A conversation between Shaun Sages and Jamie Stuart

"Did you know what the ending originally entailed,” asks filmmaker Jamie Stuart regarding the finale of Stanley Kubrick's Vietnam epic Full Metal Jacket. "Joker can't do it. He can't bring himself to kill the sniper, so Animal Mother takes a machete, decapitates the VC and plays soccer with her head."

We're lounging around Starbucks sucking caffeine, and the simple thought of body-parts used as sport utilities suddenly make this cup of iced whatever taste bitterer than a double espresso. Yes, we went on many off-topic tangents about politics and whatnot, but through the rapid-fire musings we managed to draw a few insightful observations on the film at hand.

An obvious Kubrick fanatic, Jamie can argue anyone to the death that the director is one of the greatest in film history, and the recent Sight and Sound poll proves it. Arms flailing: "The thing that was great about Kubrick; he was just making movies that nobody else would ever have the audacity to make. Like Dr. Strangelove. I mean, do you understand the balls that guy had to make that movie at that time? Imagine a movie today, a comedy, about a general or politician who stages a terrorist attack, then blames somebody else so America could clobber that person. We were at the height of the Cold War and he makes a fucking comedy from it."

"Right", I stammer, pressing that cubed red record button on my mini-tape recorder. "How the hell should we start this?"

We've both recently seen Full Metal Jacket, providing commentary over scenes; although Jamie's seen it so many times he can draw every frame from memory. He even created his own masks to crop the image to its theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 "Let's just pick it up from what we were discussing before", he offers.

Shaun: Last time you noted the excellent compositions and character introductions, and I think filling these scenes with visual information lends it another dimension.

Jamie: It's mise-en-scene. What's in the frame. Originally a stage term, basically meaning what's in the scene. Not many people are good at it. If you're creating an environment in which...here's the thing: I think too many directors -- maybe this is the Scorsese effect, I don't know -- just like to focus on the characters and the characters' emotional states, and how they can make what the characters are doing seem really exciting...instead of creating a three-dimensional environment which these characters actually exist in. Yeah, people are going through these dramas, obviously, and yeah you have to make things exciting, but if all you're doing is focusing on the people and cutting off what's going on around them, you're negating the fact that these people exist within an environment.

S: Initially, I had a problem with how Pvt. Joker (played by Mathew Modine) is introduced as the main character, since we’ve spent an equal amount of time with Gomer Pile (Vincent D’onofrio)…until he blows his brains out. 

J: We know Joker's the main character, the recruit who's voice we'll follow, because he's the only character who receives a POV shot. He's the only character whose eyes we see through. Also of note, Leonard Lawrence, who becomes Gomer Pyle, is the only recruit whose real name we learn. This helps create a touch of sympathy for his doomed trajectory. You wanna know something interesting? Watch the first shot after the opening credits, when
Sgt. Hartman is walking around and it's just a long tracking shot. You will notice -- and this has to be intentional because of just how much attention to detail Kubrick put in, and I think he did it as a joke -- you'll notice that characters are actually out of order as to how they appear later in the scene. Hartman is walking around saying, "You're all pukes and maggots, none of you means anything," and you see Gomer Pyle. He passes by Gomer Pyle, yet later on Gomer Pyle is in a totally different position, and the scene continues. And I think he put him there because you don't know any of these people, and they're just faces at this point. None of them have distinguished themselves from anything else.

S: Sort of like a personal joke? 

J: Yeah, I think it's just a joke because most people aren't gonna notice him there. Okay. When Hartman comes over and he starts yelling during his opening speech, you have Joker, then Cowboy a little bit farther down from him, and then Gomer Pile a little farther down. During the opening circle that Hartman is making, Gomer Pile is in a totally different place. And I think it’s there as a joke. (Rethinks his answer) It's not a joke. It's just there as a slight on the audience that you can't spot this. These soldiers are so anonymous at this point; they've done nothing whatsoever to become individuals. "So I'm gonna put Gomer Pile over here, and you're not even gonna notice it until I call your attention to him later on."

S: Trippy. But back to what you said about directors focusing too much on characters. What if you have an absence of that and just focus on the environment?

J: Obviously, you need to find some sort of middle-ground.

S: Kubrick sorta does that.

J: (Hesitant) He does that. I think what Kubrick liked to do was to take a step back. Instead of coming in really close to the character and trying to make you feel every last little bit of passion for that character, seeing everything from that character's point of view, I think he liked to take a step back. A lot of people thought his characters were totally drained of
energy, and I think his feeling was that most people really aren't as interesting and entertaining as they like to think they are. If you put a camera somewhere and simply recorded people -- I mean, like look at these people over here. (Referring to a couple seated nearby) Their facial reactions aren't that interesting, they're really rather bland. They're not
really saying anything that's interesting; their dialogue isn't that interesting.

S: They're old. They have no teeth. There is no dialogue.

J: Exactly. Most environments are really banal and mundane and so is most dialogue. So is most conversation, and so is the way most people act, which I think for him is just the way he saw things.

S: Still, I didn't feel the brief voice-overs were enough to establish Joker as the protagonist, but then again I didn't read the book that Full Metal Jacket is based on. Why would Kubrick even insert a voice-over?

J: It's the military. There are no individuals. Joker is only slightly one in an otherwise tight machine. Kubrick loved voice-overs. The book is written from Joker's point of view. The original way that Kubrick wanted to start the movie, from what I understand and from what I've read -- he wanted to start it off with Joker in Vietnam getting killed.

S: Did he die in the book?

J: I don't think so. I think Gustav Hastford wanted to, or did write a sequel. Kubrick wanted to originally start the movie with Joker getting killed in Vietnam, and then it was gonna flash back and tell the story of how he got to that point. It was gonna end by cross-cutting between him getting killed in Vietnam, and him playing with his dad on his farm in like, wherever. It was gonna be slow motion, to show the hero getting killed. Of course he got rid of all that.

S: It would've made more narrative sense.

J: I think one of the reasons Kubrick liked to take that step back is he liked things to be ambiguous. He didn't want the audience to get everything upfront. He wanted to be ambiguous about characters and character motivations. He wanted you to have to watch and really pay attention to the way people are saying what they're saying -- how subtle it might be. That's where you're really getting the depth of what's going on with these characters. He didn't always do that. If you watch A Clockwork Orange, you're totally in with Alex from the beginning.

S: Ditto for Eyes Wide Shut.

J: Right. And another way he's creating the environment -- not just by placing interesting things for you to pick up on -- it's that he understands depth of composition. He understands foreground and middle-ground and background, and he's always using that. Most directors really don't understand that. Most directors -- or really the DP -- don't understand good composition to begin with, so they're simply trying to frame nice shots. I think that's what Fincher does a lot. He frames very nice shots, but he's usually using longer lenses and there's really no depth to the images themselves.

S: Cause the screen is so wide it allows no room for depth?

J: Not so. In fact wide-screen offers more room for that. Look at Manhattan or Minority Report. Kubrick used it pretty damn well, I would think, in 2001. It's just a question of how you choose to shoot your film. 

S: At first I thought Full Metal Jacket was about how to negotiate fees with Vietnamese hookers...

J: It's about practice versus actual execution. They're two totally different things. They're trained one way, but the reality of the situation is something totally different. The ending is a perfect example. These guys have been trained to kill from up to 300 meters, yet ultimately Joker's first kill is done face to face. And it's a woman to boot.

S: Like the first attack on their military base. Joker says, "I hope they're just fucking with us. I'm not ready for this shit."

J: Yeah. First he's in the barracks, trying to act like a tough motherfucker. Then the shit actually starts, and you realize this guy never had a taste of this before. But once it's over, if you really pay attention to the look on his face, he got off on it. When Joker talks back to his boss at the newspaper in the next scene, he does it because he wants to get in the shit. He knows he's gonna get punished for talking back. He knows that because that's what happened everytime in basic training. He talked back to Hartman, then got stuck having to be the...

S: ...Squad leader.

J: The leader of the squad and the intermediate for Gomer Pile. He knew he was going to get sent on the field, and he wanted it.

S: These are soldiers who obviously don't want to be there. When Mr. Touchdown dies, and the soldiers look at his body, each taking their turn to say a few words about him, they make it obvious they're not dying for peace.

J: See. This is the thing: Most Vietnam movies aren't patriotic, but they're sympathetic to the American soldiers.

S: A.K.A. anything Oliver Stone does.

J: Right, here is the thing with Platoon... When it came out there were so many movies in the '80s that dealt with Vietnam. You had Rambo, you had Missing in Action, where the Vietnam vet goes back for those who were left behind. Then finally Platoon comes out, and I think what the American public wanted at that point was like the beginning of some type of closure for it. It wanted to come to terms with what Vietnam had been. And I think that's what Oliver Stone was trying to offer. The coda reads, "Dedicated to the soldiers who served in Vietnam". Full Metal Jacket is much more from the frame of mind of people who opposed the war at the time it was taking place, who're looking at Americans as Imperialists and baby killers.

S: Well, Platoon tried to show Vietnam as a tragedy, the casualties of American soldiers...

J: But at no point does it ever consider the opposition's point of view. The only time you even see any Vietnamese are when they're attacking Americans, or in village scene where they’re helpless victims. There's no interaction with them, and they're predominantly seen as faceless psychos. You see the guy with the bomb on his back, and he runs into the barracks and blows up Oliver Stone. That's how they're seen: as psychos attacking and killing Americans. Whereas in Full Metal Jacket, there's some classic interactions there. Nobody made a song out of any of the dialogue in Platoon. 2 Live Crew doing Me So Horny -- that's Full Metal Jacket. That's just classic shit, when the marines are dealing with the hookers. Both scenes. The fact that somebody would put something that low into a movie -- marines arguing with a hooker because they wanna spend five dollars to have sex with her, as opposed to 20 -- that's just hysterical.

S: Why do you think audiences have difficulties adjusting to the Vietnam portion?

J: Because they're two totally different movies. First half was really tight, had a very specific narrative, compositionally it was tight. And it's happening within a confined area with a very definable structure to it. But I think once it goes to Vietnam, the whole thing is sort of about a lack of structure. It almost becomes a montage of conflicting emotions and conflicting ideas. The best way I can describe it is like this: Tobe Hooper, in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, has a visual method where he's constantly switching from tight close-ups, tracking with the victim -- something very subjective, where you're really there with the horror of this person.

S: To heighten the suspense.

J: Exactly. And then all of a sudden he'll cut to a wide shot -- totally objective -- where you have no control over it, and you're just forced to watch it. And he's constantly going back and forth. It's like a terrible situation where you're right there -- it's this terrible thing -- and then boom, there's nothing you can do about it. And with FMJ, it's constantly just mixing comedy with horror. Somebody dies, and then people are cracking jokes about it. The first part of the Vietnam section is coherent narrative, but once he gets out into the field, it's almost a montage. There are the interviews, all that stuff before it finally gets to the third act with the
sniper. And also it's this section that portrays the Americans in that totally negative point of view of Vietnam. And I think that, plus the fact that most people's point of view dealing with Vietnam is jungle warfare...

S: And this deals with city warfare?

J: Right. Platoon was more full-scale action.

S: And this is focused on intimate situations as opposed to utter chaos.

J: Right. Did you ever read Roger Ebert's review?

S: Yeah, he gave it two stars. Right?

J: He hated it. He liked the first half of it, but he didn't like the second half.

S: What were his criticisms towards the second half?

J: He thought the momentum stopped. He felt that there were themes that were brought up in the first half that weren't followed through in the second -- which I totally disagree with. He mentioned the linking between sex and guns. Well, what do you think happens at the end? Joker pops his cherry. One of the guys even says, "Hardcore!" And he also didn't like the fact that it was city warfare. He would say: It looks like they're just crawling over World War II sets. That was intentional! Kubrick was mocking gung-ho WWII movies -- especially John Wayne. Check out all the references. And he also didn't like the climax, just like: "Oh, it's trying to be this deep moral question. And it just seems weak at that point." It's a great scene because of the ambiguity. Is it a mercy killing? International law, first of all, would suggest that the killing of somebody up close, who's already wounded, is a war crime. Also, I think Joker wants to kill her. I think he wants to make a statement. A statement to himself and his squad, as well as any Cong who find her. Of course, Ebert is somebody who thought Platoon was an absolute masterpiece. He thought JFK was the best film of the year.

S: Virtually anything Oliver Stone does he thinks is a masterpiece.

J: Uh-huh. What does that tell you?

S: Ok, man. Do you have any problems Full Metal Jacket?

J: Do I have any problems with it? There was a while when I was kinda flip-flopping on it. The thing that really saved it for me was when I saw it at Film Forum back in 2000, when they had the Stanley Kubrick retrospective. I got to see it on the big screen again, and just see the way that it was meant to play out. Cause the video version is full-screen, not 1.85. Do I have issues? I think at this point I'm so used to it, it's difficult for me to be entirely critical. I think there are some things, when they're doing the interviews in Vietnam, which has become like a total staple of filmmaking at this point -- interviews like that, I think some of it could've been a little wittier. I've seen that done better since. Although I do acknowledge that that's pretty much where it came from in the first place, give or take... I dunno. I love the movie. It's just a hard movie, and I think that the point of view of that conflict is pretty different than all the other movies I've seen about it. All the other movies I've seen, whether it's Platoon or Hamburger Hill, while trying to portray it as this really difficult war fought by all these poor people, it's ultimately sympathetic to the Americans. But Full Metal Jacket isn't. There were 58,000 Americans killed. There were 2 million Vietnamese killed. This was a fucking slaughter. And the movie is very much making a point of that. When the troops are walking through Hue City during the Tet Offensive, that place is just blown to bits; it wasn't the Vietnamese who did that. It was the American air strikes that did that. We were obliterating this country. Even the final images... These anonymous, faceless, silhouetted soldiers, conquering and destroying ancient cultures to make way for Disneyland. They're singing the Mickey Mouse song at the end against a burning backdrop. 

M-I-C-K-E-Y  M-O-U-S-E, indeed.

-Copyright 2002 by Shaun Sages and Jamie Stuart   

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