'Full Metal Jacket' (1987)
A retrospective movie review by Walter Frith
When director Stanley Kubrick died in March of 1999, he had just completed a screening of his last film, 'Eyes Wide Shut' earlier in the week and you could see by the time the film was released later in the year, in July to be exact, that some in the movie industry felt that Kubrick's obsessive nature had gotten the best of him. There simply was no reason, some said, for this film to be in production for as long as it was. From November of 1996 until January of 1998, 14 months in all, this film was shot and production didn't end until June of 1998 and then the picture wasn't released until a full 13 months after that while Kubrick tinkered with the final cut. Through all of his film making life, I truly admired Kubrick's work. Coming from a background that included being a still picture photographer, this came through in his motion picture making. Long tracking shots without any editing. Keeping the lens still with long stretches between editing and that curious shot from the floor, looking up at his subjects, parloured some of his best work and were some of Kubrick's trademarks. Camera tricks of every kind from slow motion to fast whirlwinds of movement to impressive lighting, two of Kubrick's visual essays on the world, '1960's 'Spartacus' and 1975's 'Barry Lyndon', won Oscars for their camera work. Kubrick could probably translate directly from his brain, his message of dehumanization to the screen better than any other director. Kubrick himself would never win an Oscar for any of his academic achievements but his lone Oscar came for the visual effects of 1968's '2001: A Space Odyssey'. When the American Film Institute selected the top 100 movies of all time (1896-1996) in 1998, three Kubrick films, '2001: A Space Odyssey', 'Dr. Strangelove' and 'A Clockwork Orange' made the final list. Curiously, in the opinion of many historians and critics, Kubrick seemed to peak with 'A Clockwork Orange'. He only made three other films between 1971 and 1996 and 'Barry Lyndon' (1975), 'The Shining' (1980) and 'Full Metal Jacket' (1987) did not make the list of the final 400 nominees.
Based on the novel 'The Short Timers' by Gustav Hasford, and adapted for the big screen by Hasford, Michael Herr and Kubrick, 'Full Metal Jacket' is a war film unlike any other and you have to give Kubrick credit for that. It is, primarily in the second act, probably the most intellectual look at war that has ever been shown on the big screen. It is seen through the eyes of private Joker (Matthew Modine), a U.S. Marine who overcame the obstacles of his basic military training and went to Vietnam as a journalist and a fighting machine. Kubrick layers the film with profanity rarely seen in any other film in the film's opening scene as a callous drill sergeant named Hartman, (R. Lee Ermey), grills his men to see what they are made of. There are the usual holes in the platoon. The wise cracker, the aloof, and the incompetent are all present but soon are molded and shaped into Marines who in the words of Hartman "are not allowed to die without permission". He also observes that "the deadliest weapon in the world is a Marine and his rifle". The basic training sequences in the first 45 minutes of 'Full Metal Jacket' are like watching a documentary on springs. Kubrick photographs everything in his usual surefooted style, using impressive lighting, close-ups of extreme facial expressions and sounds stretched through the fabric of the best effects devices ever created.
The film's most tragic story is not the deaths in Vietnam because there is always the risk of that in war and we know what to expect. What is not expected but does happen, is the slow mental erosion of private Pyle (Vincent D'Onofrio) at the hands of Hartman and the platoon in the film's first act. Private Pyle is overweight, out of sync with what it means to be a Marine and simply doesn't have the physical capacity to graduate with full military acceptance. Joker takes him under his wing and helps Pyle to graduate only to watch a tragedy unfold at the hands of private Pyle, who goes insane. His swan song scene is one of the most powerful images in Kubrick's career as a director and if I had not seen the credits, I could have guessed that Kubrick directed the scene.
In the film's second act, the fighting men in Vietnam move from one situation to another, just like in any other war film but the total disorganization of the Vietnam war is perhaps more authentic here than in most films like it because the film takes a very long time to build up scenes of combat that do not occur until well after we see their basic introduction to a foreign land. The way the men treat each other, the dissent, the disregard for authority and the stupidity of commanding officers all contribute to an almost iconoclastic view of the war and how it was fought.
Kubrick is not able to match the powerful antics of the first act and translate that vision to the rest of the film by the time the third act unfolds in 'Full Metal Jacket' which is the smoking out of an assassin. The audience is shown a view of Vietnam from a film that was shot entirely in England. Palm trees were temporarily planted, authentic military and Asian settings were put into place by the production design crew and the film was told with less visceral style than many films about Vietnam that came before it and while 'Full Metal Jacket' shows America in a rare military loss, what better material to draw your inspiration from if you are the master of dehumanization as Kubrick was.
Visit Film Follow-Up by Walter Frith http://home.cogeco.ca/~wfrith1/movies.htm
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