The Wily Filipino

More on Apocalypse Now.

Barbara writes:

i think i am still figuring out the part where eleanor coppola's notes book and hearts of darkness documentary come in (i have yet to read and view these) and examine the irony and even hypocrisy of the movie's making (and intention). ugly americanism on camera and its mirror off camera. that just like marlow and kurtz in heart of darkness, and just like willard and kurtz in apocalypse now, coppola, sheen, brando lose their civilization the longer and farther away they are from their known world. i wonder if these things eclipse the greatness of the movie for me or simply reconfirm the film's message.

I'm not sure whether this was deliberate on John Milius's and Coppola's part -- I doubt it was, considering Coppola's famous words at Cannes ("This film is not about Vietnam. The film is Vietnam," or words to that effect) -- but the absence of Vietnamese in the film somewhat supports your notion, both in the context of the film's narrative and Hollywood / colonialism. Aside from the Vietnamese woman with the puppy, the Vietnamese are essentially disembodied, spectral figures (whether represented as arrows flying out of the jungle green, or as an unseen soldier yelling "Fuck you G.I.!"); this is further reinforced by the appearance of the ghostly and silent Montagnards towards the end.

One could argue that this was a function of the screenplay; Willard, after all, is sent upstream not to deal with the Vietnamese, but to "terminate [Kurtz's] command." But it's an example as well of what Tzvetan Todorov (in The Conquest of America) and Mary Louise Pratt (in Imperial Eyes) have written about before, namely, the absence of "the native" in the colonizer's sweeping gaze.

To Sheen's "credit," I distinctly remember an interview with him in a Christian inspirational magazine called Guideposts (my mom had a gift subscription, in case you were wondering) where he cites his near-fatal heart attack in the Philippines as the reason for his spiritual and political awakening.

Any chance of posting more of that old paper you wrote, Barbara, or are you saving that for a bigger project?

(I can't believe you haven't seen Hearts of Darkness yet, Barbara! It's a great documentary on the creative process (and hubris and a colonialism of sorts, reminiscent of Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo and Les Blank's Burden of Dreams). I should have you over and we can do an AN/HOD doubleheader and do an adobo cook-off -- or forget that and watch all the extras on The Two Towers DVD instead, which Madeline and I haven't seen yet.)

Finally, a couple of hollers to two fellow bloggers who may or may not be reading this:

Jean is obviously the expert on Filipinos and American war flicks; any thoughts, Jean?

And one for Eileen: you wouldn't happen to know Francis and Eleanor personally, would you?

Posted by the wily filipino at December 22, 2003 12:08 AM