Week 9: Full Metal Jacket

This week's movie is "Full Metal Jacket" (1987, 116mins). It starred Mathew Modine, R. Lee Ermey, Vincent D'Onofrio, and Adam Baldwin, among others. Written and directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on the novel, "The Short-Timers" by Gustav Hashford. It's a hard-core war story which follows a young man's journey through boot camp and then to the jungles of Vietnam. It's theme is the dehumanizing effects of war. WARNING: There is A LOT of bad language in this film.

I chose this movie because it was in the 80s that Americans finally started to talk about the Vietnam War in a more objective way. The war had been over for just over a decade and distance made the subject less painful and slightly less inflammatory than while it was happening. This movie was one of the first hard looks at the reality of that war.

The film was nominated for Best Writing (screenplay Based on Material from another Medium) for the 1988 Oscars. 

Here's the Wikipedia page and the script.

Instead of a trailer, here's a short clip:

Think about these questions while watching the movie:

1. Explain how the film shows the dehumanizing nature of war.

2. Compare or contrast US boot camp, as shown in the movie, and what you know about Korean boot camp.

3. Which character do you identify with the most? Why?