The Duality of Music in Full Metal Jacket

The music played behind visuals in film help connect viewers to themes and motifs in the film itself. Music can help set moods and even change moods. Music can work sarcastically against what is happening visually, or it can work as a parallel to what is happening. The soundtrack from Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket does all of this. His choices he makes for the soundtrack are brilliant and work very well with the themes he creates in his film. I have posted on the duality of man before, and I believe that the musical selections in Jacket somewhat hint at that theme, directly or inversely to what is shown on the screen.

Music sets the mood in every scene it is present in. When you hear a song, you make connections with what you hear to you see. The first music we hear is the song “Goodbye My Sweetheart, Hello Vietnam.” This first helps us because we immediately learn the setting from this song. We also infer a direct meaning from the lyrics in the song. It relates to the characters that are saying goodbye to what they once knew, what they loved, their sweethearts, and hello violence, warfare, and Vietnam. More indirectly, the simplicity of the song also hints somewhat to the simplicity of the characters at the beginning of the film. They have not had any experience and they are simple people.

When Kubrick wants to present a mood, he thinks about many ways to do that. He does it with lighting and shot angles but he also does it with music. One of the original scores of the film is very dark and quiet. It is used in the dark scenes of the film - the scenes where we feel suspense and fear, even sadness for characters. The score is pretty much silence with a repeating noise, almost as if a pin is dropping. The score helps us focus on what is happening in frame by not being too over the top and overdone. Nothing flashy or too dramatic is needed to distract us from what we are seeing. The first scene it is used in is the scene where they beat up private Pyle. The next scene is the bathroom scene, where Pyle commits suicide. In this scene, we hear the music and relate it to when we heard it earlier. The two scenes can be related through the music. This music represents the darkness inside people. The music feels cold and on edge, which can arguably describe human nature. In these scenes in particular, we see human nature in its worst form. Revenge is made in both scenes. First, the soldiers get revenge on Pyle for screwing up and making them work harder. And secondly, Pyle gets revenge on the drill sergeant who has cause him much embarrassment over the last 8 weeks. This music suggests one part of the duality of man, the violent side. The music in these scenes helps relate the scenes to each other. We get a shared meaning out of both scenes because of the score behind it.

When we get to Vietnam, Kubrick decides to start using modern music to play a role in his film. Like I discussed earlier, Kubrick uses the music both directly to relate to the action in scene, and inversely to imply some sort of sarcasm. One example of when a song is used inversely and directly is when the song ‘Surfin’ Bird’ is played under a scene during combat and such. This song is an odd choice to put into a film like this, but I believe Kubrick understands its playfulness and uses it to contrast the brutal ways of war, and it also helps directly relate to how the soldiers are still easy going and somewhat childish. We see a tank blow up a building, not something we would typically associate with an upbeat goofy song. But it does work perfectly with the jokes the soldiers make when the film crew walks by them. Immediately after the song ends, we are hit with a totally opposite mood when we see two dead soldiers in the center of the soldiers, giving short eulogies, both sarcastic and sincere. We can immediately make the connection that the duality of man goes from playful innocence, right back to harsh violence.

Kubrick uses music to do a lot of things in his films, and I think its pretty fun to try to interpret why. We make meanings, and tie meanings together with certain songs, and we see that the songs also work with what we see in frame. Whether inversely or directly, the music works to present a meaning, and it certainly accomplishes it.