Apocalypse Now: Ending scene

 

Apocalypse Now: Ending scene


The ending scene of Apocalypse Now leaves many wondering the meaning behind it. In this ending, Willard slips into Kurtz’s compound and kills him while the Montagnards sacrifice a water buffalo by cutting it into pieces as part of their ritual. Both of these shots are a representation of something inevitable or as something that had to be done, like Willards mission. He then stands before the tribe who seem to accept Willard as their new leader, but he just sails away, silently, and that is when he realises that the Vietnam War is going to continue and that he has done nothing to stop it by killing Kurtz. 

Willard is no hero, he is just a good soldier that is waiting to die and does not feel accomplished until his mission is completed. He kills Kurtz because he was ordered to, but his actions don’t put an end to the Vietnam War so, why should he be considered a hero? The murder of Kurtz has little to no repercussion on the war and through his journey he kills innocent people unnecessarily to not fall behind in his schedule. If anything, he is closer to being considered the “bad guy”. The US army acts as if they were intervening in the war because they want to save innocent people, but at the same time they demonstrate this to not be true when they bomb them, kill them and destroy their homes. 
The tribe also portrays him as a leader after he kills Kurtz, as if he were the rightful heir for the position and powerful enough to take care of them. They seem to be brainwashed into thinking that they need a leader to rule them, specially a killer who would be considered evil in the eyes of many. Willard does not care anymore about anything as he is waiting for someone to take him out his misery once and for all, so at this point his ethics are questioned, ignored and/or non-existent. He is tired and wants to die. Even though he is an assassin, he can’t be considered evil by nature as, during the course of the film Willard’s character shows many times how the trauma affects him negatively, reflected on his sanity, and by the end he is a complete different person. 

If Francis Ford Coppola had decided to use another ending instead, Willard’s image would not have been changed to hero. He still killed innocent people just because he felt like it would put him behind schedule, so even if the ending consisted on him staying with Kurtz to repel the US attack on his compound (where the both would end up dead) he still should not be considered anything near a hero. Instead, he would be taken as a bad soldier that cannot complete the mission of killing Kurtz, making the audience believe that his character is not as tough and intelligent as he had been portrayed through out the whole film, and that would have been a disappointing outcome. 















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