International Law & Popcorn: Apocalypse Now

In the organizer's words:

APOCALYPSE NOW (OV)

USA 1979 | Director: Francis Coppola | 150 min.
Cast: Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Martin Sheen

Mon, 20.04., 19:30, CAMERA
discussed by Leon Seidl (Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law)

Making the horror palatable

How do murdered civilians turn into "collateral damage", two-tone warheads into "surgical strikes", indiscriminate bombing into "counterinsurgency"? The discussion will interrogate the role of public discourse, and particularly the discourse over international humanitarian law, in normalizing war for a domestic audience. From the forests of Vietnam to the streets of Gaza, this issue has lost none of its relevance.

A classic film from 1979, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

It tells a fictional story set in the 1960s during the Vietnam War. The central character is an army captain sent by boat deep into the Cambodian jungle to capture a special forces colonel who is presumed to have lost his mind. The film is partly based on Joseph Conrad's novel "Heart of Darkness," which recounts a journey down the Congo River.