The Two Ways of Watching Apocalypse Now
The other day, I read a youtube comment on a clip of Robert Duvall's performance of Lt. Col. Kilgore, a reply to another comment examining the absurdity of his apparent invulnerability to the dangers of war, that "weird light" he has around him which protects him from mortar fire and shrapnel as he commands his soldiers to surf a beach while mid-siege. The comment read something like this: George Washington really did have that light around him and thus the prospect isn't fantastical at all. For all I know, this was a bot of some kind, or a person exhibiting some form of corpse-like belief of the foundation myths of the american republic, and I simply could not believe that Apocalypse Now can be read like this by anyone. But the more I got to thinking about what that film shows, says, and means, I began to accept this way of approaching ones attitudes towards military history, national myths, and the truth, as not entirely unexpected. Two days ago, as of recordin...