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From: rose@sdcsvax.UUCP (Daniel Rose)
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: Re: Quote (Help!)
Message-ID: <849@sdcsvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 9-May-85 02:33:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcsvax.849
Posted: Thu May  9 02:33:23 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 11-May-85 09:06:50 EDT
References: <5296@tekecs.UUCP> <4182@hlexa.UUCP> <1455@reed.UUCP> <5305@tekecs.UUCP>
Reply-To: rose@sdcsvax.UUCP (Daniel rose)
Distribution: net
Organization: EECS Dept. U.C. San Diego
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In article <5305@tekecs.UUCP> waltt@tekecs.UUCP (Walt Tucker) writes:
>> >I saw the credits to "Apocalypse Now" on tv this week (but
>> >missed part of the movie), and they credited Eliot's "The Hollow Men."
>
>Also notic the strong similarities to Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" 
>(i.e. Kurtz, "the horror, the horror", etc).   Someone said that in one
>of the scenes Kurtz had "Heart of Darkness" on his bookshelf.  I didn't
>catch it myself.
>
>The whole movie seems to be almost an update of "Heart of Darkness".
>The parallels are fascinating.

They're intentional.  Francis Coppola fully intended to make Apocalypse
Now a modern interpretation of Heart of Darkness, with Vietnam
replacing Africa.  The Marlow and Kurtz characters, as well as their
names, are taken directly from Conrad's novella.  My high school
English teacher described the film as the "rape" of the novella.

As far as the T.S. Eliot quote goes, the bizarre connection is this:
At the beginning of Eliot's "The Hollow Men," the quotation "Mistah
Kurtz -- he dead" appears, which itself was taken from Heart of
Darkness.  Coppola, I guess, figured that if Eliot could quote
Conrad, he could stick references to BOTH in the movie.

					Dan Rose
					sdcsvax!rose

P.S.  Despite my snideness, I liked most of the movie.  But that's
a different newsgroup.