Papillon Soo Soo

Biography

Full Metal Jacket is a 1987 war film directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick from a screenplay he co-wrote with Michael Herr and Gustav Hasford. The film is based on Hasford's 1979 autobiographical novel The Short-Timers. It stars Matthew Modine, R. Lee Ermey, Vincent D'Onofrio, Adam Baldwin, Dorian Harewood, and Arliss Howard. The storyline follows a platoon of U.S. Marines through their boot camp training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina. The first half of the film focuses primarily on privates J. T. Davis and Leonard Lawrence, nicknamed "Joker" and "Pyle" respectively, who struggle under their abusive drill instructor, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. The second half portrays the experiences of Joker and other Marines in the Vietnamese cities of 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. Full Metal Jacket was theatrically released in the United States on June 26, 1987, by Warner Bros., and in the United Kingdom on September 11, 1987. It was the last of Kubrick's films to be released during his lifetime. The film grossed $120 million against a budget of $16.5–30 million and received positive reviews from critics. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and was also nominated for two BAFTA Awards, while Ermey was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture for his performance. In 2001, the American Film Institute placed the film at number 95 in its poll titled "AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills."

== Plot == During the Vietnam War, a group of United States Marine Corps recruits arrive for eight weeks of Recruit Training at Parris Island, where Senior Drill Instructor Gunnery Sergeant Hartman uses harsh methods to train them for combat. Among the recruits are the wisecracking J. T. Davis, who is nicknamed "Joker" after mocking Hartman, and the overweight and dimwitted Leonard Lawrence, whom Hartman nicknames "Gomer Pyle". During training, Pyle struggles to meet Hartman's expectations and is eventually paired with Joker. Pyle shows signs of improvement, but during an inspection, Hartman discovers a jelly doughnut in Pyle's footlocker. Believing the platoon has failed to improve Pyle, Hartman begins a policy of collective punishment in which he will punish everyone except for Pyle for each mistake he makes. In retaliation, the recruits haze Pyle with a blanket party, which Joker reluctantly participates in under pressure. Afterwards, Pyle appears to reinvent himself into a model recruit, showing particular expertise in marksmanship. This impresses Hartman but worries Joker, who believes Pyle may be suffering a mental breakdown after seeing Pyle talk to his rifle. The night before the new Marines are to leave Parris Island, Joker, on fire watch, discovers Pyle in the barracks latrine loading his M14 rifle with live ammunition, executing drill commands, and loudly reciting the Rifleman's Creed. Awakened by the commotion, Hartman orders Pyle to put down the rifle, but Pyle fatally shoots Hartman and then kills himself in front of Joker. By January 1968, Joker is a sergeant based in Da Nang for the newspaper Stars and Stripes alongside Private First Class "Rafter Man", a combat photographer. On the morning after their base is attacked as part of the Tet Offensive, Joker and Rafter Man are sent to Phu Bai, where Joker searches for and reunites with Sergeant "Cowboy" Evans, a friend from Parris Island who now serves in a rifle squad. During the Battle of Huế, platoon leader Lieutenant "'Mr. Touchdown'" Schinoski is killed, leaving Sergeant "Crazy Earl" to take his place as squad leader. As they enter the city, the squad engages in combat with enemy forces and secure the area. Later, during a patrol, a booby-trapped rabbit toy kills Crazy Earl, leaving Cowboy in command. Becoming lost in the city, the squad is attacked by a Viet Cong sniper who fatally shoots "Eightball" and "Doc Jay". As the squad closes in on the sniper's location, Cowboy is killed. Assuming command, squad machine gunner "Animal Mother" leads an attack on the sniper. Joker locates her first, but his M16 rifle jams. The sniper, a teenage girl, overhears this and opens fire, while Rafter Man shoots and mortally wounds her. As the squad converges on the sniper, she begs for death, leading to an argument over whether to kill her or leave her to die in pain. Animal Mother agrees to a mercy killing but only if Joker will handle it; after some hesitation, Joker shoots her. As night falls, the Marines march to the Perfume River singing the "Mickey Mouse March". Joker narrates his thoughts in a final voice-over line: "I am so happy that I am alive, in one piece, and short. I'm in a world of shit, yes, but I am alive. And I am not afraid."

== Cast == Matthew Modine as Private (later Sergeant) James T. "Joker" Davis, a wisecracking young Marine. On set, Modine kept a diary that in 2005 was adapted into a book and in 2013 into an interactive app. Adam Baldwin as Sergeant "Animal Mother", a nihilistic, combat-hungry machine gunner in the Lusthog Squad who takes pride in killing enemy soldiers, and scorns any authority other than his own. Vincent D'Onofrio as Private Leonard "Gomer Pyle" Lawrence, an overweight, slow-minded recruit who is the subject of Hartman's mockery. According to Kubrick, Pyle was "the hardest part to cast in the whole movie"; Modine suggested D'Onofrio to Kubrick. D'Onofrio was required to gain 70 pounds (32 kg) for the role. R. Lee Ermey (credited as "Lee Ermey") as Gunnery Sergeant L. Hartman, a harsh, foul-mouthed and ruthless senior drill instructor. Ermey had played a similar character in the 1978 Vietnam War film The Boys in Company C. Ermey used his actual experience as a U.S. Marines drill instructor in the Vietnam War to improvise much of his dialogue. Dorian Harewood as Corporal "Eightball", an African-American member of the squad unfazed by racial slurs, and Animal Mother's closest friend. Arliss Howard as Private (later Sergeant) "Cowboy" Evans, a friend of Joker originally from Texas and a member of the Lusthog Squad. Kevyn Major Howard as Private First Class "Rafter Man", a combat photographer. Ed O'Ross as First Lieutenant Walter J. "Mr. Touchdown" Schinoski, the Lusthog Squad's platoon leader. John Terry as First Lieutenant Lockhart, the editor in charge of the Da Nang division of Stars and Stripes. Kieron Jecchinis as Sergeant "Crazy Earl", the first Lusthog Squad leader. Bruce Boa as the Colonel who scolds Joker for writing “Born to Kill” on his helmet and simultaneously wearing a peace symbol on his lapel. Kirk Taylor as Private "Payback", a squad member. John Stafford as "Doc Jay," a Navy hospital corpsman providing medical support for the squad. Tim Colceri as a ruthless and sadistic helicopter door gunner who suggests that Joker and Rafter Man write a story about him. Colceri, a former Marine, was originally slated to play Hartman, a role that went to Ermey. Kubrick gave Colceri this smaller part as a consolation. Ian Tyler as Lieutenant Cleves, an officer present at the uncovering of a mass grave. Gary Landon Mills as Donlon, a squad member who works as a radio operator. Sal Lopez as "T.H.E. Rock", a squad member. Papillon Soo Soo as a Da Nang prostitute Leanne Hong as Da Nang motorbike prostitute Ngọc Lê as the Viet Cong sniper. Peter Edmund as Private "Snowball" Brown, a recruit in Hartman's platoon who briefly becomes a squad leader before Hartman gives Joker the position. Antu N'Jai as a recruit. Steve Boucher as a recruit. Stanley Kubrick as Sergeant Murphy (voice only, uncredited), whom Cowboy communicates with by radio

== Themes ==

Michael Pursell's essay "Full Metal Jacket: The Unravelling of Patriarchy" (1988) was an early, in-depth consideration of the film's two-part structure and its criticism of masculinity. Pursell wrote that the film shows "war and pornography as facets of the same system". Many reviewers praised the military brainwashing themes in the boot-camp portion of the film while viewing the film's second half as more confusing and disjointed. Rita Kempley of The Washington Post wrote, "it's as if they borrowed bits of every war movie to make this eclectic finale." Roger Ebert saw the film as an attempt to tell a story of individual characters and the war's effects on them. According to Ebert, the result is a shapeless film that feels "more like a book of short stories than a novel". Julian Rice, in his book Kubrick's Hope (2008), saw the second part of the film as a continuation of Joker's psychic journey in his attempt to understand human evil. Tony Lucia, in his 1987 review of Full Metal Jacket for the Reading Eagle, examined the themes of Kubrick's career, suggesting "the unifying element may be the ordinary man dwarfed by situations too vast and imposing to handle". Lucia refers to the "military mentality" in this film and also said the theme covers "a man testing himself against his own limitations", and concluded: "Full Metal Jacket is the latest chapter in an ongoing movie which is not merely a comment on our time or a time past, but on something that reaches beyond." British critic Gilbert Adair wrote, "Kubrick's approach to language has always been reductive and uncompromisingly deterministic in nature. He appears to view it as the exclusive product of environmental conditioning, only very marginally influenced by concepts of subjectivity and interiority, by all the whims, shades and modulations of personal expression." Michael Herr wrote of his work on the screenplay, "The substance was single-minded, the old and always serious problem of how you put into a film or a book the living, behaving presence of what Jung called the shadow, the most accessible of archetypes, and the easiest to experience ... War is the ultimate field of Shadow-activity, where all of its other activities lead you. As they expressed it in Vietnam, 'Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no Evil, for I am the Evil'."

== Production ==

=== Development === In early 1980, Stanley Kubrick contacted Michael Herr, author of the Vietnam War memoir Dispatches (1977), to discuss work on a film about the Holocaust but Kubrick discarded that idea in favor of a film about the Vietnam War. Herr and Kubrick met in England; Kubrick told Herr he wanted to make a war film but had yet to find a story to adapt. Kubrick discovered Gustav Hasford's novel The Short-Timers (1979) while reading the Kirkus Review. Herr received the novel in bound galleys and thought it a masterpiece. In 1982, Kubrick read the novel twice; he concluded it is "a unique, absolutely wonderful book" and decided to adapt it for his next film. According to Kubrick, he was drawn to the book's dialogue, which he found "almost poetic in its carved-out, stark quality". In 1983, Kubrick began researching for the film; he watched archival footage and documentaries, read Vietnamese newspapers on microfilm from the Library of Congress, and studied hundreds of photographs from the era. Initially, Herr was not interested in revisiting his Vietnam War experiences, but Kubrick spent three years persuading him, describing the discussions as "a single phone call lasting three years, with interruptions". In 1985, Kubrick contacted Hasford and invited him to join the team; they spoke by telephone three to four times a week for hours at a time. Kubrick had already written a detailed treatment of the novel, and they met at Kubrick's home every day, breaking the treatment into scenes. Herr then wrote the first draft of the film script. Kubrick worried the audience might misread the book's title as a reference to people who did only half a day's work and changed it to Full Metal Jacket after coming across the phrase in a gun catalogue. After the first draft was complete, Kubrick telephoned his orders to Hasford and Herr, who mailed their submissions to him. Kubrick read and edited Hasford's and Herr's submissions, and the team repeated the process. Neither Hasford nor Herr knew how much each had contributed to the screenplay, which led to a dispute over the final credits. Hasford said: "We were like guys on an assembly line in the car factory. I was putting on one widget and Michael was putting on another widget and Stanley was the only one who knew that this was going to end up being a car." Herr said Kubrick was not interested in making an anti-war film but "he wanted to show what war is like". At some point, Kubrick wanted to meet Hasford in person, but Herr advised against this, describing The Short-Timers author as a "scary man, a big, haunted marine", and did not believe Hasford and Kubrick would "get on". Kubrick, however, insisted on the meeting, which occurred at Kubrick's house in England. The meeting went poorly; Kubrick privately told Herr: "I can't deal with this man," and Hasford did not meet with Kubrick again.

=== Casting ===