Summary
A young military recruit, nicknamed Joker, got through bootcamp and then becomes a reporter for the Army’s newspaper, “The Stars and Stripes.” What he sees the military and war do to his fellow recruits is dehumanizing and thought provoking.
The Same Stanley Song
Watching all of these Stanley Kubrick movies back to back has really caused me to see certain themes in his oeuvre I would have otherwise not noticed. One of those themes is the military industrial complex of America. Perhaps not as grandiose in scale or satire as "Dr. Strangelove,” “Full Metal Jacket” is a more personal story about individuals caught up in that military machine.
I won’t say this is my favorite Kubrick film but, compared to some of his others, I do particularly love the way that he structures this film in two halves. Each of these halves focus on one recruit and what the military is doing to them.
Act One
On the one hand you have Private Pyle, played brilliantly by Vincent D’Onofrio (“Ed Wood”). Pyle is a big lovable goofball. Kind of a dummy. He’s got all the muscle in the world but his heart and head can’t get his body to do what he wants it to. He is constantly berated and punished for his ineptitude at the hands of the merciless Drill Sergeant until he is able to find some skills as a soldier. Unfortunately to get there, he loses more than he finds.
What is interesting about this section is that Private Pyle is seemingly the ideal candidate for soldiering. He strong, eager to learn, and doesn’t give up. The problem is really in his brain. He just isn’t very bright. This may seem like a problem but the military is looking for someone with a blank slate for a mind, ready to be formed into a killing machine. The Military wants someone who will let them break down the psyche and rebuild it into a new image. The damage that this does to a mind, especially one which is not quite up to snuff, is tragic.
Act Two
When Joker (Matthew Modine, “The Dark Knight Rises”) is deployed he gets separated from the main group and joins the military news service. Eventually he ends up connecting with some of his old basic buddies and goes with them on an offensive. Here he witnesses several of his friends killed and ends up almost being killed when he sneaks up behind a sniper and his gun jams. Luckily another soldier is there and mortally wounds the woman. She pleads with them to put her out of her misery but no one will, unless Joker agrees to do it.
This act focuses on a man who, although in the military, has never had to kill and has also dodged a lot of the things that make war hell on a soldier. He is confronted with the death of his friends and faces the moment of decision, whether he can take a life or not. Whether he is just a glorified reporter or a soldier.
Together
These two acts, in conjunction, create a personal look at what the military is about. It shows you men, being put through the wringer, not by the enemy, but by their own units. All of the tough decisions come at the hands of other soldiers. The violence that is done to them is not the beatings, the running, or the push ups, although those all happen. It is in the breaking down of the will and mind of a soldier till they no longer think about anything but self preservation and obeying orders, really on in the same.
Deconstructing a living, thinking, choosing person into a weapon which can be pointed and relied upon to fire straight and not fail is the violence this movie shows and is named after.
Obviously, Kubrick was no fan of the military. Some of his more damning criticisms fall square on their shoulders. What I found interesting about this film is that it doesn’t focus on what the commando unit does to the enemy and the civilians on their side as the evil inherent in war. Instead it focuses on our own men and women and the violence they do to each other in the name of war.
Perhaps I read a little too much into the film but it seems to me that Kubrick was ahead of the curve in this recognition. Today, with popular culture more aware of things like PTSD and Anxiety Disorders it may feel a little quaint to have a film whose entire point is that war is bad for the warrior who wins as well as for them that lose, but it still rang true and meaningful to me.
A greater recognition of this would do well for everyone, not just the military leaders of our nation, or the individual soldiers under their command, but for all of us who do violence to each other every day, in word and deed, and think that it doesn’t do anything to us as people.
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