In Apocalypse Now, The insane actions of Commander Kurtz, serve to show the viewer how sane he actually is. In the short period of time that Kurtz appears in the movie, we are easily given at least three examples of his insane action. The first is when he makes his decision of which town to attack to gain access to the river. The second is his choice of attack methods, and the fear devices that he uses against the enemy. The last is his idea of recreation, which happens to take place in the middle of a battle.

When Willard first arrives at the town in which Kurtz and his men have recently taken, the first dilemma that they face is how to get Willard and the boat that he is on to the river. Both river openings were hot. Deciding to attack one over the other was not unusual, but rather it was how Kurtz chose which to attack that was unusual. Kurtz totally disregarded any tactic, rather he chose to attack the one that he did, based on the fact that it had bigger waves to surf on. Basing a decision on waves and surfing is hardly something that a normal commander would do. After he found out that one of Willard's men was a famous surfer his mind was more than made up.

When it did finally come time for the attack, Kurtz sent his men in full force and guns blazing, which again, considering the circumstances wasn't unusual. What was unusual was the fact that Kurtz used an opera to instill fear into his foes. Kurtz had speakers and a stereo attached to his helicopter so that upon attack he could blast Haida at maximum volume. Kurtz did this with the sole intent of scaring the enemy to the point that they were to scared to fight competently. This gave them a great advantage, but was not something that anyone else would do.

Lastly Kurtz's Idea of recreation in the middle of a battle was by far the most unusual thing that he did through out his time in the movie. After they had managed to successfully land the helicopters on the beach, he forced two of his men to surf while the battle still raged on. When questioned Kurtz replied, " Either you fight or you surf". The whole while never flinching a muscle in the midst of gun fire and explosions. No other commander would have forced his men to try and surf during a confrontation.

After thinking more about the occurrences from the movie it becomes clear that Kurtz was not insane but rather, fond of insane actions. Kurtz didn't do what he did because he was trying to be special, or because he was trying to impress people, rather he did it to try and bring some sort of normalcy to a situation that was anything but normal. Kurtz allowed himself to be concerned with things like surfing, he allowed himself to use opera music to scare his enemies, and he made his troops surf during battle. When Willard remarked that a man like Kurtz would never get so much as a scratch in a place like that, it was only true because Kurtz made it true. He almost felt comfortable there because he made it as much like home as he could.

Apocalypse Now

Was Kurtz Crazy?

Written by: John Seay 3003374

Submitted to: Professor Tracy

Class:01.105

Date: November 6/01