Full Metal Jacket
This was Stanley Kubrick’s political opinion on war itself. This was not his specific opinion on the Vietnam War, but something much bigger. He reminds us of the Neanderthals fighting over the water hole in 2001 Space Odyssey. It shows how war and conflict is in our nature since the beginning of time. The question he gives us in Full Metal Jacket is: have we evolved?
We can see that Kubrick is intentionally criticizing the “making of the American man and war hero” The first piece of evidence come from Jokers dialogue. In boot camp the first Joke he makes is “Is that you John Wayne?” He is making fun of the senior officer, asking him if he is John Wayne. Through out the film it is Jokers dialogue expressing Kubrick's opinion through his sarcasm.
As we go from training to the battle ground, I found the transition to be very abrupt and a very clever. He showed the audience how it must of been like for the solders. I’m sure they felt the transition to be the same way, too quick, too soon, and not ready. That's why Kubrick did not want us to have a smooth transition. It was intentionally suppose to feel uneasy, giving it a realistic style in film making.
In the scene when the sniper was finally caught, we see fire in different areas of the building symbolizing hell. The scene was dirty, in disarray, disturbing. War is messy and not so organised and planned out. The part were we see the sniper is when a young female expresses how the enemy is not always the typical bad guy. Before she dies, she is praying, another piece of evidence that the enemy is not evil. This female represents what our so called enemy really looks like. Another evidence that Kubrick is giving us, a realist type of film and not a formalist film.
Joker has the look at the end of the film that was described earlier by the light skinned African American soldier right before the base was attack. He walks with his head up high and his face looks different in a way. He seems more serious and less funny at the end. It gives us a clue that he is thinking about what just transpired. His character does not change but a small piece of him has matured in a way. He must feel more grateful to be alive, but has some regrets in his heart. Maybe he was thinking maybe he could of done something different.
This movie has a realist style. Evidence of this is how you didn't have your typical theme music in every scene. Most of the scenes did not have the suspenseful soundtrack theme. When the sniper was shooting at the fallen soldiers, all we heard was the gun fire and the soldier cry for help. This gave us a realistic style as if we were in the film. I felt as if I was one of the soldiers hiding behind the building witnessing this happening in front of my eyes.The usual theme music in this scene would of taken me out of the film and returned me to my set and I would of not been inside like Kubrick wanted me to be.
My father was in the Vietnam War, and when he talks about it he describes it as hell.
It was not a pretty place to be. My father told me about how the water would give him and others diarrhea, and the food was disturbingly horrible. The photos of my father and his platoon shows how young and skinny they were. This film did not glorify violence, it does the opposite. It shows us the truth about war, and with the truth we can learn, not from unrealistic formalistic John Wayne films. This anti war film can teach us the harsh reality on what happens when we send our brave young troops out to battle. And before we deiced to get involved we should reflect on this film and take a good look at what we are sending our people into.We should asks ourselves- Is this how we should resolve conflct? Or is there another way? Can we evolve?
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