypse Now follows the man who does his duty, despite the moral ambiguity, and his own internal conflict with it before and after, it contrasts with Paths of Glory, which shows a man who fails his practical duty of following orders, but maintains his moral duty to protect his men and the consequences he must face from doing so. Both these films are made by two of best American directors that have graced the world of cinema. These two masterpieces are essential to anyone who yearns for a deeper understanding of war and the personal and moral conflicts soldiers must face.
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