Before I share some thoughts on Kubrick’s penultimate film, I want to share something from my sabbatical.
My awesome congregation (First Church Unitarian, Littleton) gave me a box of surprises to open on the first day of each month of my sabbatical (with a “rabbit, rabbit” theme). I opened the first one two days ago. It was so fun, and so sweet! Here are a couple of photos:
Isn’t that the best? I’m already looking forward to the March 1 box.
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But now, for some of my thoughts on Full Metal Jacket (1987). When I just now rewatched FMJ, it was actually the first time I’d seen it since it was released in theaters. The first time, I saw it with my mom, and it was the summer after my first year of college — and my first year of NROTC. Having recently gone through my own version of something “Boot Camp”-ish (or “Plebe Summer”-ish), the first part of the movie, showing the Marines training at Parris Island, left quite an impression on me.
It is a very striking depiction of military training, maybe the best ever done in a movie (though An Officer and a Gentleman definitely offers a good take too, in a more officer-training-like way). Watching it now, in 2024, it made me cry. It wasn’t even the tragic ending of this part of the film that made me sad. Really, it was what led up to it — the way military training makes you feel like you’re a turd; the way it breaks you down; the way it uses scapegoating and cruelty for motivation. It’s sick, really. I’ll always think it’s sick. And I’ll always appreciate that FMJ brings out the sickness of it better than anything else I’ve seen.
The second part of the film is completely different. It pictures many of the same characters from the Parris Island part, but adds new characters and depicts the Vietnam War itself (in 1968 at the time of Tet). For some people, this feels disjointed. Apparently it was one of Kubrick’s ambitions to really change up and be creative with narrative structure. I like it, personally, and as a veteran I can say that there’s military training, and then there’s active duty after that, and they really are like two different worlds (even if you never go into combat). I think FMJ captures that really well. Full Metal Jacket also gives a dramatic, shocking, unforgettable ending to each of the two parts.
In terms of film craft, I was less aware of it as I was watching. With most of Kubrick’s films, it’s hard not to notice the film craft in real time. It was more subtle in FMJ, at least for me. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It just felt less Kubrick-y in that way.
Everyone always raves about Apocalypse Now and Platoon, and they are excellent Vietnam War movies. But for me, The Deer Hunter and Full Metal Jacket are even better. In TDH and FMJ, I think you get more character development. The characters are humanized more in my opinion, and they are more sensitive (at least the main characters). All of these films bring out the absurdity and horror of war. I think with TDH and FMJ, you get more of a sense of the “before and after” of the main characters. I really appreciate that aspect. I also think that The Deer Hunter and Full Metal Jacket do the best job of bringing out the “duality of man” (as Private Joker, Matthew Modine’s character, says) and the stupidity and toxicity of our culture of violence and patriarchy.
Kubrick made just 13 feature films. Of those 13, four (Fear and Desire, Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, and Full Metal Jacket) were full-on anti-war films. (And two others, Barry Lyndon and Spartacus, include war scenes are certainly don’t make fighting look good either.) For me, Kubrick is one of the best anti-war filmmakers in history, maybe even the very best. Respect.
Fool of Spirit 