thedrifter
11-18-07, 07:06 AM
This Jacket is tailor-made for turbulent times
New war films struggling to find audiences, but Kubrick's has aged well
November 18, 2007
Geoff Pevere
Movie Critic
FULL METAL JACKET
(1987, Warner Home Video)
Who made it?
The fiercely independent Stanley Kubrick (1928-'99) had a fruitful but scrappy relationship with the Hollywood establishment, with such films as Paths of Glory, Spartacus and Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb coming in the early stages of his career. 2001: A Space Odyssey established his reputation as a visionary auteur for the psychedelic era, while his stylishly brutal adaptation of Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange confirmed him as an uncompromising cult figure. He made only four more films – Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut – before dying at the age of 70 in 1999.
What's it about?
Based on the late Vietnam vet Gustav Hasford's novel The Short-Timers, Full Metal Jacket divides the Vietnam experiences of so-called Private Joker (Matthew Modine) into three distinct but interdependent parts: the first focuses on the brutal basic training of Marines at Parris Island; the second depicts Joker's exploits as a Stars and Stripes correspondent; and the third follows him into combat in the city of Hue during the December 1968 Tet Offensive.
What's the context?
Coming nearly a decade after The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now – and beaten to the theatres a year earlier by Oliver Stone's Platoon – Kubrick's long-awaited Vietnam movie struck many as belated when it finally arrived. But that's only if you look at it as just a Vietnam movie.
As a Kubrick movie it belongs in its own category: structurally bold, profanely funny, existentially bleak, the movie exploded like shrapnel in the middle of the Reagan era's nostalgic/revisionist "new morning in America." At a time when Vietnam was finally being made safe for the old-school muscle-man heroics of Sylvester Stallone, Kubrick restored the war's fundamental insanity – and then added some more.
How was it received?
Mixed reviews greeted Full Metal Jacket – as they always did new Kubrick movies. Although The Globe & Mail's Jay Scott rocketed straight to blurb heaven by calling it "the greatest war movie ever made," a great many other critics were considerably less impressed. But while many of the objections focused on the movie's seemingly late-to-the-party timing, and while others took issue with Kubrick's tri-partite structure, the film has since weathered most of the criticism first levelled at it. More than ever, and especially in the context of an equally demoralizing and dehumanizing conflict in Iraq, Full Metal Jacket is now largely recognized as an anti-war landmark.
So what's the big deal?
Simply, the movie just gets better with time. Where Full Metal Jacket's eccentric structure and elliptically minimalist narrative initially struck many viewers as a sign of incoherence or artistic weakness, Kubrick's intricate and precisely calibrated design has only become more apparent with the years. More than anything, it is about the systemic processing of young men into mechanical-souled murderers, and everything about the movie serves to illustrate this grim but only too persistently relevant thesis.
Most endlessly quotable line?
"Today is Christmas! There will be a magic show at zero-nine-thirty. Chaplain Charlie will tell you about how the free world will conquer Communism with the aid of God and a few marines. God has a hard-on for marines because we kill everything we see! He plays His games, we play ours! To show our appreciation for so much power, we keep heaven packed with fresh souls. God was here before the Marine Corps. So you can give your heart to Jesus, but your ass belongs to the Corps! Do you ladies understand?"
Most unforgettable scene?
After being driven to "major malfunction" state by the systematic humiliation of his drill sergeant (Lee Ermey) and fellow boot-campers, the pathetic Pvt. "Gomer Pyle" (Vincent D'Onofrio) heads into the barracks to prepare his firearm, take leave of his senses and prove once and for all that he's got what it takes to be a Marine. He does, and there's lots of blood to prove it.
Most cogent critical appreciation?
"We're never going to get down to doing anything about the things (that) are really bad in the world until there is recognition within us of the darker side of our natures, the shadow side."
(Stanley Kubrick)
Ellie
New war films struggling to find audiences, but Kubrick's has aged well
November 18, 2007
Geoff Pevere
Movie Critic
FULL METAL JACKET
(1987, Warner Home Video)
Who made it?
The fiercely independent Stanley Kubrick (1928-'99) had a fruitful but scrappy relationship with the Hollywood establishment, with such films as Paths of Glory, Spartacus and Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb coming in the early stages of his career. 2001: A Space Odyssey established his reputation as a visionary auteur for the psychedelic era, while his stylishly brutal adaptation of Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange confirmed him as an uncompromising cult figure. He made only four more films – Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut – before dying at the age of 70 in 1999.
What's it about?
Based on the late Vietnam vet Gustav Hasford's novel The Short-Timers, Full Metal Jacket divides the Vietnam experiences of so-called Private Joker (Matthew Modine) into three distinct but interdependent parts: the first focuses on the brutal basic training of Marines at Parris Island; the second depicts Joker's exploits as a Stars and Stripes correspondent; and the third follows him into combat in the city of Hue during the December 1968 Tet Offensive.
What's the context?
Coming nearly a decade after The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now – and beaten to the theatres a year earlier by Oliver Stone's Platoon – Kubrick's long-awaited Vietnam movie struck many as belated when it finally arrived. But that's only if you look at it as just a Vietnam movie.
As a Kubrick movie it belongs in its own category: structurally bold, profanely funny, existentially bleak, the movie exploded like shrapnel in the middle of the Reagan era's nostalgic/revisionist "new morning in America." At a time when Vietnam was finally being made safe for the old-school muscle-man heroics of Sylvester Stallone, Kubrick restored the war's fundamental insanity – and then added some more.
How was it received?
Mixed reviews greeted Full Metal Jacket – as they always did new Kubrick movies. Although The Globe & Mail's Jay Scott rocketed straight to blurb heaven by calling it "the greatest war movie ever made," a great many other critics were considerably less impressed. But while many of the objections focused on the movie's seemingly late-to-the-party timing, and while others took issue with Kubrick's tri-partite structure, the film has since weathered most of the criticism first levelled at it. More than ever, and especially in the context of an equally demoralizing and dehumanizing conflict in Iraq, Full Metal Jacket is now largely recognized as an anti-war landmark.
So what's the big deal?
Simply, the movie just gets better with time. Where Full Metal Jacket's eccentric structure and elliptically minimalist narrative initially struck many viewers as a sign of incoherence or artistic weakness, Kubrick's intricate and precisely calibrated design has only become more apparent with the years. More than anything, it is about the systemic processing of young men into mechanical-souled murderers, and everything about the movie serves to illustrate this grim but only too persistently relevant thesis.
Most endlessly quotable line?
"Today is Christmas! There will be a magic show at zero-nine-thirty. Chaplain Charlie will tell you about how the free world will conquer Communism with the aid of God and a few marines. God has a hard-on for marines because we kill everything we see! He plays His games, we play ours! To show our appreciation for so much power, we keep heaven packed with fresh souls. God was here before the Marine Corps. So you can give your heart to Jesus, but your ass belongs to the Corps! Do you ladies understand?"
Most unforgettable scene?
After being driven to "major malfunction" state by the systematic humiliation of his drill sergeant (Lee Ermey) and fellow boot-campers, the pathetic Pvt. "Gomer Pyle" (Vincent D'Onofrio) heads into the barracks to prepare his firearm, take leave of his senses and prove once and for all that he's got what it takes to be a Marine. He does, and there's lots of blood to prove it.
Most cogent critical appreciation?
"We're never going to get down to doing anything about the things (that) are really bad in the world until there is recognition within us of the darker side of our natures, the shadow side."
(Stanley Kubrick)
Ellie