Full Metal Jacket

For the ammunition after which the film is named, see Full metal jacket bullet.

Full Metal Jacket (1987) is a film by Stanley Kubrick based on the novel The Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford. The film is named after the full metal jacket ammunition used in military weapons.

The film has been widely praised for accurately evoking the mood of the Vietnam War from the soldier's point of view. Recurring themes are the contradictions of war, a constant feeling of being out of one's depth, and the idea of combat in Vietnam being part of a different world, with its own rules and customs. The miasma of confusion and angst of the new world begins in boot camp, and spirals down into bloodshed before even landing in Vietnam.

In the aftermath of this film a series of policy changes came about in what was considered acceptable behavior by a drill instructor in the United States Armed Forces. All references to a recruit's family are absolutely forbidden, as is striking a recruit.

The movie was shot mainly on the Isle of Dogs, a peninsula in east London. Palm trees were imported from Spain. The ravaged city scenes were shot in a disused gas works. While this was reasonable for the urban nature of the Tet offensive, it can be attributed to Kubrick's aversion to travel, especially by plane: after receiving death threats during the filming of Barry Lyndon in Ireland, he had decided never again to leave Great Britain.

Synopsis

The first part of the film follows the basic training of a group of Marine recruits during the Vietnam War era under the brutal command of drill instructor Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (played by R. Lee Ermey, whose performance earned him a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actor). The drill is depicted as designed to wash away the recruits' personalities and turn them into killers, but the brutal treatment of Leonard 'Gomer Pyle' Lawrence, played by Vincent D'Onofrio results in his murder of the drill instructor. Lawrence then kills himself.

The second part then takes place in Vietnam, mostly focusing on Marine recruit J.T. 'Joker' Davis (Matthew Modine) now a Sergeant and a Stars and Stripes war correspondent, as he covers the Tet Offensive. The 'Joker' soon becomes familiar with both the horror and the absurdity of war. His helmet decoration – the slogan "Born to Kill" – and the Peace symbol pin on his uniform exemplify his moral ambiguity. The film concludes with the soldiers' ironic rendition of the theme song to the Mickey Mouse Club. Other songs used in the film are "Hello Vietnam" and "Patriotic Full Metal Jacket Military Cadence."

Theme

The movie is a brilliant satire on the Vietnam war and the actual people fighting the war. The main theme of the movie is conflicting duality which the director has masterfully incorporated in several levels of the movie. The confliciting duality is in itself an irony exhibited by the characters and the conflicting nature of the war.

In the most basic level, the movie itself is dual in nature, in that it is divided into two distinct parts. The first part, the training of new US marine recruits, generally accepted to be a positive thing, is depicted as very disturbing. The second part of the movie, which is the actual war, is in the minds of people to be really gruesome. It is shown to be much milder and even funny at times, while still showing the horrors present in war.

In the next level, each part of the movie has its own ambiguity. In the first part of the movie, the recruit training is supposed to make soldiers who protect the interests of the country and the military, but at the end the training results in the death of the senior drill instructor. It should be noted that Pvt Gomer Pyle appeared to be an innocent character in the beginning of the movie and eventually ended up as a killer, exactly like the drill instructor wanted, but the irony is the murder of the senior drill instructor, because his sucess results in his own death (ie, he tells his recruits what a marine is capable of doing in his speech about famous assassins, thus giving Pyle his murderous idea). In the second part of the movie, the protagonist wants to get in "the shit" but eventually at the end of the movie, is happy just to be alive. The irony is that the product of the US marine recruit training, killers, are wiped out one by one by a small school girl.

The movie is full of references to the war providing freedom for the Vietnamese people by taking away the freedom of the American people, and the fact that the Vietnamese don't seem to want their freedom (in a satirical scene). There are also several references to religion, the senior drill instructor is a Roman Catholic. In the scene where the senior drill instructor asks Pvt. Joker whether he believes in the Virgin Mary, and Pvt Joker replies that he does not, the senior drill instructor says that he is ignorant and actually promotes Pvt Joker eventhough he is a non-believer.

Music

The following is a list of song titles used through out the film.

• Hello Vietnam – Performed by Johnny Wright
• These Boots Are Made for Walkin' – Performed by Nancy Sinatra
• Wooly Bully – Performed by Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs
• Surfin' Bird – Performed by The Trashmen
• The Marine's Hymn – Performed by The Goldmen
• Chapel of Love – Performed by The Dixie Cups
• Paint it Black – Performed by The Rolling Stones
• Mickey Mouse Club Television Theme

Trivia

• Kubrick provided the voice of Murphy, the soldier on the other end of the radio communication in the latter part of the film.

External links

• Full Metal Jacket at the Internet Movie Database