Day One of this project naturally starts off with a war movie since this is memorial day. The tone of this film may not always fit with the goals that lie behind this holiday, but there are many times when it does and the film does come from one of cinema’s true masters, Stanley Kubrick.
Full Metal Jacket is an Anti-War film. I have heard it said that all war films are ultimately anti-war, because at their heart they all show somewhere the sacrifice and insanity of the war. This film however is not simply about the tragedy of war, but the tragedy of our attitudes about war and our warriors. Earlier today, I watched “Sergeant York”, from 1941. It is also opposed to war but it celebrates the motives of those who chose to fight and the accomplishment of a humble hero. It is pretty patriotic. “Full Metal Jacket” is unlikely to be seen as patriotic by anyone, although I know it has inspired more than one Marine corps enlistment.
The fierce opening section of the film concentrates on the training of U.S. Marines in the mid sixties as the nation is engaged in the war in Vietnam. R. Lee Ermy plays Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, a drill instructor with an iron will and a tongue that is blessed with the most imaginative, vulgar, and provocative dialogue you will hear in a month of Sundays. Ermy was originally the technical advisor but was given the part after he demonstrated his ability to brow beat recruits with insults that did not repeat and used nearly unrepeatable language to do so. The fact that the film’s one Oscar nomination was for the script and not Ermy’s performance, is probably a consequence of two other actors playing Vietnam era Sergeants being nominated for a different film.
Famously, the film has two distinct parts and the energy between those sections is easy to distinguish. The battle sequences that make up the second half of the film, are intense in the way most combat films can be. It is the slow burn first half that defines the movie however. Sure the D.I is intense, but all of the scenes in the barracks play with the usual Kubrick detached chill. Even the moments that might be described as warm between Pyle and Joker, are still shot and play out in a more clinical manner than you would expect. Matthew Modine is great casting for this because he always seems understated in his performances. The truly chilling sequence with Vincent D’Onofrio as Pyle in the head, is still in that Kubrick cold mold. Like Jack Nicholson slowly going mad in “The Shining”.
One of the things that contributes to the antiseptic feel of the film, especially in the recruit training scenes , is the music by Kubrick’s own daughter, Vivian, under the name Abigail Mead. It is synthesizer based and very atonal at times, perfectly in keeping with the events being seen in the movie. Just as a piece of trivia, she is the little girls who plays Heywood Floyd’s daughter in his video call from the space station in 2001.
In keeping with my nostalgia theme, I do have a couple of notes about my history with the film. I first saw it when it opened in July of 1987. I am pretty sure I saw it at the Mann Triplex in Hastings Ranch in Pasadena. I was a little put out that my DVD copy that comes from a Kubrick Collection I bought in 1999, was in a 1:33 to 1 ratio, but it turns out this was the ratio that Kubrick shot the film in and the widescreen presentations are all a result of mattes so this is not a Pan and Scan version of the film, it is simply unmated.
80s Nostalgia Central: A Kirkham a Movie A Day Project 