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Full Metal Jacket movie analysis and summary discussed in our Film Criticism Course forum for ESL students to enjoy learning English with great English movies and practice the 4 skills naturally and interactively. Join LELB Society’s students to practice learning English with movies.
Full Metal Jacket movie analysis
Stanley Kubrick‘s Full Metal Jacket was released 36 years ago. Gregory Wakeman explores how the film, and others by the director, revealed “the mindlessness and cruelty of conflict” – as well as the transformation of young men into killing machines.
Kubrick’s fascination with war actually dates back to his debut outing as a director, 1953’s Fear and Desire, which he made when he was just 24 years old. Set during an unnamed dispute, Fear and Desire revolves around four soldiers who crash-land behind enemy lines, and somehow have to find their way back to base. Even though he would later disown it as “a bumbling amateur film exercise,” Kubrick would continue to explore Fear and Desire’s brutal yet tender look at the human and mental cost of conflict.
Source: https://www.bbc.com
Full Metal Jacket movie trailer
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Full Metal Jacket movie plot
Full Metal Jacket is a 1987 war drama film directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Michael Herr and Gustav Hasford. The film is based on Hasford’s 1979 novel The Short-Timers and stars Matthew Modine, Lee Ermey, Vincent D’Onofrio and Adam Baldwin.
The storyline follows a platoon of U.S. Marines through their boot camp training in Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina, primarily focusing in the first half of the film on privates J.T. Davis and Leonard Lawrence, nicknamed Joker and Pyle, who struggle under their abusive drill instructor Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. The second half portrays the experiences of Joker and one other of the platoon’s Marines in Vietnamese cities Da Nang and Huế during the Tet Offensive of the Vietnam War. The film’s title refers to the full metal jacket bullet used by military servicemen.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/
I rate this movie 8 out of 10.
First of all I have to say I liked first half better.
The personality of Leonard and how the intensive training had effected on him, took my attention. The second half was more about the war itself and the death of poor ordinary people. I liked the musics and soundtracks too, I think they really suited the scenes and the atmosphere.Full Metal Jacket is in fact a documentary on the futility of war directed by Stanley Kubrick, my favorite director. Poor innocent people, especially teenagers are instructed to turn their ‘grins’ into grim faces. The platoon is actually a killing machines factory led by a sanctimonious lieutenant whose coaching is so problematic that even Joker could teach the fat boy more effectively to climb up the obstacle and pass it at more ease.
The instructor’s brutality reminded me of the film, Whiplash. The lieutenant viciously punished the whole platoon for the imperfection of only one of the soldiers, raising Cain in the squad. All the legion turned against the gauche and inexperienced private instead of helping him to get along with the troop. The soldiers are drilled into believing that a day without blood is like a day without sunshine, which caused so much controversy and conflict in the innocuous adolescents.
For example, Joker was wearing a helmet on which it was written: “born to kill” and a peace making badge on his uniform. That’s such a big paradox! Almost at the end of the movie, using violence and bloodthirstiness is vividly portrayed by the resourceful director. It’s also ironic to see that all the soldiers’ training and coaching are in fact inefficient to deal with one single female sniper who killed and badly injured many of them in the battlefield.
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