I think we all found the movie Apocalypse Now to be quite entertaining. There were many scenes in the movie that led us to think "wow the movie has dead ringer parts to the story". While some ideas were similar, many aspects of the movie AN were
different from HoD. The main variation I would like to focus on is our relationship and feelings towards "the oppressed". In HoD the reader can feel nothing but pity and sadness for the Africans in the Congo. They are portrayed as shadowy figures who are brutally and ruthlessly worked to the death, if not killed before then. When reading HoD, the reader is allowed to manifest feelings of sadness towards the people. We almost want to save them.
When watching Apocalypse Now, I formed and entirely different opinion towards the "oppressed", if we can even call the Vietnamese in AN oppressed. We can see
the majority of them as victims of war and brutality, but as the US was not physically trying to govern and rule them in AN I do not see them as oppressed. However, As Eric mentioned in his blog, AN may have been a form of Vietnam War propaganda, in which case it would only be logical that we don't relate to the "oppressed" in the way we do in HoD. In the scene where the Vietnamese girl runs in the plaza to throw a grenade in the US chopper, viewers are immediately resentful of the Vietnamese. While this particular scene does not translate into a scene from HoD I think it is still very significant. An important difference between HoD and AN is our feelings and connection to the oppressed. I personally did not relate and want to save the Vietnamese. In HoD I Wanted to see the Congolese freed and yet in AN I wanted to see the Vietnamese lose as much as the US did. As a form of propaganda, and as part of a war film it makes sense that we cannot relate to the Vietnamese, they are intended to be the enemy. But I think it is important to realize that AN is missing the key component of compassion towards the "oppressed" that really drew us into the book HoD.
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