Although the crisis of twentieth-century modernity has been articulated in numerous iterations, it is reasonable to position Nietzsche as its harbinger. His intellectual assault on Western tradition, including targets ranging from Platonic ideals to Christian morality, represented a seismic transformation in post-Enlightenment Europe. As Carl Jung wrote, “When Nietzsche said, ‘God is dead’…People were influenced by it not because he said so, but because it stated a widespread psychological fact” (247). In the wake of Nietzsche’s diagnosis, modernists wrestled with the existential implications of such an idea. Probing the resultant vacuum of meaning, writers and artists explored what it might mean to be human in the burgeoning century.

This evaluation of a Godless human identity was also complicated by the collapse of the Enlightenment dream. Manifested at its zenith in two global conflicts, the capacity for pure reason to guide society was shown to be catastrophically limited. Despite its many contributions, the Enlightenment included the cold logic of the machine gun, a trajectory in which atomic weapons would soon follow. Modernists were attuned to this failure. As the polemicist G.K. Chesterton wrote, “The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason” (32). In this twilight of reason, there was simultaneously, to appropriate Nietzsche, a twilight of the idols. Growing secularization combined with the failures of the Enlightenment, leaving the individual stranded, seemingly without reason or faith. Modernism manifested this existential terror in visions of apocalypse, embodied in such works as Picasso’s visceral Guernica. In this trend of existential art, many modernists resuscitated mythological themes and images, adapting them to their own times. As Judith Bernstock writes, “[modernists] tended to be less concerned with illustrating literally the narrative contents of myth, than with interpreting them symbolically in accordance with their personal experiences” (153). This turn toward mythology searched for the human soul within the conflict of the century.   

In this essay, I will suggest that Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now is attuned to this crisis of modernity. This connection between the film and the broader milieu has already been suggested by Michael Maslowski, who performed a close analysis of Apocalypse Now alongside Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Maslowski situates Conrad’s influence within a larger literary context that wrestled with “the crisis of post-Darwinian and post-Nietzschean era marked by inner emptiness” (196). Moving from Conrad to Coppola to the present, he presents a persisting philosophical exigence: “Coppola also posed a question which, after September 11, 2001, has become our own – the Question concerning the Evil of Modernity” (196). Approaching Apocalypse Now from a similar critical background, I will argue that Coppola, through the character of Kurtz, ultimately critiques Nietzsche’s answer to modernity’s crisis, displaying the impossibility of apotheosis. I will specifically trace Kurtz’s development alongside the transformation described in Nietzsche’s “Three Metamorphoses.” After establishing the appropriateness of this comparison, I will further explore the nature of Kurtz’s insanity, arguing that it ultimately communicates a deep psychological split. Extending Carl Jung’s criticism of Nietzsche, I will explain how Kurtz’s final state reflects the impossibility of Nietzsche’s answer to his self-proclaimed crisis.  

My analysis incorporates both psychology and philosophy, offering a multi-dimensional perspective on Coppola’s film. This interpretation is largely modeled after Garry L. Hagberg’s insightful article “Apocalypse Within: The War Epic as Crisis of Self Identity,” in which he uses a “progression of philosophical thought” to trace Willard’s journey toward self-knowledge (207). Furthermore, Hagberg discusses the split between Kurtz’s projected and actual beliefs. He posits that there is a “great gulf separating what Kurtz says he is from what he is. His self-description is a veil” (232). While I desire to continue alongside Hagberg’s theoretical lens, my argument presents a counter interpretation of Kurtz. Rather than describing him as insincere, I will argue that his sincerity and philosophical consistency produce his tortured psyche. I will interpret Kurtz as the embodiment of the Nietzschean übermensch.

The use of Nietzsche in conversation with Apocalypse Now is not entirely novel. Nidesh Lawtoo, in his book The Phantom of the Ego, brings Nietzsche’s theory of mimesis into conversation with the film. Furthermore, Coppola’s use of Conrad invites a Nietzschean lens. In “What Silenus Knew: Conrad’s Uneasy Debt to Nietzsche,” George Butte writes, “It is not speculation that Conrad knew of Nietzsche and disliked what he knew or had heard, but the specific historical connections have been elusive” (155). While Conrad’s critical attitude toward Nietzsche does not establish Coppola’s interest in similar ideas, it certainly invites the possibility. At any rate, Butte’s scholarship on a “Nietzschean trace in [Conrad’s] The Secret Agent” establishes, by Coppola’s appropriation of Heart of Darkness, the rationale for a Nietzschean trace in Apocalypse Now.

In focusing on this “Nietzschean trace” (Butte),  I am adopting a specific approach to adaptation. I consider how the film adapts a philosophical discourse, rather than how it adapts characters or narratives. This broadened (and more abstract) concern embraces a view of adaptation which is metatextual. In his renowned Palimpsests, Gérard Genette coined metatextuality as the third mode of transtextuality. This type of relation occurs when a text refers to another “without necessarily citing it (without summoning it), in fact sometimes without even naming it” (4). In the character of Kurtz, we encounter an instance of metatextuality, in which Nietzschean ideas are voiced without being named. Furthermore, Coppola ultimately critiques Nietzsche, fulfilling Genette’s comment that metatextuality is the “critical relationship par excellence” (4). Given that this metatextual approach is indirect, my discussion will not focus on a specific source text, neither Heart of Darkness nor Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Instead, I will emphasize the remarkable resonance between Kurtz and Nietzsche’s philosophy, as expressed in the latter’s famous metamorphoses.

Nietzsche’s metamorphoses, positioned near the beginning of his enigmatic and parabolic Thus Spoke Zarathustra, begins the section “Zarathustra’s Speeches.” Occurring after the prologue, the first section marks the beginning of the prophet’s sermons. No doubt parodying the Sermon on the Mount, Nietzsche begins the section, “I tell you of three metamorphoses” (25). These opening lines mirror Jesus’s often repeated formulation, “You have heard that it was said…but I say to you” (Matthew 5:27 ESV). The parallel with Jesus is an important aspect of Nietzsche’s intention: Zarathustra is the surrogate for a new belief system, one that would replace Christianity and, to a broader degree, the entire Western tradition of metaphysics. However, in regard to our concerns, the resonance with the Sermon on the Mount is an important feature because it invokes orthodoxy. One could approach the Sermon on the Mount as a type of catechism, establishing central, orthodox truths of Christianity. Similarly, we can approach Nietzsche’s section on the metamorphoses as a doctrinal framework for his ideas. Zarathustra is the prophet of the Nietzschean ideal.

Even before tracing the metamorphoses, we can notice that Kurtz embodies a similar role. He resides in a temple and amasses a congregation of devoted disciples. Colonel Lucas describes his followers as a congregation “that worship the man like a god.” The photojournalist acts as his John the Baptist, a voice proclaiming in the wilderness: “I’m a little man. I’m a little man. He’s a great man.” Later in this essay, I will specifically explore the nature of this apotheosis. However, before that analysis, it is helpful to mark the broad artistic strokes that Coppola provides, outlining Kurtz as a religious figure.

The first metamorphosis is the transformation of the spirit into a camel. Nietzsche writes, “The strong reverent spirit…demands the difficult and the most difficult…so asks the spirit that would bear much; then it kneels down like a camel wanting to be well laden” (25). The spirit’s  first movement expresses the primal desire to “rejoice in my strength” (25). Another way to conceive of this idea is to consider the ambition of youth, an ambition to work, accomplish and achieve. We recognize this ambition in the young Kurtz. He is zealous for his profession, excelling at his craft: “Third generation West Point, top of his class, Korea, Airborne, about a thousand decorations.” Kurtz is the embodiment of Romantic ideals: honor, glory, and bravery. He is the Tennysonian zenith, draped in idealized valor and charging into the “valley of Death” (1).  Coppola clearly uses Kurtz’s impressive credentials to establish him the ideal American warrior. General Corman also emphasizes this status: “Kurtz was one of the most outstanding officers this country’s ever produced. He was brilliant. He was outstanding in every way.” The General, speaking as a synecdoche for America, identifies Kurtz as the pinnacle of American soldiery. In regard to the metamorphosis, Kurtz is the ideal camel, able to carry the burdens of the state and society.

Yet, the human spirit, while orientated toward great accomplishment, unknowingly becomes a slave to responsibility. In the parable, Nietzsche describes the different burdens that the camel must carry. Among the list is the exhortation “to love those who despise us, and give one’s hand to the ghost when it is going to frighten us” (25). Here, we can observe Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity. He presents Jesus’ “love your enemies” as an incomprehensible burden (Mat. 5:44). This critique characterizes Nietzsche’s broader attack on Christianity as the glorification of weakness. I emphasize this particular burden because Christianity is a helpful representative for the camel’s larger cargo. In Nietzsche’s metaphor, the camel is dominated by the weight of social convention. One could interpret this convention as the imposition of the Freudian super-ego, oppressing the individual spirit under the weight of the collective. In this case, Christianity becomes a representative for the broader cultural imposition of Europe. As a consequence, “like the camel, which, when laden, hastens into the desert, so hastens the spirit into its wilderness” (25). When the spirit conforms to society, it is cast into a wilderness of the soul, a place where life is suffocated. Following this movement, we can observe Kurtz’s physical journey into Vietnam. It is his service to his country that propels him into the battlefield, into the jungle. Here, the weight of the super-ego becomes too much to bear. In this wilderness, the second metamorphosis occurs.

After toiling under a sundry of burdens, “the spirit becomes a lion who would conquer his freedom and be master in his own desert” (25). The second metamorphosis liberates the spirit from social convention. It is specifically orientated toward individual self-determination and mastery. The transformation from camel to lion is a fundamental change in nature and species. The spirit becomes a predator. Likewise, while in Vietnam, Kurtz quite literally embodies the violence of a predator. He hunts the enemy; he is a lion prowling in the jungle. Yet, the lion’s main opponent is not a physical enemy. Rather, in order to achieve a “final victory,” the lion must defeat “the great dragon” (25). Nietzsche writes, “Who is the great dragon whom the spirit will no longer call lord or god? ‘Thou shalt,’ is the name of the great dragon” (25). In order for the spirit to be its own master, it must defy the commandment of others. Regarding the Biblical allusion, it must defy the commandments of God. The spirit must not be obedient.

We can fundamentally interpret Kurtz’s apostasy as challenging the great dragon. In an intercepted letter to his son, he writes, “I am beyond their timid, lying morality, and so I am beyond caring.” Here, we see Kurtz deny the “thou shalt” of military command. Furthermore, his direct insubordination mirrors his broader insubordination to Western morality. He is “beyond” their shriveled convention. It is worth emphasizing two other attributes of his letter. First, we must give attention to the use of the term “beyond.” A few pages before the Metamorphoses, Zarathustra states, “I teach you the übermensch. Man is something that shall be overcome” (9). The title übermensch “means ‘superman’: it has sometimes been translated - literally, if inaccurately - as ‘overman.’” (284). The idea of Nietzsche’s übermensch connotes a movement beyond the current state of humanity. This new human would be something that is beyond, over, supra-human. In another section, Zarathustra says that he must “go under” (7). The literal translation of the German is “perishing,” which Martin connects to Hegel’s aufhebung, the ending of one stage and the birth of another (283). This rebirth likewise communicates the idea that humanity must be surpassed. The spirit must be born again as an entirely new species (i.e. the metamorphoses). In Kurtz’s comment, we hear the language of beyond. This language is further ratified by General Corman’s description: “[Kurtz is] totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct.” Kurtz, from his own perspective and from that of society’s, has moved beyond the old morality, becoming an übermensch in relation to American culture.

Secondly, it is worth noting Kurtz’s condemnation of hypocrisy. This accusation was a fundamental aspect of Nietzsche’s criticism of Christianity. He quipped, “at bottom there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross…’The Christian’ – he who for two thousand years has passed as a Christian -  is simply a psychological self-delusion” (The Antichrist 111-112). In his letter, Kurtz challenges the allegations of murder that the Army leveled against him. Kurtz had circumvented his authorities and executed two security threats, an action resonant of a newly minted lion. He is astonished at their reprimand: “The charges are unjustified. They are in fact, and in the circumstances of this conflict, quite completely insane.” How could the same leaders who applauded and encouraged his military effectiveness rebuke the execution of double agents? Kurtz’s bewilderment expresses his position: his actions follow the logic of war. To hold a contradictory viewpoint would be, to Kurtz, insanity: “what do you call it when the assassins accuse the assassin?” The answer to his rhetorical questions is, of course, hypocrisy. Throughout the film, the Colonel clearly views his position as non-hypocritical. He is dedicated to transparency with his own actions and thoughts. As he breaks with the morality of military command, he moves toward a final transformation.  

To understand the last metamorphosis, we must further understand the dragon. In the parable, Zarathustra gives voice to the beast: “All value has long been created, and I am all created value. Truly, there shall be no more ‘I will’” (26). The necessity of the lion is to “create freedom for oneself, and give a sacred ‘no’ even to duty” (26). The lion stage is necessary to defy the dragon and its values. Likewise, we see Kurtz quite literally reject his duty. Through his defiance of command, Kurtz defies all submission; he establishes the “I will.” We can chart this defiance over time. In Operation Archangel, Kurtz just “thought it up and did it.” He defied the chain of command and almost lost his position. Later, in the execution of the spies, Kurtz is once again defiant. As Colonel Lucas says, “he took matters into his own hands.” Both of these instances precede his ultimate rejection of the dragon, when he, as Willard says, “split from the whole f---ing program.” Kurtz slays the dragon that he once served; he “steal[s] his freedom from his love” (Thus Spoke Zarathustra 26). This action reverses a world of values, trading prestige under the dragon for complete personal autonomy: “he could have gone for general, but he went for himself instead.” In regard to the metamorphoses, the lion removes the barrier that prevents ultimate self-determination; however, “to create new values - that, even the lion cannot accomplish” (26). We need another transformation.   

The last metamorphosis is quite unexpected: the lion becomes a child. Zarathustra announces, “The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a self-propelled wheel, a first movement, a sacred Yes-saying” (26). The child accomplishes what the lion cannot; the child represents the potential to create new values. This was Nietzsche’s answer to the problem of nihilism, which we will take up momentarily. In the vacuum of the transcendent, he offers the prospect of “Yes-saying,” an unbridled affirmation of life. In this “game of creating,” the spirit can slay the dragon and enact its own will: “the spirit now wills his own will, and he who had been the world’s outcast now conquers his own world” (26).

This final transformation solidifies Kurtz as the manifestation of the metamorphoses. When Willard finally arrives at the compound, the “outcast” has created “his own world.” Kurtz, after defying authority and morality, sets up a kingdom (see Figure 1). He quite literally makes a “new beginning.” Furthermore, his kingdom is full of children. As the photojournalist tells Willard, “out here, we’re all his children.” Following Maslowski’s observation, the compound embodies the Doors’ opening lyrics: “all the children are insane” (qtd. 209). The Cambodian kingdom represents a new world where the dragon of “thou shalt” has no jurisdiction. Only the most powerful can establish the society’s “thou shalt.” The governing mechanism is no longer morality but the will to power. This helps explain Kurtz’s condemnation of judgement: “But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that. But you have no right to judge me.” Kurtz initially sees Willard as a representative of the dragon, creeping into his Kingdom. He acknowledges the right to “kill,” to exercise the will to power. However, judgment, which would invoke morality, has no place: “Because it’s judgement that defeats us.”

Kurtz’s expression of the will to power, both in his action and speech, continues to establish his übermensch identity. Kurtz recognizes that in a meaningless world, the will to power is the only governing concept. In his famous monologue, we hear an anecdote about a group North Vietnamese soldiers that amputate the arms of vaccinated children. Kurtz concludes,

And then I realized…like I was shot…like I was shot with a diamond…a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought, my God, the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure.

This revelation, resembling a religious enlightenment, articulates the logical end of Kurtz’s transformation. He has embraced the supremacy of the will to power. And thus, with an iron hand, he rules the compound. Arguing against interpretations of an ill and dying Kurtz, Maslowski writes, “At any rate physically, Kurtz is doing well: he is massive, frightening, he can cut off a soldier’s head in just one swift movement of his arm” (202). When Willard meets Kurtz, the final metamorphosis is already complete. Kurtz has moved beyond morality, society, and the super-ego. He is the exalted ego, arbitrating the world through the will to power. This is the “real” freedom which he describes to Willard: “Have you ever considered any real freedoms? Freedoms from the opinion of others? Even the opinions of yourself.”

Coppola reinforces the idea that Kurtz is standing for a particular philosophy through his depictions of the Colonel’s monologues. In both conversations between Kurtz and Willard, Coppola uses close-ups to trace Brando’s slow, deliberate delivery. Oscillating between darkness and light, Brando’s physiognomy is striking. When Kurtz states that “horror has a face,” it is his face that transfixes us. Kurtz is the manifestation of horror, one that is specifically Nietzschean.

To understand the nature of this horror we must look beyond Kurtz’s physical condition. As the photojournalist notes, “The man is clear in his mind, but his soul is mad.” I will elaborate on this madness using Jung’s criticism of Nietzsche. In “Psychology and Religion,” Jung writes that “Nietzsche was no atheist, but his God was dead” (245). This evaluation is situated in a broader section in which Jung discusses the relationship between the psyche and religion. Jung describes Nietzsche as a fitting representative of modernity’s psychological crisis. In declaring the death of God, Nietzsche rejected the transcendent; yet, he was perennially drawn to the supra-natural. In a uniquely neo-paganistic manner, Dionysus became the central figure in Nietzsche’s philosophy. Jung argues that, rather than rejecting the idea of God, Nietzsche merely rejected a European image of God. He writes, “…perhaps, we could say with Nietzsche, ‘God is dead.’ Yet, it would be truer to say, ‘He has put off our image, and where shall we find him again?’” (247). According to Jung, Nietzsche’s rejection was misplaced. He was merely knocking down a scarecrow of the divine, albeit a culturally established one. Furthermore, because he attacked a projected image, Nietzsche unconsciously manifested his belief elsewhere. Jung argues that Nietzsche consciously denied God but subconsciously affirmed the divinity he condemned; he identifies Zarathustra as Nietzsche’s repressed spiritual, alter-ego. While denying God, his philosophy was rooted in a neo-paganism that conjectured at the mystical, transcendent limits of human knowledge.

Continuing his analysis, Jung describes the consequences of such a position. He discusses the issue at a broader social level, using Nietzsche as the exemplar. He focuses on an emergent psychological dilemma in post-God Europe, a trap between Scylla and Charybdis. By rejecting the transcendent, humanity enters a new relationship with the world. For Nietzsche, the bedrock of European culture was an illusory world of values. When the madman announces the death of God in The Gay Science, he does not speak in triumph but in existential terror:

What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? ...Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning?...God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. (125)

Nietzsche acutely recognized the dangers that accompany atheism. It is no small thing to slough off a history of transcendent values; the door for nihilism lies asunder. The world of “infinite nothing” is the first danger (Jung 125). This Charybdis is the descent into a world of utter meaninglessness, a resignation that can produce nothing save despair. Yet even despair is but an illusion. In the face of such a whirlpool, Nietzsche, along with a number of consequent existentialists, declares that humanity must create its own meaning. The final metamorphosis announces this aim. Sartre describes a congruent philosophical condition in “Existentialism is a Humanism.” He writes, “There is no human nature since there is no God to conceive of it…man is nothing other than what he makes of himself” (22). The individual must burden the yoke of self-determination, an act that is independent of any transcendent or social mandate. Without the prospect of answers to ontological, teleological, and metaphysical questions, the individual must either extend subjective meaning onto an empty world or slip into nihilism. Nietzsche acutely recognized the colossal task of creating meaning; the enormity of the dilemma required a type of apotheosis. Jung brilliantly describes this conclusion: “The tragedy of Zarathustra is that, because his God died, Nietzsche himself became a god” (245).  

While Nietzsche’s philosophy demands an apotheosis, he is ultimately unable to extricate himself from the human. He cannot occupy the position of the objective deity; he cannot become a god. Lawtoo observes a similar contradiction in Nietzsche’s understanding of mimesis:“Nietzsche turns, once again, from mimetic patient to a physician of culture affected by the disease he attempts to cure” (52). In this case, the disease he attempts to cure is the transcendent “thou shalt.” Jung summarizes the psychological consequences of a post-God Europe: “Inflation and man’s hybris between them have elected to make the ego, in all its ridiculous paltriness, lord of the universe. That was the case with Nietzsche, the uncomprehended portent of a whole epoch” (247). Jung makes the connection between Nietzsche and the broader social inflation of the ego.

This position is untenable. Jung writes, “The individual ego is much too small, its brain is much too feeble, to incorporate all the projections withdrawn from the world. Ego and brain burst asunder…the psychiatrist calls it schizophrenia” (247). A split occurs when philosophical conclusions are affirmed in contradiction with psychological possibility. In Jung’s perspective, the individual ego cannot shoulder the necessary burden of apotheosis. This is the corresponding Scylla to the Charybdis of nihilism. Torn between its aspirations and embodiment, the psyche undergoes an internal fissure.

In Apocalypse Now, Kurtz embodies this psychic split. Attempting apotheosis, he exalts himself as the god of the compound. As Valentine writes of his insanity, “Kurtz has gone insane, is Father, is God, those in the compound seeing themselves as his children” (354-355). However, there is a contradiction between his perceived god-status and the limits of his human frame. Rather than rejecting his belief in apotheosis or falling into the hypocrisy that he abhors, Kurtz continues to affirm his philosophy. He is ruthlessly consistent. The striking metaphor of the snail communicates his conflicting position: “I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That’s my dream. It’s my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor…and surviving.” On one hand, he cannot relinquish his apotheosis; on the other hand, he cannot affirm his humanity. The result is the excruciating life on the blade of contradiction. Kurtz’s insanity is the “schizophrenia” that Jung describes. 

If Kurtz embodies the Nietzschean ideal, Willard becomes the representative of modernity. As Hagberg notes, the captain undergoes a journey toward self-knowledge. Willard’s introspection is a modernist reevaluation of the human identity, a struggle that is communicated in the first few minutes of the film. The first sequence with Willard depicts a man on the brink of self-destruction. He is physically, intellectually, and spiritually searching for answers, flirting dangerously with nihilism. Coppola’s mise-en-scène communicates Willard’s condition in multiple ways. First, Willard is trapped in a small hotel room and isolated from the world. He is neither at home in the United States nor truly in Saigon. He is separated from the city, glimpsing Saigon through the window shades. Furthermore, Walter Murch’s iconic sound design, blending the helicopter blades with the ceiling fan, bespeaks this liminality; he is neither in the hotel nor the battlefield. Murch described the “synthesized blade sound” as having a “dream-like quality” (see Figure 2) (Sragow). This dreamscape not only envelopes Willard in an indeterminate space, but it also brings the viewer into his liminality. Murch noted this effect: “the helicopter sound is part of what makes you identify with Willard -- it subjectivizes your experience, so it's not just an impressive technical sound, it's got a psychic dimension that is very deep” (Sragow). In adopting this psychic position, the viewer’s subjectivity is aligned with Willard’s crisis.

Second, Coppola draws our attention to the pistol that is under Willard’s pillow. The use of this image, combined with the paraphernalia of substance abuse, signals the potential of suicide. Coppola depicts a motionless Willard, lying on his bed as if in a coffin. Furthermore, a fly buzzes around him, perhaps mistaking the captain for a corpse. He is decomposing; or, as he says, “getting softer.” Willard’s condition articulates both a physical and psychological death. Finally, Willard’s nudity signals a type of new birth. He is reborn into a world that is without meaning, thrown, as it is, into an existential existence. In this condition, he looks for salvation. He contemplates the possibility that a mission might provide meaning, a resuscitation of his vitality: “I wanted a mission.” His search for Kurtz is a search for meaning and affirmation.

Throughout the hallucinogenic journey, Willard continues to represent the modern viewer, searching for truth in a violent, un-centered world. W.B. Yeats’ apocalyptic poem, “The Second Coming,” becomes an apt description of setting:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer; / Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, / The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere / The ceremony of innocence is drowned; / The best lack all conviction, while the worst / are full of passionate intensity. / Surely some revelation is at hand; / Surely the Second coming is at hand. (89-90)

Willard inhabits the position of Yeats’ narrator, an individual untethered from tradition and the transcendent. In this violent and disorientating condition, Willard looks for “some revelation.” In Greek, apocalypsis means to reveal or uncover. Within the Biblical tradition, the apocalypse is the moment of final revelation, carrying the implications of destruction, judgement, and renewal. However, within Nietzsche’s philosophy, there is no future apocalypse; the only possible apocalypse is the one which reveals the god within. Apotheosis replaces future apocalypsis. Furthermore, the human desire for apotheosis is temporal, occurring in the present. Ipso facto, the apocalypse is now.

As the viewer, we join Willard in his search for this new revelation. However, this journey is not a trek of spiritual ascent, nor does the revelation descend from heaven. Rather, following Dionysus, we descend into Hades. The connection between Nietzsche and Hades establishes the final stage of comparison between Kurtz and the übermensch. Jung mentions that Nietzsche signed many of his later letters as “Zagreus.” In Greek mythology, Zagreus has a complicated history. His independence and fusion with the god Dionysus is a matter of interpretation and context. Sommerstein describes some of the textual variance: “Zagreus was a chthonic god, whom in Egpytians Aeschylus actually identified with Hades; starting with Euripedes…he tends to become partly syncretized with Dionysus” (237). Furthermore, there is uncertainty surrounding whether Kallimachos referred to a “Dionysus-Zagreus” when describing the tale of Dionysus’ dismemberment by the Titans (Gantz 118-119). While the historical genealogy is complicated, I am particularly interested in two attributes of Zagreus. First, I want to follow Jung in combining the Zagreus’ myth of dismemberment with Nietzschean schizophrenia. Second, I am particularly interested in a portion of Aeschylus that describes Zagreus as the son of Hades: “I now bid farewell to Zagreus and his ever-hospitable father” (Sommerstein 237). Considering the connection with Hades, the compound in Apocalypse Now becomes inhabited by a particular mythological radiance.    

As we follow Willard into the jungle, we make a journey into the chthonic world. The Nung River becomes an obvious allusion to the Styx, Lethe, or another river to Hades. Embodying Nietzsche’s alter-ego, Kurtz becomes the prince of Hades, Zagreus. Kurtz rules a people who are physically, morally, and psychologically separated from the outside world. Furthermore, the compound functions as a place of no return. Those who enter are either killed or transformed into a citizen; Captain Richard Colby is an example of the later. When Willard’s crew passes through the barrier of painted bodies, they enter Hades. The canoes engulf them, blocking the passage of return. Here, Willard encounters the figure of the new second coming, a figure that resembles the nightmarish vision of Yeats: “a shape with a lion body and the head of a man, / A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun…[a] rough beast” (90). Kurtz is the face of Zagreus and the beast of this second coming.

As the film progresses, the interesting and substantial correlations between Kurtz and Zagreus continue to solidify. The most striking similarity is the motif of dismemberment. We can interpret Kurtz’s enigmatic death in light of Nietzsche’s philosophy and Jung’s critique. In the last pages of Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche provides a description of the will to life (a Yes-saying):

The will to life, enjoying its own inexhaustibility in the sacrifice of its highest types, - that is what I call Dionysian…Not in order to get rid of terror and pity, not to purify from a dangerous passion by its vehement discharge…but, beyond terror and pity, to realise in fact the eternal delight of becoming, - that delight which even involves itself in the joy of annihilation. (72)

Kurtz, attempting to fulfill the zenith of his metamorphosis, turns to this “eternal delight of becoming.” This delight “involves the joy of annihilation,” which is the final test of his immortality. It’s clear that Kurtz welcomes his own destruction. Willard notes, “Everybody wanted me to do it [kill Kurtz], him most of all.” Why would Kurtz, dominating his kingdom, want Willard to cut him to pieces? One might attribute this desire to Kurtz’s physical condition, interpreting the Colonel’s death as a type of euthanasia. However, I think this interpretation misses the broader significance of the scene. The idea of euthanasia does not reconcile Kurtz’s death with the sacrificial death of the water buffalo. As Willard lifts his machete to deliver the first strike, Coppola cuts to the men slicing the buffalo. They finish the stroke that Willard begins. By juxtaposing these actions, Kurtz becomes equated with the sacrifice. Moreover, even after Willard misses with a few strokes (we see sparks fly), Kurtz does not flee; instead, he stands unmoving like the tethered buffalo. His demise, therefore, is not a moment of weakness; it is his most ardent moment of dedication. He quite literally accepts annihilation, declaring his own “inexhaustibility in the sacrifice of its highest types.” Kurtz’s death is the final manifestation of his psychic schism. Willard describes this: “I’d never seen a man so broken up and ripped apart.” In a moment of final sincerity, Kurtz welcomes physical dismemberment; it is a symbolic declaration: “I am Dionysus; I am Zagreus, king of the dead.” However, the scene of physical destruction reminds the viewer that Kurtz is not, in fact, an indestructible god. Both sides of Kurtz’s schizophrenia collide.

What then is the Colonel’s final horror? Breaking with the fast camera cuts of Willard’s attack, Coppola presents a stationary close-up of Kurtz’s face (see Figure 3). The duration of this shot is much longer than any of the previous shots from the assassination sequence. The camera is positioned on the ground, displaying Kurtz’s side profile, which is splattered with blood. The quality of the light changes. It is no longer the orange glow of the attack; Kurtz is covered in a cold, white light. There are very quiet ringing noises; it is unclear whether they are diegetic or non-diegetic. We rest on Kurtz’s final words as the camera rests on his profile. His final utterance of “the horror” vocalizes the psychic split. We survey the final collision between apotheosis and mortality. We see the psychic dismemberment alongside the physical fact.

It would be a mistake to understand Kurtz’s final words as a statement of regret or remorse. He is not horrified at a mistake; he is horrified at the consequence of his philosophical commitment. He looks his beliefs in the face, affirming them alongside the terrifying reality of their demands. Situated in the broader context of Vietnam, the horrors of war are translated onto his psyche. He recognizes the act of physical annihilation as terrible, yet his philosophy affirms the joy of annihilation. In his unbridled yes-saying, he cannot pass judgement. To pass judgement would require the ability to condemn his actions or the actions of others; yet, in order to morally condemn, one must appeal to a standard of good and evil. This is exactly what Kurtz cannot do. He has surpassed morality, entering into a state of being where he affirms everything, even annihilation. Because he can no longer evaluate life, Kurtz can only describe what he experiences. He can only utter a “horror” that is devoid of content. This is the final hollowness of the Colonel’s philosophy: even his “horror” is empty. This emptiness is glossed by his previous reading from Eliot: “Our dried voices…are hollow and meaningless” (1).

In response to Kurtz’s message, Willard sits in silence. This is the quiet triumph of Apocalypse Now. Willard, once fascinated and infatuated with Kurtz, realizes that this new apocalypse heralds an untenable position. While Kurtz gives an answer to Willard’s existential crisis, his remedy is poisonous. When Willard kills him, he tests the übermensch, a moment of uncertainty. Will the great beast continue to triumph even in sacrifice? The film’s answer is a resounding, albeit silent, no. Willard recognizes the futility of Kurtz’s sacrifice. After the assassination, he stands in the Colonel’s former position of authority, overlooking the crowd (see Figure 4). However, when the congregation pledges a new allegiance, he rejects an opportunity to attempt apotheosis. Although Coppola does not provide a resolution to Willard’s opening psychological distress, he certainly delivers Willard from the fate of Kurtz.

Although at prima facie the film ends in quiet despair, Coppola’s message is ultimately hopeful. He maintains the possibility that the modern individual might escape the lure of Kurtz. Although it was not included in the final cut, Coppola did film Kurtz’s compound being destroyed, further solidifying the condemnation. Symbolically, Coppola extends the possibility that the individual might avoid the pitfalls of Nietzschean apotheosis. Furthermore, he establishes a hope for the broader community. When Willard drags Lance along, he rescues him from Hades. A community escapes. In the end, we arrive where Eliot concludes The Waste Land. They return on a river, “with the arid plains behind me” (81). Although it is uncertain where they will go, we can suppose that, for these two, the war is over. Near the opening of the film, we encounter a brief aside from Willard. He narrates, “And when it was over, I’d never want another [mission].” Coppola suggests the finality of Willard’s mission by which we can interpret the finality of the film. Surely, we are left in uncertainty; yet despite the unknown future, Willard has escaped, and Zagreus has fallen.