Essay for Technique Statement
Powerful texts are created through complex technical features.
- Use keywords from the statement
- Make your position clear – agree
- Outline of your answer
- One sentence plot summary
This is a practice essay for my end of the years NCEA exam.
Total Words: 1213
Introduction
The Vietnam War Film Apocalypse Now directed by Francis Ford Coppola is a powerful text that delivers his purpose through the use of complex technical features. Captain Willard is a protagonist in this film who is on a mission to assassinate Colonel Kurtz who has gone insane. Through this journey, as Willard travels up the river, the effects of war on its participants are revealed and how war reveals the dark side in ourselves, but Coppola ends the film reminding us we have a choice to reject the dark side in ourselves and reject war as a solution to conflict.
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In the film's powerful opening scene, Coppola uses a complex combination of film techniques to emphasize the psychological damage caused to individuals by war. The scene starts with Willard drunk and unhinged in the Saigon hotel room. Saigon is a place far from the battlefield, and he is waiting for another mission. Coppola skilfully uses complex camera work to show an inverted close up of Willard’s face superimposed over images of burning jungle and battle scenes. This suggests that Willard’s life has been turned upside down by his experiences in war and war has become part of who he is. Coppola combines this camerawork with Willard’s narrative voice over to show how he has been affected by war. “When I was here, I wanted to be there; when I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the jungle. I hardly said a word to my wife, until I said "yes" to a divorce.” We understand how much he has been psychologically damaged by war, how he has tried to return to his civilian life but has been unable to, because he can only think about war. Another complex technique used by Coppola is symbolic action to end the scene. As Willard does a drunken martial art dance, he punches the mirror smashing with his reflection and symbolically destroying himself before collapsing next to his bed covered in blood. This symbolic action is used to show how war has corrupted his mind to a level where he is self-destructive. We can only guess that he driven by remorse or guilt for his actions in war. The intense background music of ‘The End’ by the doors plays throughout the scene adding to the feeling of chaos and insanity. Coppola effectively combines these complex technical features to create a powerful opening to the film with a message to the viewer about how war can damage its participants on a psychological level, and how this damage affects people even after they leave the battlefield. As a society we must know that when we send men to war, they come back damaged, and that we must help them cure the damage as the effects can last a long time.
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In another powerful scene where Coppola again used a complex combination of film techniques to expose how war morally corrupts its participants is the Sampan Massacre scene. In this scene, Captain Willard and his crew encounter a boat full of the civilians. The director uses a complex combination of cinematography, symbolic action, sound, and lighting. Willard tries to prioritize his mission and ignore this family, but the crew started inspecting the boat a woman makes a sudden movement and the agitated crew open fire. Close ups of the crews faces as they gun down the innocent civilians show their hate filled facial expressions suggesting they have lost their humanity. A wounded woman is left alive, and Coppola uses dialogue and symbolic action to underline the moral ambiguity of war. Chef says, “It says in the book…” suggesting the rules of war mean they have to give medical help to the woman but before he finishes, Willard steps forward and executes the woman with a shot to the head saying, “I told you not to stop”. Chef wants to follow the rules of war, Willard justifies murder as a way to prioritise his mission. showing how violent he had become and how morally corrupted he was. This scene ends with the back lighting of Willard sitting on the edge of the boat with a sun setting behind him. As the sun sinks, the use of this back lighting technique shows how the dark side of Willard is slowly taking over him. Coppola masterfully uses these complex technical features to show how war corrupts its participants morally and exposes the dark side in the humanity. This powerful scene has described Coppola's idea effectively on how war can make us do what we would not have done, and we perhaps have dark side in ourselves. We need to be aware as a society that not only war damages us psychologically, physically, but also corrupts us morally.
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In the film's powerful climax and falling action, Coppola again uses a complex combination of film techniques to reveal how war reveals our darkest side of humanity, but we have a choice. In this scene, Willard whose darkest side is indulged completes his mission by butchering Kurtz with a symbolic prop of machete. With the use of contrasting lighting as Willard butchers Kurtz, the viewer is shown how both Willard and Kurtz have allowed their darkest side to indulge as we can barely see them. "The horror, the horror..." This dialogue of Kurtz is used as he dies showing how the word 'horror' was the only thing he could say after everything he has done. After he butchers Kurtz, he is forced to make a decision whether he replaces Kurtz, kill Kurtz's followers or leave the base, through the use of close up and chiaroscuro lighting showing how half of Willard's face is covered in dark shadow, and the other half bright. Willard is holding two symbolic props in this scene, machete that he used to kill Kurtz which symbolise death, violence and destruction and a manuscript symbolising hope, peace, purity, and civilization. He drops the machete in a symbolic action, rejecting the dark side and leaves the base. He also turns off the radio asking for a confirmation of an airstrike to the village, showing how he has learned from what he has experienced and done. With this, Coppola perfectly creates a powerful text through complex technical features showing how war can reveal the dark side in ourselves, but we have a choice, and the choice is to reject that dark side, and reject war as a solution to conflict. As a society, we must reject war as a solution to conflict. As a society, we must remember that there is always another solution to conflict, and violence should never be a way to solve conflict.
Conclusion
In conclusion, director Coppola has masterfully created a very powerful anti-war film through the use of complex technical features, that allow him to deliver his messages about war. The viewer can learn from this film how war can damage psychologically, and physically, corrupt morally and expose the darkest side of humanity, but we have a choice to reject that dark side and reject war as a way to solve conflict. As a society we must question ourselves, if war has such negative effects on its participants, why do we still send people to war and what can we do to help them overcome these effects.