According to literary scholar and cinema aficionado Mark A. Rivera, "In Conrad, Marlowe is in awe of Kurtz, comes to identify with him in some dark recess of his own psyche; Willard, on the other hand, is more impressed with Kurtz's credentials than moved by his force of mind and will.".
Despite the fact that the film is told through Willard's eyes, his skewed perception does not affect the film's clear moral intentions. Coppola is sure to let his viewers know that he disagreed with the Vietnam War and with the senseless bureaucracy of the U.S. military. This type of moral direction deprives the viewer of the forced introspection created by the novella.
The film also depicts the character of Kurtz in a very different light. Conrad builds up the appearance of Kurtz so much that his first scene is intentionally anti-climactic. He is discovered to be an ailing, elderly gentlemen, malnourished and on the verge of death. Marlow himself is simultaneously impressed with and disappointed by Kurtz. He enjoys listening to the old man's philosophies, but he is let down by Kurtzs" lack of realistic thinking. He has clearly lost his mind, and with it, some of his credibility and mysticism.
The character of Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, however, is never de-humanized as it is in Heart of Darkness. Coppola's casting of Marlon Brando, as the eccentric army major, forced Kurtz's character to take on the burden of Brando's infamous weight problems. As a result, Kurtz was transformed from an emaciated, sickly old man to a powerful, overweight, middle-aged soldier. Marlon Brando, who lends weight, both physically and dramatically, to the figure of the megalomaniac Kurtz, portrays Kurtz, in the film. Brando's massive girth is all the more ironic due to Conrad's description: "I could see the cage of his ribs all astir, the bones of his arms waving". Kurtz's frail state was a key plot element in the novella, acting as the impetus for Kurtz to pass his knowledge along to the eager Marlow.
