Apocalypse Now Redux Page #3

GENERAL:

Fishing on R and R?

WILLARD:

Yes, sir.

GENERAL:

But you're feeling fit? You're

ready for duty?

WILLARD:

Yes, General. Very much so, sir.

The food is being passed around.

GENERAL:

Well, let's see what we have here.

Roast beef, and usually it's not

bad.

(to civilian)

Try some, Jerry. Pass it around.

To save a little time, we might

pass both ways.

(to Willard)

Captain, I don't know how you feel

about this shrimp, but if you eat

it, you'll never have to prove

your courage in any other way.

The colonel, who is not eating with them, walks to the

table, holding a small photo.

COLONEL:

(to Willard)

Captain, you've heard of Captain

Walter E. Kurtz?

He shows the photo to Willard.

INSERT THE PHOTO

It's an eight-by-ten black-and-white portrait of an army

officer wearing a beret.

WILLARD:

Yes, sir. I've heard the name.

The Colonel accidentally drops the dossier. Papers, photos,

etc., scatter all over the floor. He stoops down to pick

them up.

COLONEL:

Jesus...Operations officer, Fifth

Special Forces.

GENERAL:

Luke, would you play that tape,

for the captain, please?

(to Willard)

Listen to it carefully, Captain.

The Colonel moves to a tape recorder and turns it on.

MALE VOICE (ON TAPE) (V.O.)

"October 9, 04:30 hours, Sector

Peter, Victor, King."

GENERAL:

These were monitored out of

Cambodia. It's been verified as

Colonel Kurtz's voice.

All the men, including Willard, listen in wonder.

KURTZ (ON TAPE) (V.O.)

"I watched a small snail, crawling

on the edge of a straight razor.

That's my dream. It's my nightmare.

Crawling, slithering, along the

edge of a straight razor, and

surviving."

MALE VOICE (ON TAPE) (V.O.)

"Transmission 11, received '68,

December 30, 05:
00 hours, Sector

King, Zulu, King".

KURTZ (ON TAPE) (V.O.)

"But we must kill them. We must

incinerate them. Pig after pig.

Cow after cow. Village after

village. Army after army. And

they call me an assassin. What do

you call it, when the assassins

accuse the assassin? They lie.

They lie and we have to be merciful,

for those who lie. Those nabobs.

I hate them. I really hate them."

The TAPE is TURNED OFF.

GENERAL:

Walter Kurtz was one of the most

outstanding officers this country's

ever produced. He was brilliant.

He was outstanding in every way.

And he was a good man, too. A

humanitarian man. A man of wit

and humor. He joined the Special

Forces, and after that, his ideas,

methods, became...unsound. Unsound.

COLONEL:

Now he's crossed into Cambodia

with this Montagnard army of his,

that worship the man like a god,

and follow him every order, however

ridiculous. Well, I have some

other shocking news to tell you.

Colonel Kurtz was about to be

arrested for murder.

WILLARD:

I don't follow sir. Murdered who?

COLONEL:

Kurtz had ordered the execution of

some Vietnamese intelligence agents.

Men he believed were double agents.

So he took matters into his own

hands.

GENERAL:

Well, you see, Willard, in this

war, things get confused out there.

Power, ideals, the old morality,

and practical military necessity.

But out there with these natives,

it must be a temptation to be God.

Because the rational and the

irrational, between good and evil.

And good does not always triumph.

Sometimes, the dark side overcomes

what Lincoln called the better

angels of our nature. Every man

has got a breaking point. You

have and I have them. Walter Kurtz

has reached his. And, very

obviously, he has gone insane.

Willard looks from the colonel to the general to the

civilian. They are intensely interested in his response,

which they want to be "yes."

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