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For the type of bullet, see Full metal jacket bullet.
Full Metal Jacket
Theatrical release poster
Directed byStanley Kubrick
Written byNovel:
Gustav Hasford
Screenplay:
Stanley Kubrick
Michael Herr
Gustav Hasford
Produced byStanley Kubrick
Jan Harlan
StarringMatthew Modine
Adam Baldwin
Vincent D'Onofrio
R. Lee Ermey
CinematographyDouglas Milsome
Edited byMartin Hunter
Music byVivian Kubrick
Distributed byWarner Bros. Pictures
Release date
June 26, 1987
Running time
116 min.
CountriesUnited States
United Kingdom
LanguagesEnglish
Vietnamese
Budget$17,000,000 (estimated)
Box office$46,357,676

Full Metal Jacket is a 1987 war film by Stanley Kubrick, based on the novel The Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford. The title refers to the full metal jacket bullet used by infantry riflemen. The film follows a squad of U.S. Marines through their training and depicts some of the experiences of two of them in the Tet Offensive (1968) during the Vietnam War.

Plot

During the Vietnam War (1959–1975), a group of new recruits in the United States Marine Corps arrives at Parris Island for recruit training. After having their heads shaved, they meet their drill instructor, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (R. Lee Ermey). Hartman verbally and physically abuses his troops with the intention of desensitizing and hardening them. With the Vietnam War in full swing, he has the task of producing trained warriors from this group. Hartman directs much of his abuse at Pvt. Joker (Matthew Modine) and Pvt. Cowboy (Arliss Howard), but even more at the overweight and mentally slow Leonard Lawrence (Vincent D'Onofrio), nicknamed "Gomer Pyle" by Gunnery Sergeant Hartman.

Unresponsive to Hartman's repeated punishments, "Pyle" is paired up with Joker who attempts to remediate him. Thanks to Joker's patience and encouragement, "Pyle" begins to improve, but things derail when Hartman discovers a contraband jelly doughnut in "Pyle"'s foot locker, whereupon Hartman punishes the platoon for the offense. As a result, the platoon hazes "Pyle" by pinning him to his bunk with a blanket and beating him with bars of soap wrapped in towels. Joker reluctantly joins in and beats "Pyle" several times. The next day, "Pyle" appears transformed by this event, becoming a model Marine and an expert rifleman, but he shows signs of mental breakdown - including social withdrawal and talking to his M14 rifle.

After graduation, the Corps assigns each recruit to a Military Occupational Specialty. It assigns most to the infantry, but designates Joker for Basic Military Journalism. On the platoon's last night on Parris Island, Joker draws fire watch, during which he discovers "Pyle" in the head loading his rifle with live ammunition. Frightened, Joker attempts to calm "Pyle," who begins shouting, executing drill commands, and reciting the Rifleman's Creed. The noise awakens Hartman, who confronts "Pyle" and demands he drop the rifle. Instead, "Pyle" shoots Hartman, aims the rifle at Joker, but then places the muzzle in his own mouth and commits suicide.

Sometime later, in January 1968, Joker has become a Corporal and a Marine Combat Correspondent in Vietnam with Stars and Stripes, assigned to a Marine public-affairs unit along with PFC Rafterman (Kevyn Major Howard), a combat photographer. Rafterman wants to go into combat, as Joker claims he has done, though one of his colleagues mocks Joker, stating he knows Joker has never been in combat because he doesn't have the thousand-yard stare. The sound of nearby gunfire interrupts their argument: the North Vietnamese Army has begun the Tet Offensive and attempts to overrun the base.

The next day, the staff learn about enemy attacks throughout South Vietnam. Joker's commander, Lt. Lockhart, assigns Joker to Phu Bai, a Marine forward operating-base near the ancient Vietnamese city of Huế, to cover the combat taking place in the area. Rafterman accompanies him, hoping to get some combat experience. When they land outside Huế they meet up with the Lusthog Squad, with Cowboy - now a Sergeant - second-in-command. Joker accompanies the squad during the Battle of Huế, during which the enemy kills their commander, Lt. Touchdown (Ed O'Ross). Another Marine nicknamed Crazy Earl takes command of the squad.

A few days later the squad goes out on patrol again, this time north of the Perfume River which divides the city of Huế, where the Americans believe enemy forces have hidden. Crazy Earl comes across a toy rabbit in a ruined building and picks it up, triggering an explosive booby trap that kills him, leaving Cowboy as the reluctant squad leader. The squad becomes lost in the ruined buildings, and a sniper pins them down wounding two of their comrades. The sniper refrains from killing the wounded men with the apparent intention of drawing more of the squad into the killing zone. As the squad maneuvers to try to locate the hidden position, Cowboy is shot and killed as well.

With Cowboy dead, an M-60 Machine gunner named Animal Mother (Adam Baldwin) assumes command of the remaining Marines. Using smoke grenades to conceal their advance, the squad locates the sniper. Joker finds the sniper on an upper floor, but his rifle jams as he tries to shoot. The sniper, a young girl, spins around, opening fire and pinning him behind a column. Joker frantically drops his rifle and draws his sidearm, but Rafterman arrives and shoots the sniper, saving Joker. As Animal Mother and other Marines of the squad converge, she begins to pray then repeatedly begs (in English) "shoot me", prompting an argument about whether to leave her to die from her wounds or to put her out of her misery. Animal Mother decides to allow a mercy killing only if Joker performs it. After some hesitation, Joker shoots her with his sidearm. The Marines congratulate him on his kill as Joker stares into the distance. The film concludes with the Marines marching toward their bivouac, singing the Mickey Mouse March. Joker states that despite being "in a world of shit" that he is glad to be alive, and is unafraid.

Cast and characters

  • Matthew Modine as Private/Corporal James T. "Joker" Davis, the protagonist-narrator who claims to have joined the Corps to see combat, and to become the first one on his block with a confirmed kill. He witnesses Pyle's insanity in boot camp, but nevertheless becomes a "squared away" Marine. He later serves as an independent-minded combat correspondent accompanying the Lusthog Squad in the field. Joker wears a peace-sign medallion on his uniform as well as writing "Born to Kill" on his helmet.
  • Vincent D'Onofrio as Private Leonard "Gomer Pyle" Lawrence: An overweight, clumsy, slow-witted recruit who becomes the focus of Hartman's attention for his incompetence and excess weight, making him the platoon scapegoat. After a blanket party from the rest of the platoon for failing almost everything and earning them collective punishments, he turns psychotic and talks to his rifle, "Charlene." He later shoots and kills D.I. Hartman while in the bathroom and then himself in front of Joker. The humiliating nickname Gomer Pyle originates from a likable but dim character from the American television program The Andy Griffith Show who eventually enlists in the USMC.
  • R. Lee Ermey (credited as "Lee Ermey") as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: the archetypal Parris Island drill instructor who trains his recruits to transform them into Marines. R. Lee Ermey actually served as a U.S. Marine Drill Instructor during the Vietnam War. Based on this experience he ad-libbed much of his dialog in the movie.
  • Arliss Howard as the Texan Private / Sergeant "Cowboy" Evans who goes through boot camp with Joker. He becomes a rifleman and later encounters Joker in Vietnam, taking command of a rifle squad. In Full Metal Jacket, he quickly dies of a sucking chest wound, while in Joker's arms and weakly saying "I can hack it...", surrounded by the few remaining members of his squad.
  • Adam Baldwin as Sergeant "Animal Mother": the nihilistic M-60 machine gunner of the Lusthog Squad, Animal Mother scorns any authority but his own, and attempts to rule by intimidation. Animal Mother believes in victory as the only object of war.
  • Dorian Harewood as Corporal "Eightball": The African-American member of the Lusthog Squad, insensitive about his ethnicity (e.g. 'Put a nigger behind the trigger'), and Animal Mother's closest friend. The sniper shoots him repeatedly in attempt to lure the others into the open, before killing him.
  • Kevyn Major Howard as Private First Class "Rafterman": Rafterman works as a combat photographer in the Stars and Stripes office with Joker. He requests permission to accompany Joker into Hue and ultimately saves him by shooting the sniper, an act which gives him much pride and exhilaration. He seems to be a natural killer.
  • Ed O'Ross as Lieutenant Walter J. "Touchdown" Schinowski: The commander of the Lusthog Squad's platoon, he was a college football player at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. He is killed in an ambush outside of Hue City.
  • John Terry as Lieutenant Lockhart: The PIO officer-in-chief and Joker's assignment editor. He has combat-reporting experience, but uses his officer rank to avoid returning to the field, he says on account of the danger and the bugs, rationalizing that his journalistic duties keep him where he belongs, "In the rear with the gear."
  • Kieron Jecchinis as Sergeant "Crazy Earl": The squad leader, he is forced to assume platoon command when Platoon Leader Lt. Touchdown is killed. Touching a booby-trapped toy kills him. As in the novel he carries a BB gun, which is visible just before he dies.
  • John Stafford as Doc Jay: A Navy corpsman attached to the Lusthog squad. Doc Jay mocks President Johnson when he is interviewed by documentary men in the film, Doc Jay quotes LBJ when he was Vice President expressing his intentions to avoid sending American soldiers to Vietnam. He is wounded by the sniper while attempting to drag Eightball to safety; the sniper uses a subsequent automatic burst to finish them both off when Doc Jay attempts to indicate the direction of the sniper.
  • Tim Colceri as the door gunner, the Loadmaster and machine gunner of the H-34 Choctaw helicopter transporting Joker and Rafterman to the Tet Offensive front. Inflight, he shoots at civilians, while enthusiastically repeating "Get some!", boasting "157 dead Gooks killed, and 50 water buffaloes too." When Joker asks if that includes women and children, he admits it stating, "Sometimes." Joker then asks, "How could you shoot women and children?" to which the door-gunner replies jokingly, "Easy, you just don't lead 'em so much!...Ha, ha, ha, ha...Ain't war hell?!" This scene is adapted from Michael Herr's 1977 book Dispatches.
  • Papillon Soo Soo as Da Nang Hooker: An attractive and scantily-dressed prostitute who approaches Joker and Rafterman at a street corner during the first scene in Vietnam. She is memorable for the phrases "Me love you long time", "Me so horny" and "Me sucky sucky", which were later sampled by 2 Live Crew in their song, "Me So Horny" and in Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby Got Back".
  • Peter Edmund as Private "Snowball" Brown: African-American recruit, the butt of jibes from Hartman about "fried chicken and watermelon", and famous for informing him that Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy from "that book suppository [sic] building, Sir!". He doesn't appear in Vietnam.

Production

Development

Stanley Kubrick contacted Michael Herr, author of the Vietnam War memoir Dispatches, in the spring of 1980 to discuss working on a film about the Holocaust but eventually discarded that in favor of a film about the Vietnam War.[1] They met in England and the director told him that he wanted to do a war film but he had yet to find a story to adapt.[2] Kubrick discovered Gustav Hasford's novel The Short-Timers while reading the Virginia Kirkus Review[3] and Herr received it in bound galleys and thought that it was a masterpiece.[2] In 1982, Kubrick read the novel twice and afterwards thought that it "was a unique, absolutely wonderful book" and decided, along with Herr,[1] that it would be the basis for his next film.[3] According to the filmmaker, he was drawn to the book's dialogue that was "almost poetic in its carved-out, stark quality."[3] In 1983, he began researching for this film, watching past footage and documentaries, reading Vietnamese newspapers on microfilm from the Library of Congress, and studied hundreds of photographs from the era.[4] Initially, Herr was not interested in revisiting his Vietnam War experiences and Kubrick spent three years persuading him in what the author describes as "a single phone call lasting three years, with interruptions."[1]

In 1985, Kubrick contacted Hasford to work on the screenplay with him and Herr,[2] often talking to Hasford on the phone three to four times a week for hours at a time.[5] Kubrick had already written a detailed treatment.[2] The two men got together at Kubrick's home every day, breaking down the treatment into scenes. From that, Herr wrote the first draft.[2] The filmmaker was worried that the title of the book would be misread by audiences as referring to people who only did half a day's work and changed it to Full Metal Jacket after discovering the phrase while going through a gun catalogue.[2] After the first draft was completed, Kubrick would phone in his orders and Hasford and Herr would mail in their submissions.[6] Kubrick would read and then edit them with the process starting over. Neither Hasford nor Herr knew how much they contributed to the screenplay and this led to a dispute over the final credits.[6] Hasford remembers, "We were like guys on an assembly line in the car factory. I was putting on one widget and Michael was putting on another widget and Stanley was the only one who knew that this was going to end up being a car."[6] Herr says that the director was not interested in making an anti-war film but that "he wanted to show what war is like."[1]

At some point, Kubrick wanted to meet Hasford in person but Herr advised against this, describing The Short-Timers author as a "scary man."[1] Kubrick insisted and they all met at Kubrick's house in England for dinner. It did not go well and Hasford was subsequently shut out of the production.[1]

Casting

Through Warner Bros., Kubrick advertised a national search in the United States and Canada.[2] The director used video tape to audition actors. He received over 3,000 video tapes.[2] His staff screened all of the tapes and eliminated the unacceptable ones. This left 800 tapes for Kubrick to personally review.[2]

The filmmakers originally hired former U.S. Marine Drill Instructor R. Lee Ermey as a technical adviser, but he asked Kubrick if he could audition for the role of Hartman. However Kubrick, having seen his portrayal as Drill Instructor SSgt Loyce in The Boys in Company C, told him that he wasn't vicious enough to play the character.[2] In response, Ermey made a videotape of himself improvising insulting dialogue towards a group of Royal Marines while people off-camera pelted him with oranges and tennis balls. Ermey, in spite of the distractions, rattled off an unbroken string of insults for 15 minutes, and he did not flinch, duck, or repeat himself while the projectiles rained on him.[2] Upon viewing the video, Kubrick gave Ermey the role, realizing that he "was a genius for this part".[4] Ermey's experience as a real-life DI during the Vietnam era proved invaluable, and he fostered such realism that in one instance, Ermey barked an order off-camera to Kubrick to stand up when he was spoken to, and Kubrick instinctively obeyed, standing at attention before realizing what had happened. Kubrick estimated that Ermey came up with 150 pages of insults, many of them improvised on the spot — a rarity for a Kubrick film. According to Kubrick's estimate, the former drill instructor wrote 50% of his own dialogue, especially the insults.[7] Ermey usually needed only two to three takes per scene, another rarity for a Kubrick film.

The original plan envisaged Anthony Michael Hall starring as Private Joker, but after eight months of negotiations a deal between Stanley Kubrick and Hall fell through.[8]

Kubrick offered Bruce Willis a role, but Willis had to turn down the opportunity because of the impending start of filming on the first 6 episodes of Moonlighting.[9]

Principal photography

Kubrick shot the film in England: in Cambridgeshire, on the Norfolk Broads, and at the former Beckton Gas Works, Newham (east London). A former RAF and then British Army base, Bassingbourn Barracks, doubled as the Parris Island Marine boot camp.[4] A British Army rifle range near Barton, outside Cambridge was used in the scene where Private Pyle is congratulated on his shooting skills by R. Lee Ermey. The disused Beckton Gasworks portrayed the ruined city of Huế. Kubrick worked from still photographs of Huế taken in 1968 and found an area owned by British Gas that closely resembled it and was scheduled to be demolished.[7] To achieve this look, Kubrick had buildings blown up and the film's art director used a wrecking ball to knock specific holes in certain buildings over the course of two months.[7] Originally, Kubrick had a plastic replica jungle flown in from California, but once he looked at it he reportedly said, "I don't like it. Get rid of it."[10] Open-country scenes show Cliffe marshes, also on the Thames, with 200 imported Spanish palm trees[3] and 100,000 plastic tropical plants from Hong Kong.[7]

Kubrick acquired four M41 tanks from a Belgian army colonel (a fan), and Sikorsky H-34 Choctaw helicopters (actually Westland Wessex painted Marine green). He obtained a selection of rifles, M79 grenade launchers and M60 machine guns from a licensed weapons-dealer.[4]

Matthew Modine described the shoot as tough: he had to have his head shaved once a week and Ermey yelled at him for ten hours a day during the shooting of the Parris Island scenes.[11]

At one point during filming, Ermey had a car accident, broke all of his ribs on one side and was out for four-and-half months.[7] Cowboy's death scene shows a building in the background that resembles the famous alien monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick described the resemblance as an "extraordinary accident."[7]

During filming, Hasford contemplated legal action over the writing credit. Originally the film-makers intended Hasford to receive an "additional dialogue" credit, but he wanted full credit.[6] The writer took two friends and snuck onto the set dressed as extras only to be mistaken by a crew member for Herr.[5]

Kubrick's daughter Vivian - who appears uncredited as news-camera operator at the mass grave - shadowed the filming of Full Metal Jacket and shot eighteen hours of behind-the-scenes footage, snippets of which can be seen in the 2008 documentary Stanley Kubrick's Boxes.

Music

"Abigail Mead" (an alias for Kubrick's daughter Vivian) wrote a score for the film. According to an interview which appeared in the January 1988 issue of Keyboard Magazine, the film was scored mostly with a Fairlight CMI synthesizer (the then-current Series III edition), and the Synclavier. For the period music, Kubrick went through Billboard's list of Top 100 Hits for each year from 1962–1968 and tried many songs but "sometimes the dynamic range of the music was too great, and we couldn't work in dialogue."[7] The sequence that includes "Surfin Bird" was included in UGO's Top 11 Uses of Classic Rock in Cinema

Reception

Full Metal Jacket received critical acclaim. Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader labeled it "the most tightly crafted Kubrick film since Dr. Strangelove." Variety referred to the film as an "intense, schematic, superbly made" drama, while Vincent Canby of the New York Times called it "harrowing" and "beautiful." Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert had a dissenting view, stating the film was "strangely shapeless", giving it a a 2.5 stars - a "thumbs down" by Ebert's standards.[12] Gene Siskel famously took Ebert to task for this view on their television show, especially so for simultaneously praising Benji the Hunted. Rotten Tomatoes gives the movie a 96% rating.[13][14]

The film received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Writing for an adapted screenplay. Ermey was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor.

Full Metal Jacket ranks 457th on Empire magazine's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time.[15]

In March 2008, the film became the first to receive a double-dipping on Blu-ray Disc.[16]

Interpretation

Compared to Kubrick's other works, the themes of Full Metal Jacket have received little attention from critics and reviewers. With the exception of Rob Ager's lengthy video narration, The Hidden Hand,[17] reviews have mostly focused on military brainwashing themes in the boot-camp training section of the film, while seeing the latter half of the film as more confusing and disjointed in content. Rita Kempley of the Washington Post wrote, "it's as if they borrowed bits of every war movie to make this eclectic finale."[18] Roger Ebert explained, "The movie disintegrates into a series of self-contained set pieces, none of them quite satisfying."[19] Ager interprets these aspects of the film as Kubrick's satirical critique of pro-war propaganda in Hollywood war movies.

Awards and nominations

Academy Awards

  • Nomination - Best Adapted Screenplay (Stanley Kubrick, Michael Herr, Gustav Hasford)

Awards of the Japanese Academy

  • Nomination - Best Foreign Language Film (Stanley Kubrick)

BAFTA Awards

Boston Society of Film Critics Awards

  • Won - Best Director (Stanley Kubrick)
  • Won - Best Supporting Actor (R. Lee Ermey)

David di Donatello Awards

  • Won - Best Producer - Foreign Film (Stanley Kubrick)

Golden Globes

  • Nomination - Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture (R. Lee Ermey)

Kinema Junpo Awards

  • Won - Best Foreign Language Film Director (Stanley Kubrick)

London Critics Circle Film Awards

  • Won - Director of the Year (Stanley Kubrick)

Writers Guild of America

  • Nomination - Best Adapted Screenplay (Stanley Kubrick, Michael Herr, Gustav Hasford)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f CVulliamy, Ed (July 16, 2000). "It Ain't Over Till It's Over". The Observer. Retrieved 2007-10-11. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k LoBrutto, Vincent (1997). "Stanley Kubrick". Donald I. Fine Books. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  3. ^ a b c d Clines, Francis X (June 21, 1987). "Stanley Kubrick's Vietnam". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-10-11. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  4. ^ a b c d Rose, Lloyd (June 28, 1987). "Stanley Kubrick, At a Distance". Washington Post. Retrieved 2007-10-11. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  5. ^ a b Lewis, Grover (June 28, 1987). "The Several Battles of Gustav Hasford". Los Angeles Times Magazine. Retrieved 2007-10-11. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  6. ^ a b c d Carlton, Bob (1987). "Alabama Native wrote the book on Vietnam Film". Birmingham News. Retrieved 2007-10-11. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Cahill, Tim (1987). "The Rolling Stone Interview". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2007-10-11. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  8. ^ Epstein, Dan. "Anthony Michael Hall from The Dead Zone - Interview". Underground Online. Retrieved 2009-08-12.
  9. ^ http://www.playboy.com/articles/playboy-interview-bruce-willis/index.html?page=2
  10. ^ Watson, Ian (2000). "Plumbing Stanley Kubrick". Playboy. Retrieved 2007-10-11. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  11. ^ Linfield, Susan (October 1987). "The Gospel According to Matthew". American Film. Retrieved 2007-10-11. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  12. ^ http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19870626/REVIEWS/706260302/1023
  13. ^ http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-03-26/seven-classic-at-the-movies-moments/full/
  14. ^ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/full_metal_jacket
  15. ^ http://www.empireonline.com/500/8.asp
  16. ^ http://hmv.com/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=280;0;-1;-1;-1&sku=745410
  17. ^ The Hidden Hand, video analysis of Full Metal Jacket http://www.collativelearning.com/FMJ%20contents.html
  18. ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/fullmetaljacketrkempley_a0ca77.htm Washington Post review]
  19. ^ Roger Ebert Review http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19870626/REVIEWS/706260302/1023
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