Full Metal Jacket: Meanings

Form and meaning is an important matter to discuss in reviewing and analyzing films. It is no surprise that we, as viewers, take away a lot of meaning after viewing films.  There are multiple ways we can do this. The most obvious meaning we take is the ‘bare bones’ plot summary, or what is also referred to as ‘referential meaning’ (Lecture). This includes the elements we see in the film. For example, in Full Metal Jacket, some referential meaning we take from the film is that the story first takes place at boot camp and follows a few main characters as they grow as soldiers until they are sent off to Vietnam.

Another form of meaning we take while viewing films is ‘explicit meaning.’ We learned in class that this is the significance of the film, expressed overtly usually in language in the beginning of the film (Lecture). Pretty much I understand it as the point of the film. In Jacket, I believe that the explicit meaning for the last section of the film is: the war in Vietnam was fought for questionable reasons, but the soldiers fought on for their country. We are supposed to see how the military shapes soldiers, and what war is like for those fighting. Another thing we don’t have to look deep into is the Vietnamese people. Kubrick portrays them as enemies, thieves, and prostitutes; never anything good or respectable is portrayed. We could, however, form our own opinions about the Vietnamese, and that would move us into our next type of meaning.

The idea of the viewer forming opinions and discovering meaning is a part of both implicit and symptomatic meaning. In implicit meaning, we reflect on the major themes of the film. In Jacket, we reflect on how boys turn to soldiers, how the military shapes the men of America, and how war can affect all types of people. Some things we analyze are the treatment of soldiers at boot camp, especially the treatment of Gomer Pyle. We see him get chastised for not being able to keep up with the rest of the group. We try to justify the drill sergeant’s actions. We also see the growth and shaping of Private Pyle, from an incompetent slob, to a mad man capable of more than we ever thought possible. Is this what happens to people when they go through boot camp, or see action in war? A question such as this demonstrates the idea of implicit meaning.

The fourth form of meaning is called ‘symptomatic meaning.’ As defined in class, this means the significance that a film divulges, often against its will, by virtue, or historical social context (Lecture). In Jacket, the next meaning we take starts to question whether or not the Vietnam was a war worth fighting. We are supposed to interpret the reasons for fighting the war, and form our own opinions. People bring in opinions of the Vietnam War before even seeing the film, so preconceived notions are brought in and effect how people read the film. Another thing people take symptomatically is the view of women in the film. Throughout the beginning of the film the men are referred to as ladies and they graduate to men. Is this saying something about the role of women in society? Another example is the female sniper at the end of the film. Is the fact that a woman brings down many members of the male platoon also saying something about society? Some critics think the film is all about eliminating women and how the marines are a prime example of eliminating feminine qualities. Author George F. Gilder states in his book, Sexual Suicide, “The good things are manly and collective; the despicable are feminine and individual…when you want to create a group of male killers, that is what you do, you kill the women in them,” (Gilder qtd. in Pursell, 221). I don’t necessarily believe Kubrick’s sole intention of the film was to promote the eradication of women, although I can certainly see where people may see that.

When looking at a film, there are many interpretations viewers make. From the obvious meanings to the ones meant to be found out on their own, readers of film always have something to take home after a film.

Pursell, M. (1988). Full Metal Jacket. Literature Film Quarterly, 16(4), 218.

Wilson-Brown, C. CMN 3530 Lecture, September 1, 2011. 

Analysis of the 'Bathroom Scene' in FMJ

            In my movie viewing experience thus far in my life, I have seen a good range of powerful scenes in a range of movies. But if there were one scene that grabs my attention more than any other, it would have to be the bathroom scene in Full Metal Jacket. It may simply be because of the tense actions in the scene, and the gore-filled conclusion to the scene that sticks in my brain, but there are other aspects to that scene that make it as powerful as it is. I suggest watching the clip now.

            Obviously, the end of the scene sticks with all viewers, as any blood-splattered wall would inevitably do. But I believe the analysis should start well before the scene actually starts. The analysis should begin with what we bring into the scene from previous elements of the film. Leonard Lawrence, or Gomer Pyle, as he is named, progressively turns into a mad man throughout his time at boot camp. The viewer brings this notion into the scene before we even see the outcome. We know that Private Pyle has been tormented and chastised by his fellow soldiers and drill sergeant.  Author Zivah Perel states in his article, that “Pyle clearly lacks the ability to process fully what Hartman teaches him, and his mimicry of Hartman at the time of his death makes this failure clear,” (Perel 226). We also know he is finds comfort in his rifle, he even talks to it calling its action, “beautiful.”  Perel goes on to say that it is ironic that the very thing helping Pyle to actually succeed in the military is his rifle, and it turns out to also be his end.

            When the scene begins, we hear silence, and what seems to be pins dropping. This use of sound brings suspense into the scene before we know what happens. Last time this sound combination was used was in the scene where the soldiers beat Private Pyle with the bars of soap. This element is something else we bring into it, wondering: what will happen this time?

            Next, we see that it is Private Joker to be the one ‘pulling fire watch.’ We know that Joker was the one to help out Private Pyle when he was struggling. Joker was the one who was told to take Leonard under his wing and teach him. We see a small bonding between the two but then in the scene where they beat Private Pyle, Joker hesitates but follows through, beating him mercilessly. Their relationship is questionable at this point in time, not knowing where exactly they stand with each other, and that tension is what we carry with us to this final scene.

            Once we get into the bathroom, we see Private Pyle sitting alone holding a rifle’s magazine with his rifle propped against the toilet. He slowly looks up to face the camera and his solemn look turns to a crazed smile. Breathing heavily, he says, “Hi Joker.” The way he says this is like a child. He speaks slow and with a certain cadence, adding more elements of terror as the scene progresses. The only light in the room comes from the windows above the toilets, and Joker’s flashlight. The blue hues of the lighting also add to the eerie elements of the scene. The light here almost seems like a film noir because lines of light hit specifically in places, and illuminating Joker’s face during close ups. Author Claude J. Smith Jr. relates the lighting in this scene to Kubrick’s other film, Clockwork Orange. “The lighting in this scene recalls the lighting during the first attack of ultra-violence in Clockwork where Alex and his droogs analogously truncheoned the “dirty, filthy old drunkie” in cold, sadistic joy,” (Smith Jr. 227). When Pyle slowly adds rounds to the magazine, the tension builds more. We learn they are live rounds and the danger of the scene escalates in our minds. “Seven. Six. Two. Millimeter.” Another rhythmic statement by Pyle, “Full. Metal. Jacket.” The spaces between his words add dramatics to each word following it. The way Pyle says his lines in this scene is an important part as to why the drama builds, as if we are hanging on to each and every word he has to say.

            The most brilliant part of this scene is when Private Pyle stands up and goes through his attention commands. Calling out left shoulder, right shoulder, and carrying out his orders with amazing accuracy and splendor to them. His routine is almost flawless, which only leads us to believe that he was capable of much more than we ever saw out of him. His declaring of the rifleman’s creed is moving, putting emphasis on every syllable of every word. Again, we listen to everything he has to say, because he has all the power in the scene. Even when Sergeant Hartman enters the scene, we are focused on the matter at hand just like Joker. Hartman’s speech is awkwardly long, making the viewer uncomfortable because of how serious the matter is.

            The close up of Private Pyle is a scary one. His face deformed by a shadow across his eye, and his smile is menacing. The elements of lighting here make him look exactly like what he has become: a monster. Lighting also plays a role in Hartman’s orders to Pyle. The drill instructor moves through shadows and back into light while giving his orders. Pyle’s gasping breaths are remarkably eerie, as any normal human being wouldn’t breathe like that. He takes one last gasp and aims.

            I always think Sergeant Hartman went about it wrong, I mean the way he spoke to Pyle right before he died. I think I would have chosen something like, “Easy Leonard” like Joker did, rather than calling him ‘numb nuts.’ But I also don’t think it would have mattered. He would’ve pulled the trigger anyway.

            Covered in blood, the drill instructor lies dead on the floor, leaving a final stand off between Joker and Pyle. This is where we reference their relationship from earlier in our minds. Will Jokers helpful actions help him more than his hurtful actions? Leonard lowers his weapon, and the hand-held camera work follows him as he sits down. I always find hand-held work to make films more personal, as if I was there. We see the cultivation of their relationship. To me, Pyle realizes Joker’s negative treatment toward him was never personal and he lowers the weapon.

            I never am quite sure why Kubrick shows the suicide. Maybe he does it to show the ‘realness’ of war and how it takes its toll on people. Perhaps he thought he owed the viewer some type of climax after watching the first half of the film. I’m not sure how I would’ve done it if it were myself directing. I’m just glad Kubrick didn’t cut to black with the sound of a gunshot ringing over a black screen.

Perel, Z. (2008). Pyle and Joker's Dual Narratives: Individuality and Group Identity in Stanley Kubrick's Marine Corps. Literature Film Quarterly, 36(3), 223-232.

Smith Jr., C. J. (1988). Full Metal Jacket and the Beast Within. Literature Film Quarterly, 16(4), 226

Private Joker and the Duality of Man

Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket is a film where many aspects of film run together to create this work of art. I believe that his characters are well developed and are a crucial part of the mastery of this film. In this post I plan to discuss a main character Kubrick enhances in his film. 

Private Joker, played by Matthew Modine, is a main character in the film as he stays with us throughout the duration of the film. We see him developed as a soldier and as a human being over the course of the film. We start at the first scene, where the soldiers stand at the foot of their bunks, getting an earful from Sergeant Hartman (R. Lee Ermey). None of the characters really stand out hear because it is the start of the film so no relationships have been made between the viewer and the soldiers. I also believe that this scene was intended for viewers to see that all the soldiers were the same and Ermey’s character was above them. He even says, “…You are all equally worthless.” But we do get a sense of why Private Joker gets his nickname. A sly remark by Joker and the drill sergeant tears him a new one.

As the narrator in the first section of the film, we get an initial hint at Joker’s role in the war as a Journalist, (Gruben). His insights as a narrator aren’t very deep, as he doesn’t have many lines as a narrator. We can see Joker’s growth in his time at camp. He separates himself from the others to help Private Pyle, at first on his own and then he is made squad leader and personal assistant to Pyle. He demonstrates his leadership abilities to the sergeant when asked if he believes in the Virgin Mary, repeatedly saying no while being beaten by the drill instructor. Joker explains why he doesn’t reverse his answer and is rewarded the position of squad leader. This shows that Joker is intelligent, and that he sticks up for what he thinks is right. He is intelligent because he knows that if he change his answer, he will be chastised more, and he honors himself by doing what he believes is right. The next sequence in the film is when we see Joker helping Pyle through obstacles. At this point, we know how much of a struggle it is to get Private Pyle to do anything right, but Joker seems to be succeeding more than anyone thought. But after a series of slip-ups by Pyle, the group starts taking their anger out on him by holding him down and beating him with bars of soap. All the platoon members take a whack at him but Joker hesitates. Something in Joker’s human nature was telling him not to beat up poor Private Pyle. I think it was because Joker had helped Pyle grow and get better at a lot of things, and he realized he is just a slow learner. But then he realizes that it is Pyle’s wrongdoings that punishes the squad, and to get back at Pyle for it, Joker hits him repeatedly, more than any other platoon member. This scene is very important in the analysis of Private Joker because we start to see the duality of this man arise. He can be helpful and kind, but also violent and mean. This duality of Joker also is represented later on in the film when he wears the peace pin and a helmet that says “born to kill” on it. He even responds to being asked about it, “I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man, sir.”

When it comes time for graduation, Sergeant Hartman reads off each soldier’s assignment. When he gets to Joker, he reads that Joker is assigned to Basic Journalism. And responds with, “you’re not a writer, you’re a killer.” This is another example of Joker’s duality. He comes to camp and claims he is a killer, yet he requests to be a writer for the Marines. We cannot be too sure of why Private Joker wants to be in the war, and it seems to us that even he doesn’t know. It almost seems like the war is just a place for him to be and not a battle for him to be apart of. When interviewed about being in Vietnam, the soldiers question reasons for being in Vietnam and if they are killing the right people. Joker’s response is a sarcastic one stating the reason he came was to, “…see the exotic Vietnam. The jewel of Southeast Asia. I wanted to meet interesting and stimulating people of an ancient culture and kill them.” However, when Joker is in prime position to kill, his gun jams, suggesting Joker was never actually ready to kill, as if he wouldn’t be able to do it. And when the lone sniper is shot down, the soldiers want her to ‘rot’ and be left for dead. Joker, however, says they can’t leave her like this because as we have seen before in the film, Joker has a sense of what is right and wrong, and his morals often lead him to do the right thing. After a moral struggle, Joker then puts the girl out of her misery and does exactly what she asks for; he shoots her.

Joker is a character we see grow throughout the movie. We see him develop as a soldier of war, but also as a human being. Joker’s so called duality defines him. The two sides of him we see reflect in us too. I believe Kubrick is trying to suggest something about the duality of man through the character Joker. “Joker can be studied thematically as a mouthpiece for Kubrick's own political ideology, a means for expressing his opinions on war and the dynamics of human behavior,” (Gruben 271).

Gruben, P. (2005). Practical joker: The Invention of a Protagonist in Full Metal Jacket. Literature Film Quarterly, 33(4), 270-279.

Vietnam War Film: A Genre of Its Own

The Vietnam War seemed to take all aspects of the war film and make America rethink how war films were made. Before, war films tended to be about the heroics of war, glamorizing aspects for entertainment purposes, and giving the overall feel of the film a positive outlook on war. But during the Vietnam War, the style of war films was drastically changed from the happy heroics, to tragic realism. Some reasoning to this is directly related to the war itself. America’s involvement was a key factor in why Vietnam films were made the way they were. Because of this, both anti-war films and pro-war films were created about the war. Ever since the Vietnam War, films have begun to grow away from portraying wars as heroic, adventurous tales, to now more realistic and somewhat lacking the glam and romanticism in wars. Less gloss, fewer heroes, and more horror, death, and guts.

             Themes and motifs are present throughout every genre, and this idea is extremely evident in the war film. There are certain images and meanings that take place in multiple or all films in a specific genre. Of course guns, soldiers, ruined buildings, smoke, and flames make up instant imagery of a war film. These things all come to mind when one thinks of what is seen in a war film, specifically the warzone. But sub-genres of war films also house their own themes and motifs. The Vietnam War film has many themes that are present in films specific to that genre. A commonality between Vietnam films is the portrayal of the Vietnamese people. In Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, the Vietnamese in the film are hardly characters at all. In the film they are prostitutes, a thieves, and Guerilla fighters. The categorization of the Vietnamese as a group of thieves and prostitutes seems to be what Kubrick accomplishes in his film by his depth of character formation. With the lack of development of the Vietnamese, we can connect with the soldiers who never really asked questions before they shot.  Mike Felker of Jump Cut connects the two by telling us that, “…soldiers tragically blurred Vietnamese civilians and ‘the enemy.’” The scene in Full Metal Jacket that I have included in this post, expresses this point is when the main character, Joker, is in a helicopter and a soldier mounted on the turret shoots everything in sight. He says, “Anyone who runs is a V.C. [Viet Cong], anyone who stands still is a well disciplined V.C.” and in response to shooting women and children, he says, “you just don’t lead ‘em so much.” 

In multiple films of this genre, the idea of the American soldier growing in masculinity, both physically and emotionally, is present almost undoubtedly. A perfect example of this is evident in Oliver Stone’s Platoon, when Charlie Sheen’s character ‘Taylor’ changes throughout the film. “The narrative traces Taylor's metamorphosis from a naive, callow volunteer into a brutal, yet seemingly still "honorable," soldier with some shreds of his sanity and humanity intact,” (Felker). And just as this character construction and development occurs in Platoon, it occurs throughout Kubrick’s film. Following soldiers from boot camp to battle zone is the whole idea of Full Metal Jacket. Along with the viewing of a soldier’s transformation, we see the toughness and issues that the soldiers deal with and how it affects them. Commonly, characters in these films have and over-the-top, ‘macho-man,’ side to them, along with an emotional, childish side to them.  There also seems to be a lack of masculinity that brings the characters down. Full Metal Jacket shows this masculinity declining when the squad encounters an enemy sniper that takes out many members the squad. When the sniper is found, they see that it was a female sniper cutting down their squad mates. “…What makes the sniper’s sex so shocking to the men who find her; they never imagined the sniper, the person with the most power/masculinity in this situation, as being female,” (Boyle 154).

Through images of everyday soldiers becoming men, and the mystery of the Vietnamese people, Vietnam War films produce a genre of their own apart for the war film. The films get Americans to think about what happened and why it happened by connecting viewers to the war, and to the soldiers themselves. The guts and glory seen in many war films is somewhat lost in this genre, and filmmakers strive for a realistic portrayal of the events occurring in Southeast Asia.

Works Cited

Boyle, B.M (2011). “Rescuing Masculinity: Captivity, Rescue and Gender in American War Narratives.” Journal of American Culture Vol. 34 issue 2. Pp 149-160. Retrieved from EBSCO web Database 04 Oct. 2011

Felker, M. (1988). “Platoon. Full Metal Jacket. Back to Vietnam.” Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media. From Jump Cut, no. 33, Feb. 1988 pp. 28-30. Retrieved from Web 03 Oct. 2011. http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC33folder/platoon-FmetJacket.html