Étude du film Full Metal Jacket de Stanley Kubrick (document en anglais)

The movie i’m going to present is entitled Full Metal Jacket, it is a 1987 vietnam war film produced by Stanley Kubrick. The film title refers to the full metal jacket bullet used by infantry riflemen. This movie is based on a book written by gustav staford in 1979. This movie has received a critical acclaim athough it wasn’t awarded.

Full metal jacket shows the 1968 trek of one marine, private Joker, as he goes from the hell of boothcamp to the hell of the battlefield in Vietnam. In fact, the first 45 minutes are dedicated to the training of the marines whereas the last 45 minutes take place during the battle of Hue.

This movie has many strengths : What I like best in that story is the first part of the movie that brilliantly depicts marine basic training, showing the terror, the anxiety and confusion inflicted on recruits. We see recruits dehumanized and abused in a prison like environment, from the moment they get their head shaved, they become puppets, just some objects used by the governments. My favorite moment is when sgt Hartman screams racial slurs, sexual comments, insults, and obscene instructions at the recruits, just to scare the wannabe marines and to show his toughness. Also it allows us to see the everyday life of the boys in Vietnam, switching between alcohol, drugs and Vietnamese prostitutes. However, the theme of duality I well exploited in Kubrick’s movie. The duality is a struggle in the mind of every human being, everybody contains that good vs evil, the humanity, and the bestiality. Pvt Joker symbolizes this duality, he joins the army as a human being, lost a part of his humanity with the training, he loses it with the horror in Vietnam : at this moment, he has a hat with the words ‘’born to kill’’, and a peace sign on his jacket. At the end, he loses it all as he executes a girl member of the VietCông.

However, it sometimes sinks into exaggeration, especially when we can see a us marine from a chopper shooting randomly at innocent civilians, and screaming that he is having fun. This is because of this lack of realism that the US government didn’t allow the army to help Kubrick in reconstructing the war scenes. Also, for an early 90’s movie, the special effects are quite bad, it seems like the blood is just some paint they bought at the DIY store. Moreover, Fulll Metal Jacket lacks of historical content, it never looks at why the USA were there in the first place, or at the war’s repercussions, it also refuses to depict any Vietnamese, only as killers, thieves or prostitutes.

In that movie, soldiers are portrayed as evil and immature men, but, what Kubrick wants to show, is that war and all the military institution are responsible for it. The soldiers are victims of the government. In fact, Kubrick’s doesn’t see the point in treating the soldiers like some objects we can waste. Did you know for example, that 8500 recruits died during training because of some instructors willing to do everything to show their command.

I recommend that film because it has become a classic and I think that everyone that want to have a movie culture should have watch it at least once

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