So here goes my last blog post of the year :)/:( I can’t decide if I’m happy or sad to have this first year almost done with. I’ve definitely enjoyed arts one and even though complaining is fun, I’ve actually really enjoyed most of the books and discussions we’ve had throughout the year.
I think ending on Heart of Darkness, Things fall apart and apocalypse now was a great idea because it has messages and topics that are so far from the other books we’ve read all year.
I thought apocalypse now was a really good movie and it was easy to see the similarities to Heart of Darkness. One specific sentence that stuck with me (mostly because part of my essay was on it) was “out there with those savages it must be a temptation to be a god”. It really reiterates the natural incessant hunger for power and how we’re willing to take advantage of any situation in order to feed our hunger.It reminded me of Kurtz who ventures into Africa thinking of himself as a saviour and instead becoming a tyrant to the savages. When humans are given the possibility for supreme power our natural inclinations push us to abuse these privileges.
Another clear idea in the film that can relate back to Heart of Darkness is absurdity. You see bombs exploding and people dying in one corner and the general’s standing with his shirt off, not a scratch, complaining about unsatisfying surfing conditions. He even sends men out into an exploding, dangerous ocean to surf and when questioned, he replies yelling those are my orders! It just shows how absurd the entire scenario is.
This was a pretty dark film, but I think the darkest films are the one’s with the most intense and important messages.
Well, unless I decide to continue this blog in the future, these are my last few words. Thanks to everyone for an amazing first year and hope to keep reading these blogs even if I’m not posting.
Au Revoir!
I completely understand the ambivalent feelings about the year ending! I always feel a sense of relief in regards to the workload slowing down at the end of the year, but also sadness that I won’t be seeing my seminar group again. One of the things I love about Arts One is getting to know a small group of people, who I can then continue to talk to throughout the rest of their years at UBC (if they want to, that is…I do sometimes meet with students years later, or we’ll have seminar reunions at a bar or restaurant later on, which is fun!).
That line from the movie that you quoted above made me think of the fact that Willard decides NOT to take over Kurtz’s position as a kind of “god” at the end of the film, even though he easily could have. Maybe it’s not a temptation everyone has to give in to. Or maybe Willard rejected it because he saw what it was like when Kurtz did it and he didn’t want to be like that. He had learned by observing from the outside, perhaps. At any rate, I hadn’t given a great deal of thought to the fact that Willard chooses not to become a god-like leader, but your blog post made me consider it more, and why he might have turned away and left. Still working on my thoughts on that!