Kilgore Analysis

 When we first meet Kilgore in Apocalypse Now, he is throwing cards onto the corpses of dead Vietnamese people. The symbolism of the cards shows that Kilgore sees Vietnam as a casino, and he is gambling with his own life for the lives of others. The hat that he is wearing a cavalry stetson, which both shows his dedication to the American military and also his backwards view on why he is fighting, due to the history behind the hat. The hat can also be interpreted as a cowboy hat, which is apt as Kilgore acts like a cowboy; he is arrogant, selfish and would like to see himself as "heroic". He is enthusiastic during this scene, and Robert Duvall's energetic performance that he is known for comes out for the first time, however seconds later when he is helping the Vietnamese who survived escaped he appears entirely the opposite. Kilgore soon comes across a group of soldiers that care crowding around a mortally wounded, dying man on the ground who is asking for water/ Kilgore is offended by their lack of effort to help the man, and says "any man brave enough to fight with his guts strapped to himself can drink from my canteen any day", which shows us that he values bravery, honour and heroism. However, once again, Kilgore contradicts himself seconds later by leaving the man to die when he hears that the famous surfer Lance Johnson is nearby, he throws the water over the dying man ad leaves without a second thought. This shows that while he may want the honour and glory that comes with being a soldier, and would like to see himself and have society see him as a "war hero", despite having ulterior motives and very little sympathy and compassion for the people he is fighting for. Both this and the moment where he is throwing cards on bodies shows how desensitised he is to the violence in Vietnam. When Lance introduces himself to Kilgore, Clean also tries to introduce himself, however Kilgore instantly interrupts him and cuts him off, once again, showing ulterior motives other than traditional military values that are usually respected by soldiers in media. In this scene there is a lot of background noise, reminding the audience of the battle that is happening around the characters, but isolating the characters from the battle to focus on them specifically.

The isolation of the characters from the battle continues in the Smell of Napalm scene, however, in this scene we also see a battle occurring behind Kilgore, including soldiers dying. Kilgore does not seem concerned with this as he approaches Willard, Chef, Clean, Lance and Chief, and is much more concerned with himself, reinforcing the themes of the Meeting Kilgore scene. The famous line "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" showing his attitude as a character perfectly. To him, napalm is a pleasant smell, he does not think of the consequences of the napalm, and does not associate the smell with the death and destruction that it causes as he is not affected by it, which is a common criticism of the American culture. Shortly after, this is followed by the line "Someday this war is gonna end..."  which is delivered in a way as if it was an unfinished sentence and was to be followed by something else, but he then walks away after a pause. He appears sad during this pause, reinforcing the idea that the war is his entire identity.