Reading vs listening

When I listened to Heart of Darkness it was a totally different experience that when I read it. I actually felt like I was listening to Marlow telling the story. I even tried listening to it in the dark...very cool, I was really able to relate to how the men in the story must have felt hearing that story in the dark!

Every time I left the classroom after the movie, I felt like I had awoken from a horrible, horrible nightmare. It's phenomenal that a watching a movie could create such strong feelings. Definitely one of the greatest movies I have seen, but way too depressing to see again! The lighting and the music really impressed upon me how evil the war was. Everything they did in Vietnam, at least in the movie, seemed like pointless bloodshed. Everybody was miserable, and nobody was winning. Was that a point the director was trying to make?

Willard

I wonder what happens to Willard once he returns home... does he succumb to his demons? At the start of the movie, has he just returned from a previous assassination? Maybe he hates his life of brutality, but the only cure he knows of is to murder more people. I think Willard just wears his emotions on his sleeve, but to such an extent that he becomes animalistic instead of human at certain points.

Overall Feelings

After seeing all the horror and bizzare things happening throughout the movie, I was left with a feeling of dissapointment at the end of the movie. I feel like there was all this build-up to when Willard would finally kill Kurtz and they would leave, but once it happened Willard and the surfer dude just walked out of the jungle onto their boat and floated away.... It just seemed insufficient to me after all that had happened to them.... Maybe that's the way its supposed to be? Maybe all the sacrifices they made and all the innocent people killed and all the destruction they witnessed was supposed to seem like a waste because of what it got them in the end? Honestly I thought the entire movie was full of absurdities. They should change the name to Absurdity Now!

The chaos of Vietnam is how I imagine Hell to be, and I definitely saw a correlation to Wizard of Oz:

1. Hurtz was the Wizard, who seemed all mighty and powerful when he was just a voice, but once you actually SEE him, its a bit of a letdown and you realize he's weak and only in power because of his words
2. The natives jumping around in the jungle were like the flying monkeys.
3. Willard should be Dorothy except he doesn't want to go home...so I don't know who he is

Shadows

When Willard finally meets Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, I was really annoyed that you couldn't see his face because of all the shadows. But then I got to thinking about how the Coppola wanted to show that Kurtz is a dark character. Pretty cool...

The Dog

This might be terrible, but I felt worse for that cute puppy than for all those Vietnamese people that died in Kilgore's attack. Isn't that ironic and horrible? That I felt more empathy for a dog than for hundreds of people. Am I alone here?
That was a really cute puppy. I looked on the internet, but I couldn't find any backstory about the puppy or even his owner. Too bad.

Weird Music?

All the music in Apocalypse Now is so eerie! And, I think it's very fitting because we know that in all the mess of the Vietnam War, something else is happening. Can evil take shape in music?

The Nature of Evil

Both of the villains we have studied so far have something interesting in common. When Iago's machinations are finally uncovered, we takes a vow of silence and basically disappears form the play. Similarly, when Satan completes his evil mission, he slinks into the bushes and vanishes. What does this say about the nature of evil? Does evil only exist so long as it has a purpose and then fades away?

Confusion

Throughout the poem Satan talks about Hell as a terrible, awful, bad place compared to Heaven. He keeps talking about "how far we've fallen" and how its such a shame that they're not in Heaven anymore. I don't understand how Satan can be happy with what he has done if he keeps complaining about his situation. I figured that because Satan is so evil that he would consider what we consider bad to be good. But strangely my opinion of Hell seems to be his opinion: bad.

Satan and his demons are aware that what they are doing is evil, they even call it evil. I would have thought that evil would become good and good would become evil.

I think Coach Crook, you said something about Hell not being the opposite of Heaven but an inverse of it? Is this what that means? Or is this just Satan knowing what is evil and liking it? Or if not liking it, at least tolerating it.

Satan's Power

Satan's last speech is to Eve, trying to convince her to eat the apple. His first speech was to Beelzebub trying to convince him to never return to God in Heaven. I think this just shows that the only real power that Satan has is his power of deceit and temptation which are both very powerful and very effective. While God has many more powers than Satan has, he doesn't appear to have, or just wouldn't ever use, the power of deceit.

Hell forever

As stated by the Dr. Faustus quotes and some of Paradise Lost, Hell exists everywhere that Heaven is not, and Hell is felt by all those that have been in Heaven once they are all out of Heaven. Does this apply to people who have never been in Heaven before? If so, how do they know what Heaven feels like to have a perspective of what Hell should feel like?

Battle in Heaven

A few days ago, Coach Crook summarized the "fight" in heaven, and how it wasn't technically a battle...so then how do we know that Mammon and Michael are such great warriors if they didn't technically fight?

Revelations

Okay, so I just realized this: the title "Paradise Lost" has a double meaning. It can refer to Satan being thrown out of heaven, and humans being thrown out of Eden. God kicks them out of both, so I guess he is kinda like the great evictor in the sky...

Thoughts

Ok so I was thinking about Satan and his ego issues. Today we talked about why Satan let Beelzebub say the idea and stuff, but I also started thinking about why he had the round table discussion type thing. I don't believe he ever had the intention of using any of the other angels' ideas. He used the appearance of a democracy to make himself seem like the fair leader. He likes to let people talk just so that he can say his idea was better. He did the same thing when Beelzebub asked for volunteers to do the scouting mission. Satan volunteered after a long silence and so he seemed like the best leader. Evil characters are also so manipulative. They know how to lie and cheat and make themselves feel like the coolest kids on the planet.

Also, I was thinking about the Mammon guy. He says he is the strongest and the best angel, so why is he serving Satan? In class, we said that it is because Satan started the rebellion and he needed that leadership, but if he wanted to rise up so badly and he is the strongest, why didn't he start the rebellion?

Is it possible to be both good and evil?