Full Metal Jacket, based on the book by Gustav Hasford, directed by Stanley Kubrick

Full Metal Jacket, based on the book by Gustav Hasford, directed by Stanley Kubrick

                Full Metal Jacket is a Stanley Kubrick film!

This is enough to say that, if we do not have a masterpiece on the screen, this is at least a remarkable work of art.

1987 was the year of Wall Street, Ironweed, Broadcast News, The Untouchables, Moonstruck, Fatal Attraction, Empire of the Sun, Throw Momma From the Train, The Last Emperor and a tragicomedy about the same war as Full Metal Jacket: Good Morning Vietnam.

We must add to the American movies those masterpieces nominated for a Best Foreign Film Award:

Babette’s Feast, Au Revoir Les Enfants, Dark Eyes, Pathfinder and we can see what a good year this has been for the cinema.

Nevertheless, this viewer feels that Full Metal Jacket should have been nominated for more than one Oscar.

Moreover, other film fans agree, for this production is listed on IMDB at number 92 on the list of top Rated Movies.

This motion picture invites meditation on the Vietnam and wars in general starts with the training of the marines that would participate in the conflict, the humiliation, and brain washing that it involves.

It is very often so absurd as to remind one of Dr. Strangelove, only here we have another clinical case called Sgt. Hartman as an aggressive, yet comical trainer that addresses his platoon with “ladies, worms and other insulting names.

This Sergeant will have to pay a heavy price for his brutal and probably very common methods of intimidation.

In training, there is one interesting aspect that eludes most people, the fact that two infamous killers have taken the Marines training and one of them used the special skills acquired to shoot and kill the American president from a long distance and while the motorcade was on the move.

We find in this intelligent, meaningful motion picture quite a few questions and themes.

In one scene, reporters arrive on the front and they ask the soldiers questions about the involvement in this war.

Answers range from quotes on what American leaders have promised that they will not send their boys to fight in a conflict that is for Asian boys to fight, to proud declarations that the US is the best.

There are lunatics and murderous men that appear to enjoy killing human beings and one special case shoots from the helicopter.

As they fly over fields with civilians, this killer is using his heavy machine gun top fire indiscriminately over innocent men, women and maybe children.

He is proud of his record of having murdered about one hundred and fifty people and…some buffaloes.

When asked about women and children he admits that he had killed some of those too and he adds when questioned again about how he could have done that – “easy, you just fill them with lead” or words to that effect.

Joker is the protagonist of both parts of Full Metal Jacket, the training that results in a homicide and suicide and the covering of the war in his capacity as a reporter for Stars and Stripes.

The war is messy, sometimes appears to be pointless and wrong, although not on the scale that we see in other films, like Platoon.

Joker has a complex personality, a fact that is highlighted by his response when a superior officer asks him about his wearing both a peace sign and “Born to Kill” on his helmet-, “I was trying to suggest something about the duality…The Jungian thing…”

“Every good quality has its bad side, and nothing that is good can come into the world without directly producing a corresponding evil. This is a painful fact…”

The complexity of the hero is evident in other scenes from the film, from the beating of his companion to the compassion manifested first for the dying Cowboy and then to the attitude towards the sniper.

There are moments when one wonders what the best decision is: should they all try to help one injured soldier?

However, what if that plays into the hands of a sniper, who tries to drag them in, one by one, only to injure and then kill them?

“The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.” Jeremy Bentham