How is Colonel Kurtz Presented?

How Is Colonel Kurtz Presented?

 

 

Although,Colonel Kurtz is only appears in "Apocalypse Now" for roughly 35 minutes, Marlon Brando brings the dreaded maniac to life and shows the anchor to the menace that surrounds Captain Willard and his team.

 

Kurtz is portrayed as a psychopath through-out the majority of the film by the classified documents that Captain Willard receives from the Generals back in the base. However we do not meet the dreaded Colonel Kurtz until the last 5 scenes in the film and when we do finally meet him, we only hear the diegetic sound of his voice , then we see the rest of his body but the shadows around him cover his face.

 

When the Colonel appears, the lighting changes drastically and becomes a more dark and sinister tone. Coppola used a range of different camera angles and shots, he uses a low angle shot of Kurtz to present him as powerful and then Coppola uses a high shot of Willard to show how inferior he is.

 

KEY QUOTES:

• "Clear Mind , Clear Soul."
• "Horror has a face."
• "Horror and terrible fear are your friends, if not then they are your mortal enemies."
• "I wept like a Grandmother"
• "Judgement is what defeats us"