Reflections on characters and themes in "Full Metal Jacket", focusing on the "duality of man"

 

Reflections on characters and themes in “Full Metal Jacket”,

focusing on the “duality of man”

Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Written by Stanley Kubrick, Michael Herr and Gustav Hasford

Starring Matthew Modine, Vincent D’Onofrio and R. Lee Ermey

This is the powerful, memorable and thought-provoking story of a number of recruits into the American army during the Vietnam War. The film divides fairly evenly into two halves; the first half deals with the training they undergo, and in the second half we follow the exploits and experiences of a couple of these recruits in the conflict itself.

The reasons behind war are not explored, merely how we respond to the path of conflict which is more or less chosen for most of us.

In the opening scene, the recruits are shorn of their locks and, it might be suggested, their individuality, pasts and personal ambitions. They now belong to Gunnery Sergeant Hartman who will use abuse, bullying and degradation in his efforts to transform his charges into weapons and killers. This process is quite deliberately dehumanising as Hartman sets out to demean his recruits and divest them of the niceties of society, focusing on developing a killer instinct and conditioning them for survival in a threatening, violent and potentially fatal environment where consideration, hesitation and doubt are weaknesses that may well lead to death and defeat.

The key to understanding the importance and value of this training process, and indeed what I view as the underpinning premise of the film, lies in the “duality of man” referred to at one point in the film by Joker, more or less the principal character, and reinforced by his wearing of a peace badge and a helmet on which he has written “born to kill”.

These contradictory emblems suggest that man has a conflicted nature in that while he possesses fundamental humanity and sociability which allow him to help his fellow man, develop laws and build civilisations, he is equally capable of animalistic, almost feral savagery as he hurts and kills his fellow man when conflicts of interest or principle erupt.

Clearly, in times of war it is necessary to put to one side sentiments of humanity and its incumbent qualities of sympathy, compassion and understanding, and that is exactly what Hartman tries to inculcate in his recruits. He seeks to help them set aside any and all social niceties and considerations that may cost them their lives in a war zone, but whose loss may cost them their sanity in the meantime…

The recruits take part in this process whereby they abandon their individuality in favour of service and loyalty to the Marine Corps, and an essential part of this process involves the use of nicknames rather than family names. Their nicknames may denote a predominant characteristic or communicate quickly and easily a particular skillset or trait that may be useful in the field while also encouraging familiarity, informality and trust between comrades. They may also reinforce the leaving behind of the “reality” of their previous lives to adopt a survival persona.

I have to say I haven’t always found Stanley Kubrick’s films warm or emotionally engaging. For me, there is nearly always a calculated detachment and his characters seem to be tools to impart an intellectual message rather than have rounded personalities offering insight into their nature and development. In the case of “Full Metal Jacket”, with the exception of Joker and Pyle, the recruits offer no real discussion, reaction or challenge to Hartman and the regime and mindset he imposes. Even Hartman himself never flinches or varies as he represents a particular ethos and attitude.

Most of the recruits appear to accept this process and compartmentalise it as a short-term experience intended to prepare them for the realities of war and for survival. However, Leonard Lawrence is an innocent who is nicknamed “Gomer Pyle” after a gentle and naïve comic character from 1960s American television. He is a simple soul endowed with a purity of spirit and mind and he doesn’t cope well with Hartman’s training or tactics. He may even be viewed as the embodiment of the element of humanity and innocence in the duality of man, taken to the extreme.

He makes some progress under Joker’s tutelage (about which more later), perhaps because Joker is gentle, sympathetic and patient toward him, but ultimately this progress is insufficient for Hartman who pressurises Pyle’s fellow recruits to victimise and bully Pyle into effort and conformity, including his trusted mentor Joker who displays hesitation but eventually concedes and participates in Pyle’s beating.

Effectively, their actions, and probably those of Joker in particular, destroy Pyle’s belief and trust in others and lead to a loss of hope and self. His entire belief system is gone and he starts to respond to training, even becoming a skilled marksman.

Of course, Hartman assumes the retention of certain fundamental societal values in this process. He simply works hard to ensure these values don’t get in the way of his recruits’ survival in a war zone, but in the case of the simple Pyle, his humanity has been severely dented and all but conditioned out of him and he becomes exactly what Hartman has trained him to be – a killer.

Pyle’s conditioning clearly conflicts with the vestiges of humanity and self that remain to him and he kills Hartman, perhaps in a desperate and defiant act of protest at his loss of direction, and ironically exercising his reconditioned impulses, though as a result of internal conflict he also opts to take his own life rather than live in what he calls a “world of shit”.

And so we have a demonstration, taken to extremes, of the duality of man and the internal conflict it may entail, and it is principally through the eyes of John “Joker” Davis that we see Pyle’s deterioration and its consequences.

Joker is the most interesting recruit as he demonstrates discipline and a strong survival instinct combined with an independent mind and a streak of humanity he is not afraid to indulge. He goes along with the training process but, unlike poor Pyle, he does not take it to heart. He exercises what control he can in a situation over which he has little overall power. He completes Hartman’s tasks admirably and he recognises the benefit of succumbing to Hartman’s discipline yet he passes comical comment during one of Hartman’s rants and incurs his wrath but also gains his respect. He does what he must to comply and survive but retains his own character and point of view. This allows him to show kindness to Pyle who makes distinct progress in Joker’s sympathetic, understanding and considerate care, though personal survival and the need to comply mean that ultimately, Joker has to be cruel to him.

Joker may also be viewed, in his slightly detached and superior manner, as vaguely similar to and perhaps even representative of Kubrick as an objective outsider looking in and investigating the horrors and consequences of war.

In Vietnam, Joker is a journalist and as an objective observer he sees the truth behind the policies, commands and the game of media interaction and influence which lead to dangerous and deadly consequences for those on the front line. In keeping with his finely honed instinct for survival, Joker protects himself and avoids direct participation in the conflict as far as possible, but his insight, intelligence and ready wit get him in trouble once too often and he is dispatched to cover an offensive which will take him directly into the midst of battle for the first time. We have seen him fire on the enemy, but at a distance, whereas this time it will be up close and personal…

During the journey to the battle zone by helicopter, Joker and his companion Rafterman encounter a door gunner who has been so consumed by his experiences and by the killer element of his dual composition that he fires upon and kills random civilians and farmers going about their business. In a scene which recalls the abandonment of civilisation and its limits in “Apocalypse Now”, the gunner has shed moral restraint to focus on survival and to ensure victory. Joker and Rafterman are appalled at what they see but they are about to become involved in some direct action which will challenge their perception of what it means to be civilised in war.

They meet Cowboy, Joker’s fellow recruit at boot camp, and several of his friends and fellow soldiers with whom there is a degree of friction initially, due to their battle-hardened and somewhat blasé attitude toward death, but Joker and Rafterman come to appreciate these men’s courage, determination and loyalty to comrades under fire.

The scenes involving the sniper incorporate more tension, danger and engagement than anywhere else in the film as we and Joker finally taste what it means to be in a war. Kubrick’s vague detachment is replaced with genuine threat and emotional involvement as American soldiers are targeted and brutally wounded by a sniper to the distress of their comrades who stage rescue attempts only to also fall victim to the sniper’s skills.

We recoil in horror as we see, hear and share the devastation, both human and environmental, of war. This is truly a matter of survival and kill or be killed, the very situation for which Hartman tried to prepare his recruits.

Eventually, our comrades manage to badly wound the female sniper and there is a debate as to whether or not to put her out of her misery. Animal Mother, spurred by the pain and suffering the sniper has inflicted on his comrades, is in favour of letting her suffer a lingering and painful death but Joker takes the decision to end her life – and her suffering – and shoots her close-up. And in so doing, he provides perhaps the ultimate demonstration of the duality of man – he kills, but kills out of humanity.

As he leaves the scene, Joker expresses relief and satisfaction at the fact he is alive and he feels he is no longer afraid. It appears that in war the greatest victory is just to survive. His intellectual and moral superiority are obliterated – life is the ultimate reward, and all other experiences he might previously have considered fearful are now put in perspective.

My thanks for taking the time to read this article. I hope you found it of some value.

Stuart Fernie (stuartfernie@yahoo.co.uk)      Blog            YouTube