Plot and Narrative in Apocalypse Now
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	Narrator: Apocalypse Now is a quest and mystery narrative in which Captain Willard, played by Martin Sheen must find and kill the rebellious Colonel Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando. What is especially complex about this narrative is how Willard's different motivations move his quest forward. On the one hand, his assignment is to exterminate with extreme prejudice a military officer like himself, who was once a decorated hero, but now practices extreme
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	savagery and brutality. On the other hand, Willard's pursuit leads to him learning more about himself and the Vietnam war. And that discovery may not be a happy or easy one. The plot of Apocalypse Now primarily follows a seemingly linear and progressive path. As Willard advances up the river and deeper into the jungle, he is moving closer to his goal of finding Kurtz. But at the same time, Willard's path is a
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	regressive one; it takes him back in time to a more primitive and violent world. The obstacles and events Willard and his crew encounter grow more and more surreal as they travel upstream.
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	Narrator: In one sequence, they join forces with Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore in a helicopter attack of a village, powerfully set to Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries." And even as the battle continues on the beach, we see soldiers surfing in the midst of the attack. The bizarre spectacles continue. Soldiers riot
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	during a USO Playboy/Playmate show. And a bridge that is blown up every night and is futilely rebuilt every day. These unpredictable and improbable incidents not only indicate a world gone awry, they challenge and derail the traditional cause-and-effect logic of a narrative quest.
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	Narrator:  The mostly first-person voiceover narration in Apocalypse Now focuses primarily on what Willard sees and how he feels, strengthening the idea that Willard's exterior quest for Kurtz doubles as an interior quest into himself. The opening sequence makes this overlap brilliantly clear. Images of war and destruction merge with images of Willard's face and his hallucinations. And it is ambiguous as to
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	whether the sounds and images of whirling blades are coming from the helicopter, or from the ceiling fan in Willard's hotel room.
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	Narrator:  At the end of the film, Willard enters Kurtz's chamber and attacks him with a machete. This killing is juxtaposed with a ritual sacrifice of a water buffalo by the villagers. Later, as Willard sails away after completing his mission, the village is blown apart by air strikes. Just as the film begins with Willard's collapse, notably set to the Doors'
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	song, "The End," Willard's termination of Kurtz results not in discovery, but in Apocalypse.
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	Narrator:  The film's narrative discovers, like Kurtz—and perhaps like Willard—that the progressive path of war and conquest is actually a vicious cycle of violence and destruction where the beginning and the end are the same.