Staff Book and Media Recommendations

Full Metal Jacket

M14s and Mickey Mouse, this is Full Metal Jacket. Stanley Kubrick portrays the US Marine experience with humor and horror. Corruption and innocence collide producing a surreal environment of aggression and duty. Centered on the Vietnam War, Full Metal Jacket explores the willingness for destruction and reflects the frustration of the period, leaving a skewed sense of hope. 

The first half of the film is set in Parris Island boot camp. Young men are thrown into a world of strict command and ideology; heads are shaved and nicknames are issued to create a sense of community. Here we are introduced to our main character, Private Joker (Matthew Modine), the sarcastic recruit whose main goal in life is to question the system. Sergeant Hartman, played by R. Lee Ermey, is the drill instructor assigned to create Marines or as he says "ministers of death." The values of boot camp remain with the privates as they venture into war.

The second half of the film takes place in Hue, Vietnam a few days before the Tet Offensive. Private Joker is working as a combat correspondent and photographer. Through his lens we see the reality of war and how it affects both sides of the fighting line. The Vietnam War was a world within a world. What was once considered normal, ethical dissipated like the smoke in the battlefields. Kubrick confronts the terror of war in a comedic way. The intense moments of battle are juxtaposed with sarcasm and humor. 

The aesthetic qualities of the film are extremely clever. Instead of Jimi Hendrix or Bob Dylan echoing in the background, the audience hears Nancy Sinatra and the Mickey Mouse Club anthem. Kubrick sets American popular music against the Vietnamese landscape, producing a feeling of otherworldliness. Through Private Joker, Kubrick portrays a message of hope, yet Joker's message of hope is tainted by the barbarism of war. Innocence can no longer survive, the killer lives on. ~ Amy Merill

Reviewed October 2009