13/12/2025
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1EyAuG5e7d/?mibextid=wwXIfr
What is happening at the end of Apocalypse Now, after the boat arrives at Kurtz’s camp? I’ve never understood the ending.
A key theme of the final scenes of Apocalypse Now is emphasised in a subplot that is often overlooked, concerning the fate of “Chef”.
Frederic Forrest as “Chef”, in Apocalypse Now.
(For my purposes here, my “reference text" is Apocalypse Now: Redux, released in 2001, although I think this answer reflects what we see in most versions.)
(Spoiler alert. )
The Patrol Boat, Riverine (PBR) Erebus – perhaps better known by its call sign “(PBR) Streetgang" [h.t. Brian Epstein] – arrives at Kurtz's compound. Captain Willard (Martin Sheen), accompanied by Lance (Sam Bottoms) disembarks, leaving Chef (Frederic Forrest) in sole charge. A usually amiable, but also jumpy, high-strung and un-military character (whose nickname stems from his past as a saucier in New Orleans), Chef is authorised to trigger a pre-arranged air strike, should Willard and Lance not return to the boat.
There is an encounter between Willard and “The Photographer” (Dennis Hopper), a crazed correspondent who has become a kind of disciple of Kurtz (Marlon Brando). Then an opaque and elliptical conversation between Willard and Kurtz. Afterwards, Willard is restrained by Kurtz's followers. Cut to the boat – we hear Chef doing a radio check, sounding anxious and, the inference is possible, just maybe, about to call in the bombers. Cut; and then we are back in Kurtz's compound – the severed head of Chef falls into Willard's lap.
While it is shocking on first viewing, there is definitely as much “method” as “madness” in the killing of Chef. That is to say – since Kurtz has already alluded to his acceptance of an imminent death – by acting to delay or cancel an air strike, Kurtz is protecting “his people” – i.e. the assortment of Montagnards, Americans etc that has mutated out of Kurtz's former command, since he “went rogue". While it is probably inevitable that, even after Kurtz dies, they will be pursued by the war machine, he wants to delay this for as long as possible. Therefore, it is also suggested, Kurtz is deliberately sacrificing himself, for the good of his people – a theme that is underlined, metaphorically, by the sequence of a buffalo being ritually slaughtered, interwoven with the scene in which Kurtz is killed by Willard.
The final event is Willard finding Lance, the only surviving member of the Erebus crew. I take this as signifying Willard’s rejection of the “legacy” offered by Kurtz (becoming his successor); Willard's re-acceptance of his duty as a military officer, to take responsibility for his subordinates. Earlier in the film, Willard refers to the Erebus crew as “rock 'n' rollers with one foot in the grave”. That is especially true of Lance, who is both too naive and too drug-affected to even take care of himself. Left to his own devices, Lance will, like his puppy, simply disappear.
