The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland), the first feature length film with synchronous sound, was released in 1927 spurring many debates and arguments as to whether the addition of sound would have a positive or negative impact on film as an art form....

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and Apocalypse Now exemplify the cruel and unforgiving nature of humankind through the actions of Mr. Kurtz. Before Kurtz is introduced in each story, the narrator creates an image of the man in his head that is...

Throughout its long and storied history, the war film has both entertained and informed audiences across the world. Invariably, bad, good, and great war films are released every year. Great war films, though, typically tell an exceptionally simple...

Both The Things They Carried and Apocalypse Now explore the trauma of the Vietnam War and its influence on soldiers' fears. Similar characters appear in both works, their identities crafted to represent different aspects of human nature. The...

After the chaos of the atomic bomb and the carnage of World War II, precedence was placed on government constructs to supply order to a tense climate, particularly in finding direction in a new ‘East versus West’ conflict. In John Le Carre’s...

Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 film Apocalypse Now sustains a derogative perspective on the state of war and its corruptive influence. Set in Saigon during the Vietnam War, the action and narrative present the post-World War II era as a morally...

Marlon Brando gets no more than eighteen minutes of screen time in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, but his performance goes down as one of the most legendary in cinematic history. His portrayal of the Colonel Kurtz painted a dark picture of...

Following the journey of a man traveling through a river on a mission to kill an insane Colonel Kurtz, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now consist of very similar storylines. With many of the same quotes,...

Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam War film Apocalypse Now, a loose adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, shows American MACV-SOG Captain Benjamin Willard’s journey in terminating rogue U.S. colonel Walter Kurtz. Bao Ninh’s 1993...

During and after the Vietnam War, Hollywood studios produced several films depicting the realities of the war from different angles. The films exhibit variations in their aesthetics and even occasionally some have conflicting ideas about the war...

In the beginnings of American commercial culture, individualism and innovation were seen as the cruxes of the American dream. However, societal pressures and institutional barriers exist today to prevent any such growth foreign to the already...

The Godfather is a timeless film set in the 1940s and based on the Corleones, a mafia family in New York. At its core, the film reflects the culture and the values of the Italian mafia. The Corleones are one of the wealthiest and most influential...

Until the eyewitness testimony, tell-all books, and recorded conversations by former intimates revealed to the world the way Donald Trump ran his business, the strongest evidence drawing a parallel between “legitimate businessman” and Mafia bosses...

An antagonist is essential to any story. Establishing a clear “bad guy” gives the story more emotion, uniting the reader with the protagonist(s) against a common enemy that is easy to hate. Every story has an antagonist, but only some are evil....

The Godfather, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, follows the story of the Corleone family. The movie focuses particularly on Michael as he is drawn inevitably into the mafia because his father, Don Vito, is shot and needs someone to step up to run...

In Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 film, The Conversation, the element of sound functions as a fundamental aspect of each scene. The addition of sound or absence thereof works to underscore the main character, Harry Caul’s, fraught emotions and...

When one thinks of a famous, all-hailed, top surveyor in the nation, one may think of a reserved, ordered and, most importantly, an incredibly fulfilled individual. After all, to attain a similar status in not only the surveillance field but in...

Director Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 masterpiece The Conversation (released in the same year as a film that many consider to be Coppola’s magnum opus, The Godfather Part II), tells the story of Gene Hackman’s Harry Caul, a surveillance specialist...