“..Coppola’s 1979 Academy Award-winning Apocalypse Now, rendered a sprawling vision of an American army that had lost all moral bearings, a drugged, disintegrating arm of a failing empire.” p. 310-11

The author mentions Coppola’s movie as an analogy for socio-economic environment of United States in the 1970s. He characterizes American society as “dystopian,” pointing to the downturn of the economy, as well as feelings of uncertainty and pessimism to politics and culture. The defeat in Vietnam caused most of the negative sentiments, which is why Apocalypse Now became such a hit. People’s worst suspicions were “confirmed” upon the release of the film. They were relating all their problems to the over-dramatized vision of Francis Ford Coppola. Other forms of art had adopted a similarly dark tone, contributing to the theme of decline that had become synonymous with the 70s.