‘But the more you hate me, the more you will learn…’
Hitchcock was more prolific, and you could argue that Kurosawa and Scorsese have been more influential, but for my money, Stanley Kubrick is the greatest filmmaker of all time. Having released a seminal masterwork in four different decades (2001: A Space Odyssey in the ’60s, A Clockwork Orange in the ’70s, The Shining and Full Metal Jacket in the ’80s, and Eyes Wide Shut in the ’90s), Kubrick casts a long shadow over the cinematic landscape. Full Metal Jacket is often described as half a great film, and while the boot camp section is perhaps more potent than what follows, the second half of the film is just as effective in its own odd way…
Based on Gustav Hasford’s autobiographical novel The Short-Timers, Full Metal Jacket is ostensibly the story of Private Joker (Matthew Modine) and his time serving as a US Marine in the Vietnam War. We initially meet Joker as he is terrorised by Gunnery Sergeant L. Hartman (R. Lee Ermey) during boot camp, and it is here that Joker is introduced to Private Cowboy (Arliss Howard) and Private Pyle (Vincent D’Onofrio) – two men who will irrevocably alter Private Joker’s life forever.
Filmed almost entirely in England, Full Metal Jacket sees Kubrick provide a canvas for his inexperienced cast to paint a beautiful picture. Ermey was initially employed as a technical advisor to whoever was to play the role of the sadistic drill instructor Sergeant Hartman, but he so impressed Kubrick that he ended up playing the role himself, and the result is a whirlwind, bravura performance that should have earned Oscar recognition. Indeed, the fact that the film received only a single nomination (for Best Adapted Screenplay – it lost out to The Last Emperor) is a genuine outrage. Aside from Ermey, the other big winners here are Modine and D’Onofrio. The former hides his clear discomfort at what is unfolding around him behind a veneer of breezy nonchalance and misguided anti-establishment rhetoric, while the latter perfectly captures his character’s haunting slide into mental illness with alarming potency. The scene in which D’Onofrio, bathed in blue and grey, glares down the lens (the so-called ‘Kubrick Stare’) to the sound of Vivian Kubrick’s ominous, menacing score is an all-timer – one of the director’s best.
Like all of Kubrick’s films, Full Metal Jacket is an ambiguous puzzle box that can be interpreted in several different ways. Is it a criticism of masculinity? A comment on the effect of war on the individual? Or perhaps, as Joker himself puts it, the film is about “…the duality of man… the Jungian thing, sir”. Knowing Kubrick, the real answer is probably all of the above and more, and it is this ability to provide layers of meaning that mark him out from his peers.
Full Metal Jacket is a timeless war movie. It could have been released at any point from the start of the Vietnam War onwards and still make perfect sense. While it might not represent the pinnacle of Kubrick’s genius, it comes pretty damn close – one of the greatest war movies ever made.
