MovieChat Forums > Apocalypse Now (1979) Discussion > Why all the heads and corpses at Kurtz' ...

Why all the heads and corpses at Kurtz' camp?

posted 9 years ago by a_smooth_apparatus
15 replies | jump to latest

Those people living at Kurtz' camp were seemingly living obliviously among a bunch of dead bodies and heads all strewn around the camp. Why, and why all the bodies and heads? Weren't those people supposed to be Kurtz' children? Was it because Kurtz was nuts and would occasionally flip out and kill some of them for whatever reason? I think Hopper said that even Kurtz admits to going too far sometimes. If so, why are the people still alive not scared to death and still hanging around when they could be next?

[–] benjaminlatta 8 years ago

I think it was a way to compare Kurtz to the war and America's campaign in Vietnam writ large i.e. both betray madness, killing and are insane. Sometimes even America admitted it went too far. Kurtz was a soldier, but also a deranged lunatic.

[–] DepheatingRub 8 years ago

Seems to me I recall in Milius' script the entire compound is completely stoned constantly and barely is aware of what it's doing.

[–] criztu 8 years ago

Why, and why all the bodies and heads?

Because that's the threshold between worldly realm and godly realm. Look up in the Bible - God is the head of Jesus. Jesus is Firstborn among the dead. Jesus is made of meat. God is spirit.

Thus, entering God's city, is leaving the body, separation of the head from the body. This movie requires you to be at least familiar with the Bible, hermeticism, gnosticism, tarot, etc.

[–] chopper-9 8 years ago

I always saw this as some kind of Vlad the Impaler move on the part of Kurtz.

"Never eat yellow snow" 

[–] keyser_soze_smokes 8 years ago

Dictators love having heads (see Clinton).

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