Kurtz (Heart of Darkness) circumstances and remote settings to assert power over others. It is widely believed that Conrad drew influence from these characters, as well as Stevenson's plot lines, when writing "Heart of Darkness". In the 1958 loose adaptation for the CBS television anthology series "Playhouse 90" Kurtz was played by Boris Karloff. This version uses the encounter between Marlow and Kurtz as its final act, and adds a backstory in which Marlow had been Kurtz's adopted son. Francis Ford Coppola's acclaimed Vietnam War film "Apocalypse Now" (1979) centers on the protagonist's mission to find and kill the renegade Colonel Kurtz (played by
Heart of Darkness (opera) Heart of Darkness (opera) Heart of Darkness is a chamber opera in one act by Tarik O'Regan, with an English-language libretto by artist Tom Phillips, based on the novella of the same name by Joseph Conrad. It was first performed in a co-production by Opera East and ROH2 at the Linbury Theatre of the Royal Opera House in London on 1 November 2011 directed by Edward Dick. In May, 2015, the opera received its North American premiere in a production by Opera Parallèle, presented by Z Space in San Francisco, California. The initial idea of adapting the Conrad novella into