Apocalypse Now garners numerous thoughts and images that provoke different themes and ideas of the United States. We come across fear, horror, and insanity in order for Francis Ford Coppola to properly convey what he wishes to. Different times throughout the movie we also encounter ideas such as hope and good conquering evil. One particular idea that comes across in the movie is that of insanity and madness, directly as a result of war. Each character in the movie is affected by this madness in some fashion. We have Willard, who goes mad in the sense of the story of Kurtz controlling his mind, and forcing him to think extraneously about what could happen to him. Then we have Lance, who is so out of it on psychedelics and other drugs that his young mind simply went lucid during the fighting. Then there is also Kilgore, who does not play as prominent of a role as others, but goes mad in the sense that the war has become a game to him, something that he is unsure what he is going to without. His madness can be directly contributed to his time spent during what can be presumed numerous wars. Of course, the one particular scene that shows this is that of the Army invading the beach, where Kilgore gives a legendary monologue. The beach scene with Kilgore extravagantly implements mise-en-scene, editing, camera, and sound to portray the theme of madness as a result of war.

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