Full Metal Jacket
Full
Metal Jacket is a 1987 (released in the US
June 26 1987) war film directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick. The screenplay
was based on Hasford's 1979 novel The Short-Timers. The story follows a platoon
of U.S. Marines through their training and the experiences of two of the
platoon's Marines in the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. Also the film’s title refers to the full metal
jacket bullet used by infantry riflemen. The film gained positive reviews from critics
and gained over $46 million in the box office. Review aggregation website Rotten
Tomatoes retrospectively collected reviews to give the film a fresh positive score
of 94/100%.
This
film is significant to the Vietnam War as it strongly conveys general reactions
about the war. For example the Vietnam War has been featured
extensively in television, film, video games, and literature. In American
popular culture, the "Crazy Vietnam Veteran", driven mad or otherwise
disturbed by his experiences in Vietnam, became a common stock character after
the war.
Full Metal Jacket plays upon this stereotype
as, a large proportion of the film focuses on the damaging mental effects the
war had on US troops, which in turn stresses the moral consequences of the war.
The film portrays the negative
metal effects the war had on its troops in several ways. An example would be the
film stressing the military brainwashing themes in the boot camp training. It
does this with usage of the character Leonard Lawrence or his nickname "Gomer
Pyle". He is an overweight, clumsy, slow-witted recruit who becomes the
focus of Hartman's (the sergeant) attention for his incompetence and excess
weight implementing a collective punishment policy to motivate him. As a result
Pyle is beaten by his fellow recruits and then begins to show increasing signs
of obsession and mental breakdown, such as talking to his rifle, which
eventually causes him to kill Hartman and commit suicide.
Another example of Full Metal
Jacket portraying the negative mental effect the war had upon soldiers is the significant
focus of the thousand yard stare throughout the movie. In the middle of the
film Joker is mocked for his lack of the thousand-yard stare, indicating his
lack of field war experience. While at the end of the film Joker finally manages
to kill a Vietnamese sniper a (teenage girl who had taken out nearly half of
the squad single handily) which results in him displaying the ‘thousand yard
stare’. This scene also manages to portray the Vietnamese as strong opponents
which in turn also promotes the bravery the US soldiers had to experience.
Pyle's beating:
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