Editing Heart of Darkness (section)

==Adaptations and influences==

===Radio and stage===
[[Orson Welles]] adapted and starred in ''Heart of Darkness'' in a [[CBS Radio]] broadcast on 6 November 1938 as part of his series, ''[[The Mercury Theatre on the Air]]''. In 1939, Welles adapted the story for his first film for [[RKO Pictures]],<ref name=var/> writing a screenplay with [[John Houseman]]. The story was adapted to focus on the rise of a [[fascism|fascist]] dictator.<ref name=var/> Welles intended to play Marlow and Kurtz<ref name=var>{{cite magazine|magazine=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]|date=13 June 1979|page=24|title=Orson Welles Prior Interest In Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness'|last=Hitchens|first=Gordon}}</ref> and it was to be entirely filmed as a POV from Marlow's eyes. Welles even filmed a short presentation film illustrating his intent. It is reportedly lost. The film's prologue to be read by Welles said "You aren't going to see this picture - this picture is going to happen to you."<ref name=var/> The project was never realised; one reason given was the loss of European markets after the outbreak of [[World War II]]. Welles still hoped to produce the film when he presented another radio adaptation of the story as his first program as producer-star of the CBS radio series ''[[This Is My Best]]''. Welles scholar [[Bret Wood]] called the broadcast of 13 March 1945, "the closest representation of the film Welles might have made, crippled, of course, by the absence of the story's visual elements (which were so meticulously designed) and the half-hour length of the broadcast."<ref name="Bret Wood">[[Bret Wood|Wood, Bret]], ''Orson Welles: A Bio-Bibliography''. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1990 {{ISBN|0-313-26538-0}}</ref>{{Rp|95, 153–156,136–137|date=March 2014}}

In 1991, Australian author/playwright [[Larry Buttrose]] wrote and staged a theatrical adaptation titled ''Kurtz'' with the Crossroads Theatre Company, [[Sydney]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsB/buttrose-larry.html| url-status=live | archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20211121/http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsB/buttrose-larry.html| archive-date=21 November 2021|title=Larry Buttrose|publisher=doollee.com}}{{cbignore}}</ref> The play was announced to be broadcast as a radio play to Australian radio audiences in August 2011 by the [[Vision Australia Radio]] Network,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.visionaustralia.org/info.aspx?page=749|title=Vision Australia|publisher=Visionaustralia.org|access-date=17 June 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120801191453/http://www.visionaustralia.org/info.aspx?page=749|archive-date=1 August 2012}}</ref> and also by the RPH – [[Radio Print Handicapped Network]] across Australia. In 2011, composer [[Tarik O'Regan]] and librettist [[Tom Phillips (artist)|Tom Phillips]] adapted an [[Heart of Darkness (opera)|opera of the same name]], which premiered at the [[Linbury Studio Theatre|Linbury Theatre]] of the [[Royal Opera House]] in London.<ref>[http://www.roh.org.uk/whatson/production.aspx?pid=17248 Royal Opera House Page for ''Heart of Darkness''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111020223221/http://www.roh.org.uk/whatson/production.aspx?pid=17248 |date=20 October 2011 }} by [[Tarik O'Regan]] and [[Tom Phillips (artist)|Tom Phillips]]</ref> A suite for orchestra and narrator was subsequently extrapolated from it.<ref name=RPO>{{Citation|title=''Suite from Heart of Darkness'' first London performance|publisher=Cadogan Hall|url=http://www.cadoganhall.com/event/royal-philharmonic-orchestra-130423/| url-status=live | archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20211121/http://www.cadoganhall.com/event/royal-philharmonic-orchestra-130423/| archive-date=21 November 2021|access-date=17 June 2015}}{{cbignore}}</ref> In 2015, an adaptation of Welles' screenplay by [[Jamie Lloyd (director)|Jamie Lloyd]] and [[Laurence Bowen]] aired on [[BBC Radio 4]].<ref>{{Cite web|title = Orson Welles' Heart of Darkness, Unmade Movies, Drama – BBC Radio 4|url = http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06k9bz9| url-status=live | archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20211121/http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06k9bz9| archive-date=21 November 2021|publisher = BBC|access-date = 3 November 2015}}{{cbignore}}</ref> The production starred [[James McAvoy]] as Marlow. Another BBC Radio 4 adaptation, first broadcast in 2021, transposes the action to the 21st century.<ref>{{Cite web|title = Heart of Darkness, Drama – BBC Radio 4|url = https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rbpg|publisher = BBC|access-date = 8 April 2024}}</ref>

=== Film and television ===
[[File:Boris Karloff Suspicion 1957.jpg|thumb|upright=0.85|[[Boris Karloff]] (photo from 1957) played Kurtz in 1958]]

In 1958, the [[CBS]] television anthology ''[[Playhouse 90]]'' ([[Heart of Darkness (Playhouse 90)|S3E7]]) aired a loose 90-minute television play adaptation. This version, written by [[Stewart Stern]], uses the encounter between Marlow ([[Roddy McDowall]]) and Kurtz ([[Boris Karloff]]) as its final act, and adds a backstory in which Marlow had been Kurtz's adopted son. The cast includes [[Inga Swenson]] and [[Eartha Kitt]].<ref>Cast and credits are available at [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0675574/ "The Internet Movie Database"]. Retrieved 2 December 2010. A full recording can be viewed onsite by members of the public upon request at [[The Paley Center for Media]] (formerly the Museum of Television & Radio) in New York City and Los Angeles.</ref>

Perhaps the best known adaptation is [[Francis Ford Coppola]]'s 1979 film ''[[Apocalypse Now]]'', based on the screenplay by [[John Milius]], which moves the story from the Congo to [[Vietnam]] and [[Cambodia]] during the [[Vietnam War]].<ref>{{cite news |access-date=29 September 2008|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/03/movies/critic-s-notebook-aching-heart-of-darkness.html| url-status=live | archive-url=https://archive.today/20120909011936/http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/03/movies/critic-s-notebook-aching-heart-of-darkness.html| archive-date=9 September 2012 |title= Aching Heart of Darkness  |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=3 August 2001 |author=Scott, A. O. }}{{cbignore}}</ref> In ''Apocalypse Now'', [[Martin Sheen]] stars as Captain Benjamin L. Willard, a [[United States Army|US Army]] Captain assigned to "terminate the command" of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, played by [[Marlon Brando]]. A film documenting the production, titled ''[[Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse]]'', was released in 1991. It chronicles a series of difficulties and challenges that director Coppola encountered during the making of the film, several of which mirror some of the novella's themes.

[[Heart of Darkness (1993 film)|A 1993 television film]] adaptation was written by [[Benedict Fitzgerald]] and directed by [[Nicolas Roeg]]. The film, which was aired by [[TNT (American TV network)|TNT]], starred [[Tim Roth]] as Marlow, [[John Malkovich]] as Kurtz, [[Isaach de Bankolé]] as Mfumu, and [[James Fox]] as Gosse.<ref>[http://www.ew.com/article/1994/03/11/heart-darkness "Heart of Darkness"], ''[[Entertainment Weekly]]'', 11 March 1994, retrieved 4 April 2010. [https://ew.com/article/1994/03/11/heart-darkness/].</ref>
[[James Gray (director)|James Gray]]'s 2019 science fiction film ''[[Ad Astra (film)|Ad Astra]]'' is loosely inspired by the events of the novel. It features [[Brad Pitt]] as an astronaut travelling to the edge of the [[Solar System]] to confront and potentially kill his father ([[Tommy Lee Jones]]), who has gone rogue.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Chitwood|first1=Adam|title=James Gray Says His Sci-Fi Movie 'Ad Astra' Starts Filming This Summer with Brad Pitt|url=http://collider.com/james-gray-brad-pitt-ad-astra-filming/| url-status=live | archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20211121/http://collider.com/james-gray-brad-pitt-ad-astra-filming/| archive-date=21 November 2021|website=[[Collider (website)|Collider]]|publisher=[[Complex (magazine)|Complex Media Inc.]]|accessdate=19 September 2017|date=10 April 2017}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

In 2020, ''[[African Apocalypse]]'', a documentary film directed and produced by Rob Lemkin and featuring Femi Nylander portrays a journey from [[Oxford]], England to [[Niger]] on the trail of a colonial killer called Captain [[Paul Voulet]]. Voulet's descent into barbarity mirrors that of Kurtz in Conrad's ''Heart of Darkness''. Nylander discovers Voulet's massacres happened at exactly the same time that Conrad wrote his book in 1899. It was broadcast by the [[BBC]] in May 2021 as an episode of the [[Arena (British TV series)|''Arena'' documentary series]].<ref name="cunningham">{{cite news | last=Nwokorie | first=Lynn | url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/london-film-festival/screenings/african-apocalypse | title=African Apocalypse | work=British Film Institute | date=16 October 2020 | accessdate=12 December 2021 | archive-date=8 October 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201008195001/https://www.bfi.org.uk/london-film-festival/screenings/african-apocalypse | url-status=dead }}</ref>

A British animated film adaption of the novella is planned, directed by Gerald Conn. It was written by Mark Jenkins and Mary Kate O Flanagan and is produced by Gritty Realism and [[Michael Sheen]]. Kurtz is voiced by Sheen and Harlequin by [[Andrew Scott (actor)|Andrew Scott]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ritman |first=Alex |date=17 January 2019 |title=Michael Sheen, Matthew Rhys, Andrew Scott Board 'Heart of Darkness' Animated Adaptation (Exclusive) |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/michael-sheen-matthew-rhys-andrew-scott-board-heart-darkness-animated-adaptation-1176766/ |access-date=27 April 2023 |website=The Hollywood Reporter |language=en-US}}</ref> The animation uses sand to better convey atmosphere of the book.<ref>{{Cite web |title=New film sets Conrad's classic 'Heart of Darkness' in sand |url=https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/new-film-sets-conrads-classic-heart-of-darkness-in-sand-4306 |access-date=27 April 2023 |website=www.thefirstnews.com |language=en}}</ref> A Brazilian animated film (2023) also adapts the novella. It is directed by Rogério Nunes and Alois Di Leo and moves the story to a near future [[Rio de Janeiro]].<ref>{{Citation |last=hype.cg |title=Heart of Darkness - Teaser |date=27 April 2016 |url=https://vimeo.com/164430398 |access-date=27 April 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Animation |first=SINLOGO |title=Heart of Darkness - Episode 4 - Trailer |date=8 June 2018 |url=https://vimeo.com/274141543 |access-date=27 April 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Heart of Darkness |url=https://www.marchedufilm.com/projects/heart-of-darkness/ |access-date=27 April 2023 |website=Marché du Film |language=en-US}}</ref>

===Video games===
The video game ''[[Far Cry 2]]'', released on 21 October 2008, is a loose modernised adaptation of ''Heart of Darkness''. The player assumes the role of a mercenary operating in Africa whose task it is to kill an arms dealer, the elusive "Jackal". The last area of the game is called "The Heart of Darkness".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.edge-online.com/features/feature-far-cry-2s-heart-darkness/| url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121105214057/http://www.edge-online.com/features/feature-far-cry-2s-heart-darkness/| archive-date=5 November 2012|title=The Darkness|author=Mikel Reparaz|date=30 July 2007|work=GamesRadar+}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://infovore.org/archives/2008/12/22/africa-wins-again/| url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121105214057/http://www.edge-online.com/features/feature-far-cry-2s-heart-darkness/| archive-date=5 November 2012 |title=Africa Wins Again: Far Cry 2's literary approach to narrative |publisher=Infovore.org |access-date=17 June 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/content/far-cry-2-jorge-albor|title=Far Cry 2 – Jorge Albor – ETC Press|work=Cmu.edu|access-date=17 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120526035812/http://www.etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/content/far-cry-2-jorge-albor|archive-date=26 May 2012|url-status=dead}}</ref>

''[[Spec Ops: The Line]]'', released on 26 June 2012, is a direct modernised adaptation of ''Heart of Darkness''. The player assumes the role of [[Delta Force]] operator [[Captain Martin Walker]] as he and his team search [[Dubai]] for survivors in the aftermath of catastrophic sandstorms that left the city without contact to the outside world. The character John Konrad, who replaces the character Kurtz, is a reference to Joseph Conrad.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://metro.co.uk/2012/06/26/spec-ops-the-line-review-apocalypse-now-481099/| url-status=live | archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20211121/https://metro.co.uk/2012/06/26/spec-ops-the-line-review-apocalypse-now-481099/| archive-date=21 November 2021|title=Spec Ops: The Line preview – heart of darkness|date=10 January 2012|work=Metro}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

===Literature===
[[T. S. Eliot]]'s 1925 poem "[[The Hollow Men]]" quotes, as its first epigraph, a line from ''Heart of Darkness'': "Mistah Kurtz – he dead."<ref>Ebury, Katherine (2012). [https://muse.jhu.edu/article/481055/pdf {{"'}}In this valley of dying stars': Eliot's Cosmology."] ''Journal of Modern Literature'', vol. 35, no. 3, pp. 139–157.</ref> Eliot had planned to use a quotation from the climax of the tale as the epigraph for ''[[The Waste Land]]'', but [[Ezra Pound]] advised against it.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Pound |first1=Ezra |title=The Letters of Ezra Pound |date=1950 |publisher=Faber and Faber |location=London |page=234}}</ref> Eliot said of the quote that "it is much the most appropriate I can find, and somewhat elucidative."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Eliot |first1=T. S. |title=The Letters of T. S. Eliot: 1898–1922 |date=1988 |publisher=Faber and Faber |location=London |isbn=0-571-13621-4 |page=504}}</ref> Biographer [[Peter Ackroyd]] suggested that the passage inspired or at least anticipated the central theme of the poem.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ackroyd |first1=Peter |title=T. S. Eliot |date=1984 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |location=New York |isbn=0-671-53043-7 |page=118}}</ref>

[[Chinua Achebe]]'s 1958 novel ''[[Things Fall Apart]]'' is Achebe's response to what he saw as Conrad's portrayal of Africa and Africans as symbols: "the antithesis of Europe and therefore civilization".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kirbyk.net/hod/image.of.africa.html| title=An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"|last=Achebe |first=Chinua|access-date=4 July 2022}}</ref>  Achebe set out to write a novel about Africa and Africans by an African. In ''[[Things Fall Apart]]'' we see the effects of colonialism and Christian missionary endeavours on an Igbo community in West Africa through the eyes of that community's West African protagonists.

Another literary work with an acknowledged debt to ''Heart of Darkness'' is [[Wilson Harris]]' 1960 [[Postcolonial literature|postcolonial novel]] ''[[Palace of the Peacock]]''.<ref>Harris, Wilson (1960). ''Palace of the Peacock''. London: Faber & Faber.</ref><ref>Harris, Wilson (1981). [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3818554?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents "The Frontier on Which ''Heart of Darkness'' Stands."] ''Research in African Literatures'', vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 86–93.</ref><ref>Carr, Robert (1995). [https://muse.jhu.edu/article/5269 "The New Man in the Jungle: Chaos, Community, and the Margins of the Nation-State."] ''Callaloo'', vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 133–156.</ref> [[J. G. Ballard]]'s 1962 [[climate fiction]] novel ''[[The Drowned World]]'' includes many similarities to Conrad's novella. However, Ballard said he had read nothing by Conrad before writing the novel, prompting literary critic Robert S. Lehman to remark that "the novel's allusion to Conrad works nicely, even if it is not really an allusion to Conrad".<ref>Ballard, J.G. (1962). ''The Drowned World''. New York: Berkley.</ref><ref>Lehman, Robert S. (2018). [https://muse.jhu.edu/article/705433/pdf "Back to the Future: Late Modernism in J.G. Ballard's ''The Drowned World'']. ''Journal of Modern Literature'', vol. 41, no. 4, p. 167.</ref>

[[Robert Silverberg]]'s 1970 novel ''[[Downward to the Earth]]'' uses themes and characters based on ''Heart of Darkness'' set on the alien world of Belzagor.<ref name="huma_TheH">{{Cite web |title=The Humanoids Blog, Interview: Robert Silverberg |author= |work=humanoids.com |date= |access-date=9 July 2021 |url= https://www.humanoids.com/blog/The-Humanoids-Blog/id/461| url-status=live | archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20211121/https://www.humanoids.com/blog/The-Humanoids-Blog/id/461| archive-date=21 November 2021}}{{cbignore}}</ref> In [[Josef Škvorecký]]'s 1984 novel ''The Engineer of Human Souls'', Kurtz is seen as the epitome of exterminatory colonialism and, there and elsewhere, Škvorecký emphasises the importance of Conrad's concern with Russian imperialism in Eastern Europe.<ref>Škvorecký, Josef (1984).  [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/crossc/ANW0935.1984.001/269:21?rgn=author;view=image;q1=Skvorecky%2C+Josef "Why the Harlequin?  On Conrad's ''Heart of Darkness''."]  ''Cross Currents:  A Yearbook of Central European Culture'', vol. 3, pp. 259–264.</ref>

[[Timothy Findley]]'s 1993 novel ''[[Headhunter (novel)|Headhunter]]'' is an extensive adaptation that reimagines Kurtz and Marlow as psychiatrists in Toronto. The novel begins: "On a winter's day, while a blizzard raged through the streets of Toronto, Lilah Kemp inadvertently set Kurtz free from page 92 of ''Heart of Darkness''."<ref>Findley, Timothy (1993). ''Headhunter''. Toronto: HarperCollins.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|doi = 10.3138/jcs.33.4.53|title = Intertextuality in Timothy Findley's Headhunter|year = 1999|last1 = Brydon|first1 = Diana|journal = Journal of Canadian Studies|volume = 33|issue = 4|pages = 53–62|s2cid = 140336153}}</ref> [[Ann Patchett]]'s 2011 novel ''[[State of Wonder]]'' reimagines the story with the central figures as female scientists in contemporary Brazil.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ciolkowski |first=Laura |date=8 July 2011 |title='State of Wonder' by Ann Patchett |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/books/chi-books-review-state-of-wonder-patchett-story.html |access-date=26 February 2023 |website=Chicago Tribune}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Clark |first=Susan Storer |date=8 June 2011 |title=State of Wonder |url=https://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/index.php/bookreview/state-of-wonder/ |access-date=26 February 2023 |website=Washington Independent Review of Books}}</ref>

===Comics===
A comics adaptation, ''[[Au coeur des ténèbres]]'', written by {{ill|Stéphane Miquel|fr}} and illustrated by {{ill|Loïc Godart|fr}}, was published by [[Soleil Productions|Soleil]] in 2014.<ref>{{cite news |last=Roure |first=Benjamin |date=13 March 2014 |url=https://www.bodoi.info/au-coeur-des-tenebres/ |title=Au coeur des ténèbres |newspaper={{ill|BoDoï|fr}} |language=fr |access-date=22 February 2025 }}</ref> {{ill|Jean-Pierre Pécau|fr}} and {{ill|Benjamin Bachelier|fr}} created another French comic adaptation, published as ''Coeur de ténèbres'' by [[Delcourt (publisher)|Delcourt]] in 2020.<ref>{{cite news |last=Roure |first=Benjamin |date=6 January 2020 |url=https://www.bodoi.info/coeur-de-tenebres/ |title=Coeur de ténèbres |newspaper={{ill|BoDoï|fr}} |language=fr |access-date=22 February 2025 }}</ref> 

A [[graphic novel]] adapted by David Zane Mairowitz (script) and Catherine Anyango Grünewald (artwork) appeared in 2010 from [[alternative comics]] publisher [[SelfMadeHero]]. A separate adaptation by [[Peter Kuper]], appeared 2019 from [[W. W. Norton & Company]]. The latter contained an introduction by [[historian]] [[Maya Jasanoff]]. 

[[Georges Bess]]' 2021 ''[[Bande dessinée]]'' ''Amen'' is a liberal adaptation of ''Heart of Darkness'' in a [[space opera]] setting.<ref>{{cite news |last=Rissel |first=François |date=21 April 2021 |url=https://www.bodoi.info/coeur-de-tenebres/ |title="Amen", Joseph Conrad réinterprêté en version SF par Georges Bess |newspaper={{ill|ActuaBD|fr}} |language=fr |access-date=22 February 2025 }}</ref>