The novella, based on Conrad's experience as a steamboat captain in Africa, is set in the Congo Free State during the 19th century.

The Apocalypse Now Book - Peter Cowie - Google Books

He said he wanted to take the audience "through an unprecedented experience of war and have them react as much as those who had gone through the war". The opening scene—which features Willard staggering around his hotel room, culminating in him punching a mirror—was filmed on Sheen's 36th birthday when he was heavily intoxicated. It is directed by Rogério Nunes and Alois Di Leo and moves the story to a near future Rio de Janeiro. It chronicles a series of difficulties and challenges that director Coppola encountered during the making of the film, several of which mirror some of the novella's themes. When Marlow next speaks with him, Kurtz is near death; Marlow hears him weakly whisper, "The horror!The original 1979 70mm exclusive theatrical release ended with Willard's boat, the stone statue, and the fade to black with no credits, save for '"Copyright 1979 Omni Zoetrope"' at its very end. In the editing bay, Coppola asked editor Richard Marks (who was one of four people who edited the movie) about reels of footage that were in the garbage. Everything else – from the 13 films that came between it and ­Megalopolis to the tragic death of Coppola’s eldest son, Gian-Carlo, in 1986 during the making of Gardens of Stone – is crossed off in a busy ­epilogue. Jeffrey Meyers notes that Conrad, like his acquaintance Roger Casement, "was one of the first men to question the Western notion of progress, a dominant idea in Europe from the Renaissance to the Great War, to attack the hypocritical justification of colonialism and to reveal.

Apocalypse Now Book by Peter Cowie | Goodreads The Apocalypse Now Book by Peter Cowie | Goodreads

The other version had the base spectacularly blown to bits in an air strike, killing everyone left within it. On March 1, 1976, Coppola and his family flew to Manila and rented a large house there for the planned four-month shoot. Wasson has a great journalist’s eye for telling details and a great stylist’s ear, washing the reader along on a torrent of prose that ­mirrors Coppola’s own unfailing energy.

Kurtz, who is in charge of a very important trading post, and is described as a respected first-class agent.