Barbarism, Order, and Soldiering

Apocalypse Now critically considers the duty of the soldier, and morality in war. The Nung River, which Willard and his comrades are charged to follow in pursuit of Kurtz, embodies the soldiers’ inescapable road to perdition. Along the way, the boys of the PBR experience the deranged and delusional command of other officers, grotesque violence, the consistent unraveling of order and command, and an unrelenting psychological torment. Throughout this journey, Willard’s mission is called into question both by himself and his comrades: He has trouble reconciling that a highly-decorated American green beret could actually be a legitimate target; Chief questions how any mission could be so valuable as to warrant the danger and torment imposed by the Nung River.

In this regard, the film calls into question the value of orders in the amoral, anarchic landscape of Vietnam. Chief’s character becomes increasingly insubordinate throughout the crew’s journey, to the point of him almost impaling Willard at the time of his death. His insubordination, however, is a consequence of moral character and outrage. The mission ultimately brought about the deaths of three crew members, while the value of its objective was highly ambiguous. Additionally, the film illustrates the corruption of command through characters like Colonel Kilgore, who exercises his power and military might for the sake of cheap thrills and adrenaline. In such a setting, one could easily question whether the god-like Kurtz was the real enemy, or whether the dehumanizing machine of the Vietnam War was in fact more dangerous.

The film calls much attention to the dichotomy between the “good soldier” and the “good man.” Some of the characters retain elements of personhood, such as empathy, fear, play, remorse, and moral judgment. However, Kurtz seems to insist that these qualities make a soldier imperfect. He comments on the naïveté of the young deployed soldiers: “As long as our officers and troops perform tours of duty limited to one year, they will remain dilettantes in war, and tourists in Vietnam.  As long as cold beer, hot food, rock 'n' roll, and all the other amenities remain expected norm, conduct of the war will only gain impotence.” Thus, the perfect soldier may be understood as being devoid of these qualities, and even as subordinating themselves to the laws of violence and nature.

Ironically, this very law of nature precludes the notion of law and order. Kurtz ironically eschews the military chain of command because he finds it contrary to the cultivation of the purest soldiering. Kurtz ultimately becomes one who mythically embodies not just the war, but the landscape. Willard remarks on this parallel: “Even the jungle wanted him dead. And that's who he really who he took his orders from, anyway.” We see the subordination of the soldier to nature also in Lance, who conspicuously is the only crew member to ultimately return with Willard unscathed. Willard also seems to appreciate this doctrine of the wilderness: His final scenes reflect a baptism in which he emerges from the river a creature of war, face painted, and executes Kurtz with a machete in a striking parallel to the ritualistic slaughter of a water buffalo.