Winner, Best Undergraduate Essay in English and Comparative Literature, 2024-2025
“This is the End”: Sound as an Atmospheric Force in Apocolypse Now and The Fog
Rebecca Kelley
In the 1970’s, technological advancements in sound design led to the development of Dolby Stereo, a format that revolutionized film sound. Until this development, films featured monaural soundtracks, where sound was blended in a single channel; in theaters, speakers were positioned behind the film screen so that, from the perspective of the audience, sound was essentially coming from the screen. Dolby Stereo fundamentally changed the way sound functions as it features four distinct channels of sound, all originating from different speakers that are positioned on all sides of the spectator. Films that took advantage of this new surround sound technology were able to create a level of spectatorial immersion that was previously unprecedented. In his essay, “Sounding Out Film”, film theorist Steven Connor argues that “sound is not primarily on the screen but in the listener” (116). In this sense, the soundtrack of a film exists within us, separately from the visual information we are provided on the screen. The film and the spectator cannot exist independently from one another; it is the embodied perception of the viewer that charges the film with atmospheric power. Sound, unlike an image, has no borders or frame, and cinematic sound evokes bodily sensations and reactions that heighten the perception of the spectator. With Dolby Stereo, the spectator is physically surrounded by speakers, and therefore the cinematic atmosphere as it is sonically rendered. According to Robert Spadoni, atmosphere is everywhere styled, taking on sensuous and tactile qualities; it is the spectator’s interface to the film world, a membrane that extends out from the screen and encapsulates the spectator in the sensorial and tactile qualities of the film world. Regarding film atmosphere, Steffen Hven argues that the “diegesis-as-environment”, as it is enacted through affective, rhythmic, multi-sensorial means, is a crucial element of film analysis (17). The narrative space of a film “comes alive through a process of attunement between the rhythms and movements of the film and its audience” (Hven 20). Through this process of attunement, the film expands beyond its narrative form and engages the spectator’s senses, emotions, and physical body, heightening the immersive effects of the film world.
In his 1979 film Apocalypse Now, director Francis Ford Coppola and sound designer Walter Murch take full advantage of Dolby Stereo technology in order to effectively capture the tense and horrific experiences of the Vietnam War, presenting to spectators not just a film to be watched, but a world to be experienced, in Hven’s sense. Coppola instructed Murch to design a soundtrack that would “partake of the psychedelic haze in which the war had been fought” (Beck 208). Loosely based on Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness (1899), the plot of the film follows Captain Benjamin Willard (Martin Sheen) as he is sent on a top-secret mission to track down and kill Colonel Walter Kurtz (Marlon Brando), a highly decorated military officer who has gone rogue and been accused of murder. Throughout the course of the film, as Willard tries to understand Kurtz’s motivations and actions, the boundaries between their mental and physical states become increasingly blurred. Through the application of the aforementioned phenomenological theories of atmosphere and attunement specifically to sound, I will explore certain qualities of Apocalypse Now’s soundtrack that work in tandem with narrative and formal techniques to render an immersive atmosphere in which the spectator’s perception aligns with that of the characters on screen. Through a process of “shared affective attunement” to the world of the film, the spectator becomes perceptually linked with the psychological and physiological transformation that Willard endures (Sinnerbrink 148). The cruel, violent ideologies embodied by Kurtz perceptually permeate all aspects of the film; the spectator is unknowingly primed for his late physical reveal because of his presence in the soundtrack. Additionally, as Willard’s proximity to Kurtz increases, the film’s atmosphere becomes stranger and more surreal.
Apocalypse Now opens with a black screen as a distorted, pulsing rhythm becomes audible; we are introduced to the diegesis sonically before we are given any visual input on screen. As the warped sound gradually fades, like it is moving further away from the spectator, a long shot of a densely green jungle tree line in Vietnam fades into view. The distorted pulsing sound crescendos, its point of origin moving from the left audio channel to the front and then right channels. As the sound travels, a helicopter flies across the foreground of the frame from left to right, mirroring the movement of the sound; the warped rhythmic thrumming is thus revealed to be the sound of helicopter blades whirring. It is notable, however, that the helicopter is only partially visible in the frame. The actual blades remain in offscreen space, and the cabin is only present for a brief moment as the helicopter passes by. Despite the instinctual impulse to attribute this sound to the helicopter because of the synchronized movements from left to right, both the slow, hypnotic, dreamlike quality of the sound and the fact that its true source, the blades, are obscured imply that the soundtrack is operating under a different, unknown force.
This opening scene famously features “The End”, a song by The Doors from their self-titled album released in 1967. As the distorted helicopter whirring fades from the right audio channel, the song begins with lightly scattered percussion and symbols. As the song enters the soundtrack, faint orange smoke enters the frame from the bottom, wafting up and into the foreground from an unknown source in offscreen space. The song continues with a solo guitar that begins playing a melancholic, pensive melody, flitting up and down a minor scale pattern before being eventually joined by the steady pulse of a hi-hat and the intermittent jingle of a tambourine. The warped rhythm of the helicopter also returns in tandem with the entrance of the hi-hat beat. As more sonic layers are added, the smoke permeating the screen becomes denser and more fluid, billowing in the wind created by another fragmented helicopter flying across the top of the frame; this increased movement of the smoke occurs as the tambourine joins the song. Then, the first verse begins as Jim Morrison’s voice enters, singing “This is the end” in a sensuous, almost wistful tone. Up to this point, the scene has been slowly building energy, becoming gradually denser in both visual and sonic registers, and it feels as if Morrison’s voice is the tipping point. The jungle tree line suddenly but simultaneously bursts into a fiery explosion, as if the lyrics cue the bombs to detonate. This moment also spurs the camera into action for the first time in the film, slowly panning to the right and surveying the black smoke and burning destruction of the jungle. The synchronization of sound and image during this scene charges the soundtrack with a kind of authority within the film world as it seems to trigger certain events to occur in the diegesis; the accumulation of the orange smoke, its movements, and the intense explosion are all punctuated by sonic elements. This authority is sensed by the spectator, even if only in a subtle, unconscious way. A larger force is at play in this film, whose presence is represented by and enacted through the soundtrack.
Beyond its status as a symbolic phrase orienting the spectator to the senseless violence of the Vietnam War as it pertains to this film, I argue that the use of the lyrics “This is the end” in this scene has an added layer of significance. The cinematic environment of this scene is directly linked to the climactic scene at the end of the film where Willard successfully completes his mission and kills Kurtz. The smoky affect and orange light from the explosion resonate with the setting of Kurtz’s domain as the spectator and Willard see it. Additionally, Kurtz’s death is the only other scene where The Doors’ song returns in the soundtrack. The atmospheric elements of this opening scene perceptually prime the spectator to events that have not yet occurred; this is literally “the end” being shown, although the spectator has no way of knowing that upon first viewing this film. In this sense, sound is working to provide an additional layer of perceptual experience, prompting the spectator to “see in the image what we would not otherwise see, or would see differently” (Chion 34).
The following cross-fade montage sequence further reinforces this notion as the film introduces Willard. Various shots are blended together over the burning backdrop of the jungle: a close-up shot of Willard’s face oriented upside down fills the left half of the frame while a spinning ceiling fan materializes in the center of the frame, graphically matching the blades of more passing helicopters. Willard, smoking a cigarette, makes direct eye contact with the camera as Morrison sings, “… desperately in need of some stranger’s hand…” while an image of a Buddhist statue fades into the right half of the frame. The faces of both Willard and the statue are tightly framed in similar close-up shots, and the resonance between the two becomes strengthened by Willard’s glance to the right, as if he is observing the statue’s presence. Willard’s cigarette further blurs the spatial and temporal boundaries being layered in this sequence through the orange glow of its smoldering tip and the smoke that cascades from his mouth as he takes a drag. The film provides no frame of reference for the opening shot of the bombed jungle so its relation to Willard is unclear, although the montage editing implies that it could be a memory. Although the film doesn’t initially anchor the spectator in any firm reality, these moments are atmospherically linked through orange fire and smoke. Upon first viewing the film, the spectator has no frame of reference for these shots, and we are inclined to assume that the film is providing us with flashbacks as Willard is remembering them. In the following scene, Willard begins speaking in voiceover, explaining how he has become permanently psychologically altered by his previous tours in Vietnam; his status as an experienced veteran reinforces the assumption that the film began with a flashback sequence. Only after watching Apocalypse Now in its entirety, however, is the particular atmospheric power of this opening scene realized.
Kurtz is first introduced sonically in a scene early in the film where Willard receives his secret assignment from a group of higher-ranking military officers. They play a taped recording of Kurtz’s voice during their explanation of the mission, and their claims of his insane psychological state are reflected in the juxtaposition of his soft, lilting tone of voice with his defiant speech. Kurtz’s presence in the soundtrack becomes heightened as Willard, during his journey to Kurtz, works to better understand his motives. The spectator is aligned with Willard’s perceptual experience throughout Apocalypse Now through his consistent voiceovers. He speaks in the present tense, describing his thoughts, emotions, and reactions as they happen in real time over the course of the film; the presence of his voice in the soundtrack in this way prompts the spectator to better understand his character and mirror his direct perceptual experience. As Willard’s mental state becomes increasingly conflated with Kurtz’s, the same process of transformation is mapped onto the spectator. In another cross-fade montage sequence about midway through the film, Willard, in the form of voiceover, reads a letter that Kurtz wrote to his son. The spectator hears Willard’s voice speaking in the first person, yet he is repeating Kurtz’s words rather than his own, as has been the case up until this point. An extreme close-up shot of Willard’s eyes fades into sweeping shots of the dense greenery of the surrounding jungle environment. He is staring directly at the camera, making eye contact with the spectator, just like he did during the opening montage. This direct address implicates the spectator in some way, calling attention to our own perception and prompting further attunement to Willard’s, and now Kurtz’s, subjectivity. Implicating the spectator in this way also serves to heighten the feeling of inevitable transformation that permeates the film world, aligning with Spadoni’s argument that atmosphere functions as an encapsulating membrane.
These atmospheric resonances return towards the end of the film, when Willard is captured by Kurtz and brought into his immediate domain. After discovering that Kurtz has beheaded the soldier who remained on the boat for backup, Willard enters a listless, trance-like state. The film cuts between shots of guards standing outside before cutting to Kurtz, partially obscured in shadow and looking into the offscreen space of the right side of the frame. After lingering on this image of Kurtz, the film returns to the familiar mode of oneiric cross-fade transitions; it feels as if Kurtz’s presence is the catalyst for this formal shift. A medium close-up shot of Willard laying on the floor fades into view, his horizontal position and the smoky, lit cigarette in his hand both prompting the spectator to be reminded of the opening montage. Willard looks to the left, as if he and Kurtz are observing one another, when in reality these shots are spatially and temporally separate. The Buddhist statue that Willard seems to look at in the beginning of the film returns a few shots later; a similar close-up shot of the statue fades into view, moving vertically across the frame as the camera tilts down. Billowing white smoke permeates the frame around the statue, again reinforcing the connection to earlier scenes, and this is the moment in which Kurtz begins monologuing, marking the final stage of Willard’s indoctrination into his ideologies. As established by Hven, the film has been perceptually attuning the spectator through certain sonic and visual resonances, prompting associations to form that heighten the immersive quality of experience. Kurtz demonstrates atmospheric influence in the way his actions seem to dictate formal elements of the film like pacing, transitions, and narrative structure, but it is ultimately his voice that becomes charged with the most power throughout the course of the film. Later, when Kurtz describes the events that led to his radical shift in ideology, he speaks uninterrupted in a take that is several minutes long. He tells Willard about the horrific cruelty of enemy soldiers cutting off the arms of the children he and his troop had been sent to a village to inoculate; his overwhelming emotion was transformed into awed appreciation for the cold and limitless violence exhibited by those men. The explicit detail with which he recounts this story creates a vivid image in the mind of both Willard and the spectator. The calculated, soft timbre of Kurtz’s voice, dominant amidst the sparseness of the soundtrack, as well as his consistent gaze directed into offscreen space, add to the intensifying feelings of psychological entanglement between Kurtz, Willard, and the spectator. The film does not show any visual information supporting his story; the imagery is constructed entirely based on the sound of Kurtz’ voice, existing solely in the minds of the two characters, and by association, the mind of the spectator.
While I have discussed Apocalypse Now’s innovative use of Dolby Stereo as a catalyst for its effective rendering of an immersive film world, films that use a single-track audio channel are also capable of engaging the spectator on an atmospheric level. John Carpenter’s The Fog (1980), a slasher horror film about a quaint coastal town being terrorized by a supernatural force, features a soundtrack with a strong sense of movement that actively addresses and implicates the spectator throughout the film. Unlike with Dolby Stereo, the sound is not physically moving between different channels, but instead manipulated to give the impression of moving from the screen towards the spectator through variabilities in the volume and pitch. In the film, the fog is a supernatural presence caused by a 100-year-old curse on the town, terrorizing the community until it claims six victims. The visual permeation of the dense white fog resonates with the motif of smoke in Apocalypse Now. In the same way Kurtz and his ideologies are atmospherically preconfigured from the opening scene, before the reveal of his physical form, the supernatural forces at work in The Fog are rendered sonically before they manifest visually. Like Apocalypse Now, the film opens with a black screen as an eerie, pulsing synthesizer rhythm plays in the score. During the opening credits, the film cuts to a scene where a young man is working alone in a convenience store. The soundtrack becomes sparse, featuring only the diegetic sounds of his movements, before being punctuated by an acousmatic, repetitive creaking sound that is uncannily sized up, as if the source of the sound is very close. This unexpected sonic intrusion adds to the feeling of suspense that has been building since the beginning of the film. When the unsettling, unanchored creaking sounds fall away, the silence that follows is interrupted by the sudden sound of glass shattering. The man, positioned in a low angle shot deep within the frame, physically at a distance from the spectator, reacts to this offscreen sound, and the spectator is prompted to mirror his confusion and anxiety. Then, every bottle in the store begins violently shaking, rattling against one another to create a cacophony of overwhelming, unstoppable sound which stops as suddenly as it began. The returned sparseness of the soundtrack is rendered stranger after the intense wall of noise we just experienced. The aching, creaky sound then returns in its familiar repetitive pattern, and the film cuts to a shot of the man anxiously moving through the store to discover its source – a broken sign swinging back and forth from the ceiling. Through the editing of this scene, the film implies that this mysterious, earthquake-like rattling caused the sign to fall and move, yet the spectator has already been exposed to its creaking; the soundtrack exposes the spectator to intentional ambiguities that characters on screen are unable to fully feel the effects of. The distinct squeaking sound the sign produces is only noticed by the character when it occurs for the second time. Even before the physical fog enters the diegesis, the supernatural force driving it manifests sonically – the entire soundtrack of the film is haunted. Considering Connor’s assertion that sound “must be understood as primarily experienced”, the soundtrack effectively utilizes the “commingled sounds” of the diegetic musique concréte in this scene as a vehicle for the fog’s agency to directly reach the spectator (116).
Despite their technological differences, the soundtracks of Apocalypse Now and The Fog work to enact a world in which the spectator experiences a visceral sense of psychological and physical immersion. Additionally, both films leave the spectator with unresolved feelings of dread. In the end of The Fog, the characters believe they have successfully lifted the town’s curse, preventing any future deaths from occurring. The final scene, however, reveals that this is not true; in another hundred years, the fog will return to claim six more victims in the same brutally violent manner. The film’s nihilistic ending speaks to the horror bound up in the notion of unstoppable, cyclical repetition, a fear that manifests similarly in the ending of Apocalypse Now. Despite Kurtz’s physical death, his experiences and ideologies live on in Willard, and by extension, the spectator. As Willard emerges from Kurtz’s room, covered in camouflage face paint and blood, Kurtz’s loyal followers look to him and bow, laying down their weapons. Wielding a machete and a stack of papers, he embodies the intellectual-soldier figure that made Kurtz so unique; in order to kill him, Willard had to understand him, and it is through this understanding that Kurtz and his horrifically cruel ideologies will live on. The film ends as it began, with a black screen, accompanied by a repetition of Kurtz’s final words, “The horror… the horror.” The visceral emotion in his lingering, soft whisper underscores the atmospheric power of his voice, forcing the spectator to grapple with the uncomfortable reality that we, too, now understand the horrors of the Vietnam War as they truly are.
Works Cited
Beck, Jay. Designing Sound: Audiovisual Aesthetics in 1970s American Cinema. Rutgers University Press, 2016.
Chion, Michel. Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen. Edited and Translated by Claudia Gorbman, Columbia University Press, 1994.
Connor, Steven. “Sounding Out Film.” The Oxford Handbook of New Audiovisual Aesthetics, Aug. 2013, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199733866.013.027.
Hven, Steffen. “The Atmospheric Worlds of Cinema.” Enacting the Worlds of Cinema, 19 May 2022, pp. 41–66, https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197555101.003.0003.
Sinnerbrink, R. “Stimmung: Exploring the aesthetics of mood.” Screen, vol. 53, no. 2, 1 June 2012, pp. 148–163, https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjs007.
Spadoni, Robert. “What is Film Atmosphere?” Quarterly Review of Film and Video, vol. 37, no. 1, 22 July 2019, pp. 48–75, https://doi.org/10.1080/10509208.2019.1606558.