Depiction of the Vietnam War - Masaryk University

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Similarly, Full Metal Jacket, although it. “anchors the most ...... the screenplay, however, this is said in “a John Wayne voice,” thus being more a satirical remark  ...
Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature

Dušan Kolcún

Lights, Camera, Vietnam: Depiction of the Vietnam War in Selected Movies Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Dr.

2008

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Dušan Kolcún

Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisor doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Dr. for his valuable advice and comments. I would also like to thank my girlfriend for proof-reading the final text and for providing priceless moral support and encouragement.

War educates the senses, calls into action the will, perfects the physical constitution, brings men into such swift and close collision in critical moments that man measures man. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity. —Dwight D. Eisenhower

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction

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1.1. “The Only War We Had:” Why the Vietnam War?

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1.2. “24 Frames a Second:” Why Films?

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1.3. “More than Meets the Eye:” A Note on Accuracy of Depiction

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2. Platoon

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2.1. Plot Summary

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2.2. Overview

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2.3. “Is War Hell?” The Battle Experience

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2.4. “A War of Casualties:” Relations with Civilians

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2.5. “What School Won’t Teach You:” War as Life Experience

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2.6. Summary

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3. Full Metal Jacket

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3.1. Plot Summary

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3.2. Overview

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3.3. “All as One:” The Process of Dehumanization

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3.4. “Better You than Me:” Deglorification of the War

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3.5. Summary

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4. “And the Battles Will Rage On:” Conclusion

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5. Works Used and Cited

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6. Appendices

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6.1. Appendix 1: John Rambo v. Animal Mother

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6.2. Appendix 2: The Rolling Stones: “Paint It Black”

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6.3. Appendix 3: Lee Iacocca’s Speech

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1. INTRODUCTION The aim of this thesis is to analyze how the Vietnam War is depicted in two Americanmade films: Oliver Stone’s Platoon (1986) and Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987). The films will be analyzed separately in both historical1 and cultural context. Attention will be paid to individual issues dealt with and depicted in each of the two films as well as to general mediation of the war in each of them. A conclusion will be drawn as to what the two films have in common, how they differ, whether they share any central issue or topic, and what image of the Vietnam War these films (might) create. However, before attempting this analysis, I deem it necessary the following questions be answered and notes made.

1.1. “The Only War We Had:” Why the Vietnam War? The Vietnam War was the longest military conflict the United States has ever engaged in: starting with first military advisers leaving for Vietnam to aid the French in 1950 and ending with the last Marine helicopter taking off the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon on April 30, 1975 (The Vietnam War), it lasted for quarter of a century. It involved more than two and a half million U.S. military personnel stationed in South Vietnam during this era (“Vietnam War Statistics”) and cost more than $150 billion (“The Fall of Saigon”). After the guns went silent, nearly 59,000 American soldiers were left dead and more than 303,000 wounded, not to mention the millions of Vietnamese, both soldiers and civilians (“Vietnam War Statistics”). These numbers, when compared with the First or the Second World War (“America’s Wars”), do not seem so shocking.2

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Throughout the text, explanatory footnotes have been included providing additional information about the historical context and explaining words which might be unfamiliar to the reader. 2 Lower casualty rate during the Vietnam War was mostly due to the massive use of medivac helicopters which could evacuate wounded soldiers directly from the combat zone and transport them to field hospitals. The chance of a wounded soldier’s survival during the Vietnam War was approx. 75%; only 45% would have survived the same condition in World War II. (“The Unsung Soldier”)

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However, the significance of the Vietnam War was not in its death toll, but in its aftermath and the far-reaching consequences it had for the United States. Unlike the First and the Second World War where the Americans fought alongside other Allied forces, the Vietnam War and almost its entire burden was left to and subsequently felt by the United States.3 Therefore, it might rightfully be called the “truly American war,” or, as Lanning terms it, “the only war we had” (155). Schulzinger claims it was a “watershed event for American politics, foreign policy, culture, values, and economy in the 1960s that the Civil War was in the 1860s and the Great Depression was in the 1930s” (ix). It profoundly affected the way Americans perceived and thought about themselves, leaving “our myth of national greatness […] deeply scored and tarnished” (Frey-Wouters and Laufer xx). The Vietnam War was the only one in American history “rejected while it was being fought by a substantial portion of Americans,” creating “the twentieth century’s most massive protests against government policies” (Schulzinger x). All these features made it very different from any other war the United States has ever fought and the conflict still occupies a special position in American history. Moreover, unlike the more recent Gulf War, for example, it is an event old enough to have already created a substantial cultural response (in both fiction and non-fiction literature, documentary, feature and TV films, songs, poetry, and recently even video games), yet still “alive enough” to be of interest. The aforementioned factors make it “a very special war,” consequently making the Vietnam War films unique and distinct from any and every other group of films—warrelated or not—in American film history (Dittmar and Michaud 4-6). For these reasons, I have decided to concentrate on the Vietnam War films.

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Despite the fact that the forces of South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and South Vietnam also took part in the Vietnam War, with the exception of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), their numbers were low and their involvement in combat only marginal. (“Countdown to Tet”)

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1.2. “24 Frames a Second:” Why Films? From countless cultural representations of the Vietnam War, films have been both the most well-known and the most common, and, according to Anderegg, “the Vietnam War […] has thus far been given its imaginative life primarily through film” (1). This is mostly due to the fact that the conflict was being extensively covered by television news and became “a tragic serial drama stretched over thousands of nights in the American consciousness” (Anderegg 2). Consequently, it provided filmmakers with countless images and visual icons—all well-known to the general public—which are present in many Vietnam War films: the Huey helicopters extracting or deploying combat troops, the dense green jungle, villagers in conical hats, rice paddies, water buffaloes, burning, half-destroyed buildings and huts. The presence of these images in many Vietnam War films has one goal: to recreate the conflict as “immediate” and “close” as possible (Dittmar and Michaud 2).4 As Anderegg also points out, Vietnam War films managed to catch the attention of the general public and to interest even those “for whom film can only be a tendentious and cynical product of American capitalism” (1). These films, however, managed to do much more than just catch the attention. For many people these films were and still are the primary force shaping their understanding and perception of the conflict in SE Asia (Lanning ix). These facts, coupled with the recent trend of preferring television, films, and the internet to reading books (Italie), mean that the image of the Vietnam War amongst the general public has been, is, and—most likely—will be primarily shaped and influenced by films. Thus, taking all these facts into consideration, I have chosen to focus on films rather than some other cultural manifestation of the Vietnam War. 4

This attempt is probably most evident in 84 Charlie MoPic (Patrick Sheane Duncan, 1989). Shot entirely from one hand-held camera only, lacking any opening credits, editing, or soundtrack, the film tries to imitate the actual Vietnam War combat footage.

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Regarding the choice of the two films analyzed in this thesis, they both meet the following criteria. First, they are directly connected to the Vietnam War in their theme, topic, and plot. Second, both films are well-known, judging by the profits they made and still continue to make, both in the United States and abroad (BoxOfficeMojo). In addition, due the fact that these films are also available on VHS, DVD, and recently more and more easily accessible via the Internet, it is safe to assume that they are well-known to a wide audience outside the cinema, thus having significantly impacted millions of people and their views of the conflict. Moreover, they are what might be called “the essential Vietnam War films,” providing—along with films like The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, and Born on the Fourth of July—“the most compelling statements about the war” (Anderegg 1). As their aim is primarily not to entertain the audience, let alone promote or glorify the war, they are seen as retrospectives trying to “say something” about the conflict, to look back and analyze it, to take a stand, present a viewpoint, express an opinion (Anderegg 3). In addition, the choice has also been made with regard to the genre of the films. Both are typically regarded as combat films/war dramas and are often judged against and compared to each other. Yet, as shall be seen, these films are very different from one another. And finally, as in every process of selection, my personal taste also played a role.

1.3. “More than Meets the Eye:” A Note on Accuracy of Depiction So as to avoid confusion later on, a note on accuracy of depiction and its relevance to this thesis should be made. The accuracy with which the films depict the Vietnam War, be it considering weapons, uniforms, authenticity of the setting, or other facts of this kind whatsoever, is of little relevance to the analysis in the following chapters. There are several reasons for having adopted this approach.

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First, films (e.g. Platoon) can—accurately enough—depict certain issues and thus provide an “insight” into or draw attention to a problem, in which case, this is noteworthy (see 2.2. and 2.3). Nevertheless, they cannot be taken as historical sources—let alone evidence—without serious scrutiny and examination being employed, since the role of films is not to accurately recreate their subjects. This is to be left for documentaries and history books.5 Moreover, it is typical of films to “fictionalize […] the historical events and characters which serve as their referents in history,” consequently creating narratives where “everything is presented as […] both real and imaginary” (White 18-19), making it even harder for the viewer to distinguish between facts and fiction. In addition, the Vietnam War was a “strange war,” being substantially different from all previous conflicts in American history. Unlike the First and the Second World War, it lacked a clear and easily definable political objective and purpose, as well as a military strategy and the ultimate goal; it was fought in a far-away country which was in cultural terms often totally incomprehensible to the Americans; in addition, many soldiers often thought they were fighting for people who were not worthy of their effort and seemed not to care about the war; in military terms, the conflict was a guerilla war, lacking conventional battles and a clearly identifiable distinction between friends and enemies (Auster and Quart 77-78). All these factors meant that the war was—and still is—an event not easy to comprehend. Hence not only does a realistic depiction pose a problem, but the contradictions and controversies of the conflict often manifest themselves in films as well. And, as with every event that fades into the past, it is important to realize that “what is essential here is not what actually happened, but what is believed to have occurred” (FreyWouter and Laufer 316). 5

Even in the case of non-fiction literature and documentary film, caution must be taken as these materials tend—intentionally or not—to provide a certain interpretation of the facts they present. This is all the more true of events which are seen as controversial. According to Lanning, in the case of the Vietnam War, “accuracy and facts untainted by propaganda or falsehood are difficult to come by” (x). For different opinions about the Vietnam War documentaries see Lanning 53-64, Grosser, and Dornfeld.

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As a result, in terms of accuracy, very few films meet even the most basic criteria.6 In fact, Lanning claims that the majority of Vietnam War films is so inaccurate that “if any groups of films […] had delivered the same lies, exaggerations, and stereotypes, the streets would have been filled with protesters and the theatres picketed across the nation” (x). However, these things “added,” stereotypes created, and inaccuracies resulting from the use of dramatic license are yet just one of many cultural responses to the war, making another indirect statement about the conflict, its perception, reception, understanding, and interpretation. Moreover, their presence must be reckoned with, since “clichés, stereotypes, conventions, and evasions and displacements […] are the life and blood of popular culture, particularly the movies” (Auster and Quart 84). When considering accuracy of depiction, it must be borne in mind that “film […] cannot accurately reproduce historical events. Its simulation of the actual circumstances of the war is necessarily mediated […] by those engaged in a given film’s production and reception” (Dittmar and Michaud 10). With regard to the films in question, Platoon, despite depicting combat and field life with unprecedented accuracy and precision, is, at the same time, quite a schematic representation of good and evil, presenting these two phenomena as precisely defined, with no middle ground in between. Similarly, Full Metal Jacket, although it “anchors the most accurate Vietnam-era basic training on film” (Lanning 229), must be seen as “blending of reality and stylization so prominent in [Kubrick’s] work” (Falsetto 72). Thus, “at issue […] is not simply the believability of these films as records of the past, but what do these films tell us as artifacts about ourselves, [and] our culture” (Dittmar and Michaud 10). So what do these films tell about the Vietnam War? And how does the American culture react to the war via these films? The following chapters will try to answer these questions.

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For an analysis of factual errors in Vietnam War films see Lanning 159-356.

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2. PLATOON 2.1. Plot Summary Private Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) arrives in Vietnam and is assigned to a rifle platoon within the 25th Infantry Division operating near the Cambodia border. While on a night patrol, the platoon gets into a firefight with several NVA7 soldiers. During the fight, one member of the platoon is killed and two others, including Taylor, are wounded. After spending some time in the base camp, the platoon is again sent into the field on another patrol mission. This time, the soldiers encounter a bunker complex which the enemy had abandoned just minutes before their arrival. After losing two men to a booby trap,8 the unit moves to a nearby Vietnamese village to investigate reports of enemy activity. Having found no enemy but several food and weapon caches, the soldiers set the village on fire and relocate the civilians, killing two in the process. This accident deepens a long-lasting animosity between Sergeant Barnes (Tom Berenger) and Sergeant Elias (Willem Dafoe), dividing the soldiers of the platoon into two groups, each supporting one of the officers. On a third combat patrol, the platoon is ambushed, and—having suffered heavy losses—quickly retreats and is extracted by helicopters. During this fight, Elias, having been left behind, is shot by Barnes. However, he does not die instantaneously and— despite being seriously wounded—tries to reach the extraction zone. Elias dies in a clearing, being shot several more times by NVA soldiers, before the eyes of the whole platoon which is, by that time, safely on board the helicopters leaving the combat zone.

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NVA: People’s Army of North Vietnam; a regular, professionally trained, and well equipped fighting force as opposed to the guerilla-styled Vietcong. (Clark 397) 8 Booby trap: A wide range of devices used to inflict casualties on an enemy. They varied from mines and grenades with trip wires to holes in the ground with sharp spikes at the bottom. Objects such as helmets, boxes, toys or even dead bodies were wired with explosives and conspicuously placed. When a soldier picked up or manipulated such an object, he triggered off the explosive. (Clark 65)

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This further polarizes the two factions within the platoon and even leads to a fist fight between Taylor and Barnes, but the conflict remains unresolved. Towards the end of the film, the platoon—as a part of a larger force—is sent to counter the attack of the 141st NVA regiment. During this encounter, nearly the whole U.S. force is annihilated in a pitched night battle. In a desperate attempt to hold off the enemy attack, the U.S. commander (Captain Harris played by Dale Dye) calls in an air strike on his own position, the scene ending in a fiery inferno that only very few survive. In the last scene taking place the next morning, Taylor kills Barnes and thus avenges Elias’s death. Being seriously wounded, Taylor is put on a medivac helicopter and flown out of the combat zone. The film closes with a voice-over concluding that “those of us who did make it have an obligation […] to teach to others what we know and […] to find the goodness and meaning to this life” and with a “Dedicated to the men fought and died in the Vietnam War” screen (Platoon).

2.2. Overview Out of the two films under discussion, Platoon is what might be called the more typical representative of a combat film/war drama, thus being analyzed first. The film tells “the familiar young soldier’s story” (Hillstrom and Hillstrom 234), i.e. draws on previous films about the First World War, the Second World War, and the Korean War, using “time-honored narrative and cinematic conventions” and employing “narrative structure, character construction, and cinematography” of famous World War II films such as Bataan (1943), Objective, Burma! (1945), Walk in the Sun (1945), or The Story of GI Joe (1946) (Dittmar and Michaud 4; Auster and Quart 132). However, Platoon is far from being the typical combat film/war drama of earlier periods.

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Stone managed to distance himself and his film from the “celebratory heroic of traditional action-oriented American combat films like The Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)” (Miller 153) and created a film very different from what the viewers might expect, “counter[ing] the excesses of jingoistic films like Rambo II and Missing in Action” (Klein 25). The film does not end in victory, but climaxes with a mutual destruction of both the U.S. and the NVA forces, signifying a draw. In addition to undermining the myth of the U.S. army’s invincibility, Platoon also focuses on other issues which were not found in previous—and in very few if any subsequent—war films: the massacre of the Vietnamese civilians and the destruction of their village draws attention to the controversial issue of U.S. military policy employed in Vietnam and calls this policy into question; the conflicts between the soldiers within the platoon where “working together is not offered as a realistic proposition” (Dittmar and Michaud 5) expose the problems of failing morale and internal division present in the army. The film also addresses a wide range of other issues: the nature of combat and battle experience, the adaptation process of newly arrived recruits, the issues of class and race in relation to the Vietnam War, drug abuse, different attitudes towards the war and its conduct, and many others. The film has also set the standards for realistic depiction of combat in war films, containing “the most realistic jungle combat scenes ever filmed” (Lanning 157), being “the first real Viet Nam film” (Hillstrom and Hillstrom 235) showing Vietnam “how it really was” (Bates 106). Dale Dye who played Captain Harris served as the film’s military adviser; he put the whole cast through a two-week “basic training” so as to get the mental a physical aspects of the war as real as possible (Haflidason). Out of these many issues, three in particular will be discussed in more detail: the battle experience of individual soldiers, relationships and interaction with civilians, and the depiction of war as an important life experience.

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2.3. “Is War Hell?” The Battle Experience Platoon, as already pointed out, was highly acclaimed by various critics for its realistic depiction of combat. However, though combat scenes constitute a significant portion of the film, more is presented than just combat per se. Since great attention has been paid to every detail from clothing (including military badges and insignia) and equipment to language and the age of the soldiers (Lanning 293), what the viewer is presented with is probably one of the most complete, complex, and accurate pictures of the Vietnam War ever created in a fiction film. This picture, however, goes far beyond pitched jungle battles and chaotic firefights. The film opens as Taylor and other newly arrived recruits get off the plane at a military airfield in Vietnam. In less than two minutes—without any transition, most likely signifying the shock new recruits must have suffered and dealt with—the viewer is shown the jungle: “tightly cropped images of mud, insects, leeches, elephant grass [Saccharum ravennae], heat, fear, and frayed nerves” (Bates 106), with the soldiers literary cutting their way through the dense forest undergrowth. These images, coupled with the depiction of other physical strains such as dehydration and exhaustion, all, as one Vietnam veteran pointed out after having seen the film, “ring true to my own Vietnam experience” (Bates 170). By issuing a very believable statement about the physical environment of Vietnam, the film highlights the fact that the jungle (or in a generalized sense the landscape) was as much the enemy as the Vietcong9 and the NVA.10

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Unlike the regular NVA forces, the Vietcong (short for Vietnamese Communists, known among the U.S forces also as “Charlie”) was a guerilla-style fighting force based in South Vietnam, a military branch of the National Liberation Front, a political organization bent on reuniting North and South Vietnam. Consisting mostly of volunteers, the Vietcong fought the U.S. primarily in rural areas and cities; its fighters were usually indistinguishable from the civilian population. (Clark 543) 10 A veteran recalls: “It was a place where men died. But there was no tangible object to attack, except the land itself. In a sense the area […] became the enemy, not the Vietcong, but the physical place.” (“Soldiering On”)

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The narrative structure of the film also highlights another important aspect of combat, countering the popular “war is hell” image created and perpetuated by most war films. The narrative of the film is based on alternating short combat scenes with longer scenes of base camp life. Firefights quickly alternate with images of soldiers digging fox holes, “humping,”11 taking guard duties, setting ambushes, shaving, eating, and performing myriad other everyday non-combat activities. The alternating narrative pattern along with very fast or no transitions between combat and non-combat scenes communicates a very important message: war is not hell as it is often said. “War is boring. […] It’s basically not scary. It’s just monotonous. […] It’s monotony punctuated by moments of sheer terror,” a Vietnam veteran pointed out (“Soldiering On”). Another concurred on this point: “We occasionally drew sniper fire […] and mortars sometimes sent us scrambling […] for the sandbagged bunkers. Otherwise the tropical heat and boredom were more relentless enemies than the local Viet Cong” (Bates 221). Taylor’s voice-over converts the same message: it is “just another day” when “we get up at five A.M., hump all day, camp around four or five, dig a fox hole, eat, and put on an all-night ambush” (Platoon). It is not another horrible or terrifying day. It is just one of many days. Monotony, boredom, constant danger, insecurity, and the mental as well as the physical strain have a profound effect on the performance and the morale of the soldiers. As Taylor confesses in another voice-over “I try every day to keep not only my strength, but my sanity” (Platoon). But Stone goes beyond the depiction of these issues as isolated realities. He moves on and contextualizes these facts, presenting them as both the results and at the same time as the causes of other everyday realities and phenomena of the Vietnam War. 11

To hump: “To move, march or patrol in the boonies, mountains, rice paddies or the jungles; field gear, coupled with rough terrain and jungle heat, enemy booby traps and snipers, made movement a painful effort in Vietnam.” (Clark 239)

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One of these phenomena is the writing of letters. During the film, two soldiers write home. One of them is King (Keith David), the other is Taylor. Though the function of Taylor’s letters is explicitly to create the space for the voice-over narratives and thus present the thoughts of the main character, implicitly they fulfill another function. Letters in themselves, seen in their simplicity and not as a narrative structure, are just another reality of the war, another aspect of everyday life. During the war, letters functioned as a kind of bridge, as one of the last connections with the outside world, with the world that had existed before the war. Receiving a letter determined “if it’s a good day or not.” Letters became the last refuge of many soldiers. In the words of a Vietnam veteran, “I’m writing because I have to. Or I’ll go out of my mind.” Another confessed in a letter he wrote home that “I appreciate all of your letters. For a while as I read your letters, I’m a normal person. I’m not killing people, or worry about being killed” (Dear America). But letters were not enough to keep the soldiers functioning as they were supposed to and a decline in morale was an inevitable consequence of the prolonged pressure. Some critics, interpreting Platoon in historical rather than cultural context, see the film primarily as “stark depictions of some of the most controversial and intensely debated aspects of the American soldiers’ performance in Vietnam” (Hillstrom and Hillstrom 234). Exploring the issue of drug abuse during the war, Stone brought to light the fact that at least one in every two soldiers serving in Vietnam had experimented with drugs, having used marijuana, opium, heroine, or abused morphine (“Soldiering On”). As Taylor is introduced to the soldiers’ community, he is offered marijuana. As was the custom of the day, confirmed by various documentaries (Dear America, “Soldiering On”), he smokes it through a barrel of a rifle. Drugs were an everyday reality of the war

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designed to relieve tension and alleviate stress. It should be noted, however, that most soldier did not become permanently addicted. They were either treated for drug addiction during the time of their service or simply did not continue to use drugs after they had concluded their tour of duty (“The Unsung Soldier”). Internal tension and stress within the military epitomized by the animosity between Barnes and Elias, fragging (firstly proposed by Barnes’s squad member against Elias, later by Taylor against Barnes),12 drug abuse, and other issues testify to the general decline of morale and internal problems of the U.S. military during the late 1960s and early 1970s.13 These problems, however, were not confined to and isolated within the military and often manifested themselves outwards, towards the civilian population of Vietnam.

2.4. “A War of Casualties:” Relations with Civilians Platoon also pays attention to this, often omitted, aspect of the Vietnam War. The scene where the U.S. soldiers destroy a Vietnamese village and in the process kill two civilians is probably the most controversial one in the whole film. Some critics claim that it goes too far, creating “extremely biased history” (Lanning 293), perpetuating the negative stereotype of the murderous, marijuana-smoking U.S. soldier exercising no restrain, and basically telling the audience “that the most savage thing on Earth is ‘an 18-year-old American with a gun’” (Auster and Quart 134). Others point out the fact that the scene does not go far enough and that “given the widespread condemnation of the My Lai massacre and similar atrocities […], the film’s critique […] seems extremely mild.” Klein goes on to claim that the scene “does not so much condemn the 12

Fragging: “Anonymous act of using a hand grenade or other explosive in an attempt to kill a fellow soldier. Officers and senior NCOs were the most common targets of fragging, but racially and drug motivated incidents against enlisted men also took place. […] The grenade was typically thrown into the target’s sleeping quarters while he slept.” (Clark 187) 13 For more information on the subject see Hillstrom and Hillstrom 227-230.

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massacre […] as minimize and explain it,” that it does not highlight the fact that such events were “underpinned by socially constructed assumptions of racial and national superiority” and were an integral part of U.S. military policy in Vietnam; in Klein’s opinion, the film merely presents the event as an accident resulting from “the dark side of human nature” (26). Both interpretations, however, are rather narrow-minded, represent the extreme-most viewpoints, and clearly reflect their authors’ agendas— those of a Vietnam veteran (Lanning) on one hand and those of a film critic (Klein) on the other. Thus, the aim of this chapter is to place the scene in both the historical context of the Vietnam War and the cultural context of the film and provide an alternative interpretation. Firstly, however, a detailed description is required. The scene begins as the squad under the command of Sgt. Barnes enters a Vietnamese village to investigate reports of enemy activity. Having found two of their fellow soldiers mutilated and tied to a tree just a few moments before, it might be presumed that they are angry, agitated, and keen on revenge; as hinted by Taylor’s referring to Barnes as “our captain Ahab” who “will set things right,” this is indeed the case. As the squad is entering the village, Barnes kills a Vietcong scout who is fleeing along the river bank. Afterwards, the civilians are rounded up and interrogated as to the Vietcong presence and with regard to the weapon and food caches found in the village. While rounding up the civilians, Bunny (Kevin Dillon) kills a Vietnamese man by smashing his head with the bud end of his weapon. Barnes, suspecting the civilians to know more than they are telling, shoots an old woman and makes it clear that he will kill more civilians if they do not provide the information he wants. At this moment, Sgt. Elias appears at the scene and yelling “You ain’t a firin’ squad you piece o’ shit!” starts fighting with Barnes. The fight is quickly broken up by Lt. Wolfe (Mark Moses) who orders the soldiers to “torch the place” and to relocate the civilians (Platoon). The scene

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ends with “a panoramic shot of U.S. troops walking through fields in bright sunlight carrying Vietnamese children on their shoulders” (Klein 27), the village going up in smoke in the background, with an occasional explosion disturbing the calm of the late afternoon. To gain a deeper understanding of what the film mediates through this scene and what is being said, the scene must not be perceived as one, but as several smaller narratives and sub-plots. Therefore, it cannot be seen only as a depiction of U.S. soldiers who “pillage and burn,” but as a depiction of four different events which took place simultaneously: first, there is the search and destroy mission 14 relating to the village, not the villagers; second, there is the relocation of the villagers; and finally, there are the two killings, which are again two different things. The platoon is initially sent to the village because NVA soldiers have been reported in the area. This is a standard military procedure—to search for and destroy the enemy. Since no enemy (except the fleeing scout) is found, the village itself is searched. “If evidence of communist activity is found, the village is considered an enemy base camp” (“The Village War”). The soldiers do find such evidence: weapons and food for the Vietcong; therefore they are ordered by Lt. Wolfe who is passing down orders from Captain Harris to destroy the village. This tactics was often used as part of the “pacification program” employed by the U.S. military; thus Klein’s claim that the film “exempts the U.S. government, military, and power elite from being called to account for their policies” (25) is not valid. The film does exactly this, showing U.S. military policies in action. The same holds true for the relocation of the villagers. Lt. Wolfe orders his men to “round up all suspected VC” and move out. This again is not an illegal act: it is, albeit controversial, a combat strategy—a way of fighting the enemy by 14

Search and destroy: “U.S. operations in Vietnam designed to utilize technology and superior firepower to locate and destroy the enemy, his bases and supply caches. Units constantly moved; searching, instead of taking and holding territory or terrain, eliminating the enemy through combat attrition.” (Clark 456)

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attrition and pacification of communist supporters. Thus the film does address the issue of the controversial U.S. military policy in Vietnam; it does not do so overtly by criticism voiced by a soldier, for example, but nevertheless does so. As with the two killings, Stone treats them differently. The first one done by Bunny is presented as an action committed under prolonged stress and mental strain. The scene gradually builds up the tension to emphasize this fact. Taylor repeatedly yells “Oh, they’re scarred, huh? What about me, man? What about me? I’m sick of this fucking shit!” Nevertheless, Taylor does not kill anyone. He releases his anger by shooting into the ground, ordering the Vietnamese man to “dance, motherfucker! Dance!” (Platoon) As the soldiers are ready to leave the hut, Bunny abruptly turns around and, acting on a sudden impulse, smashes the man’s head with his rifle. The act can be seen as a cold-blooded murder. However, given the context of the scene, it would be more logical to see it as an action performed under stress, resulting from frustration, long-time pressure, and fear. A Vietnam veteran made an interesting observation relating to this subject: “What does fear do to a man? What are the reactions to fear? How do we react to ignorance? […] I compensated for that ignorance in a whole bunch of ways. Some evil ways. […] Blowing things up, burning huts” (“Soldiering On”). The killing, however, can also be seen differently. Bunny tries to persuade the others that the civilians are responsible for the death of their platoon members, hence his action can be seen as revenge. Even this interpretation holds true in light of historical evidence. A Vietnam veteran talks about one of his soldiers: He sees his own people blown away, he sees the enemy getting blown away. This whole ethical confusion is the only word I can use—it sort of melts. And people would flash. […] I had one individual who was a terrific marine. We were on this one operation and his best friend was

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killed. And we made a sweep two days later through a village and this guy killed a civilian as payback. In his own mind he sort of justified it. (“Soldiering On”) Given the guerilla-style nature of the war where “the smiling ‘mamasan,’ the street urchin, or the seemingly indifferent peasant plowing a field in the daytime could become the remorseless ‘Charlie’ of the night” (Auster and Quart 78), such reactions were a natural response, a kind of adaptation. Thus, when seeing the incident either as a stress-triggered action or as revenge, it is easier to understand why Stone does not bring Bunny before military justice and is more sympathetic than in Barnes’s case. Barnes’s killing is seen and presented differently. Barnes does not seem to be acting under as much stress as Bunny is. He turns away, than slowly faces the Vietnamese woman, aims and—unlike Taylor who emptied an entire magazine—fires calmly just one shot. Barnes, moreover, kills the Vietnamese woman so as to get information about enemy activity in the area, thus his act is being presented as a part of U.S. military strategy. Therefore, Elias enters the scene in order to draw attention to Barnes’s action, and to report it to the company commander who states that “if I find out there was illegal killing, there will be a court martial” (Platoon). Implying that deliberate killing of civilians will not be tolerated, Stone draws a line between Barnes and Bunny; Bunny’s action is forgotten, being regarded as a one-time, under-stress-performed and therefore excusable, whereas Barnes’s infraction clearly breaks the rules and thus Barnes is to face the consequences. Overall, the scene thus communicates several important messages: It brings to attention the nature of soldier-civilian relationships and interaction, and exemplifies possible outcomes. It does not excuse the conduct of the soldiers, decontextualize the affair, nor isolates it from U.S. policies and military strategy as Klein claim (25-28).

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Rather, the scene presents both the U.S. troops and the Vietnamese civilians as victims of the war, forced by circumstances to behave the way they do: the civilians are pressurized by the NVA and the Vietcong to store weapons and supply the communist forces with food; the U.S. soldiers must fight the enemy even by eliminating their supporters, thus spreading the war onto people who cannot be considered to be soldiers. Klein also claims that the last part of the scene is “elegiac and self-congratulatory,” and, as the U.S. soldiers carry Vietnamese children on their shoulder, it “affirms the essential humanity of the occupying American military force” (25). However, the ending—as well as the whole scene—is different. In its essence, it is tragic. The burning village in the background, the occasional explosion of a weapon cache again and again drawing the viewer’s attention (as well as the gaze of the leaving soldiers) back to the blazing huts, and the solemn, mournful tones of Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” renders the scene a tragic experience for all those involved.15 Apart from communicating a sense of tragedy and grief, the scene as a whole might also be seen as communicating a strong anti-war message; in words of Francis Ford Coppola, “all war movies are antiwar movies in that they describe horrible incidents” (Keegan). This is, however, open to debate, since “messages” are very audiencedependent. Even Coppola’s Apocalypse Now can be seen as a pro-war and at the same time as an anti-war film (see Tomasulo). Be this as it may, the tragic undertone of the massacre scene remains.

15

“Adagio for Strings” (composed in 1936 by Samuel Barber) is considered to be the U.S. “national funeral music.” Played at the funeral of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and extensively on the radio after the death of John F. Kennedy, it conveys a very mournful atmosphere, being described as a very “sad, stately peace.” (“The Impact of Barber’s ‘Adagio for Strings’”)

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2.5. “What School Won’t Teach You:” War as Life Experience Apart from depicting the war as a tragic, traumatic, and strenuous, Stone presents it as an important life experience as well. War is considered an important part of life, especially for men, being likened to childbirth as an equally important experience for women. In Jeffords’s opinion, “men who don’t go to war ‘have a sort of nostalgic longing for something they missed, some classic male experience, the way some women who didn’t have children worry they missed something basic about being a woman’” (203). The military is well aware of this notion and has used it when creating recruiting posters and advertisements promising to “build men,” attracting some recruits precisely for this reason (Bates 140). As far as Taylor’s motivations for enlisting are concerned, he states quite clearly in one of the voice-overs that “[I wanted to] do my share for my country. Live up to what grandpa did in the First War and dad did in the Second.” This might seem too patriotic, but nevertheless sheds some light on what the motivations were for many young people during the Vietnam War: “I believe that when America calls that call must be answered,” a Vietnam veteran explains his reasons for enlisting. To many young people, it came as a natural thing to serve “my country [whether it is] right or wrong,” to fight for the American dream (“The Unsung Soldiers”). However, Taylor’s motivations are more complex, “involving elements of rebellion, class guilt, and puritan selfabnegation” (Bates 108). He enlists to protest the system of class discrimination that sent the poor and uneducated to war, as he does not understand “why only the poor kids should fight and die” (Platoon). Yet, Taylor sees his involvement in more than just patriotic or social terms. He believes (or rather hopes) that he “has finally found it, down here in the mud.” He hopes that the war can be a turning point in his life, a kind of a new beginning; he hopes that “from down here I can start up again” (Platoon). This

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again, holds true in light of historic evidence. Many middle-class recruits, like Taylor, considered the war a way to escape their prescribed social roles, to be anonymous, and get a new experience by meeting with working-class people. As one Vietnam veteran pointed out, “it was great to make friends with people with such different experiences and outlooks. I probably learned more about life, and about myself, from John [the son of a Pittsburgh steelworker] than I ever learned in college” (Appy 107). Taylor’s ideals and expectations, however, are dead in less than a week. His sudden hatred of Vietnam might be caused, more than by disillusionment, by the shocking physical reality of the war. Yet he still does his job, blends in with the others, and even admires Sgt. Barnes for his drive and courage. The first turning point in Taylor’s thinking about the war comes after the massacre of the Vietnamese civilians. This is not so much due to the massacre itself; Taylor does not go as far as Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) does in Apocalypse Now when saying “we’d cut them in half with a machine gun and give them a bandaid. It was a lie, and the more I saw of them, the more I hated lies.” Rather than being shocked or disillusioned by the massacre itself, Taylor struggles with intense “ethical confusion” when he realizes what the massacre means for the platoon. At this point, the war is no longer a black-and-white, clear-cut conflict between “us” and “them;” from this point onwards, it is a three-way interaction, with as much tension between the American soldiers as between the NVA and the U.S. troops. At this point, Taylor confesses that “I don’t know what’s right and wrong anymore. […] I can’t believe that we’re fighting each other when we should be fighting them” (Platoon). This confusion, however, does not last long. The decisive moment comes when Elias is killed by Barnes, the tension and conflicting views having manifested themselves in a cold-blooded murder. After this, Taylor no longer has any doubts as to what should be done. By killing Barnes in the last scene “he avenges Elias’s murder

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[…]. This deed ostensibly completes his cycle of death and rebirth” (Bates 114). By taking a decisive stand, without any support from the other soldiers, Taylor moves from words to actions, despite knowing the consequences and thus proves his maturity and manhood. If Bates is right in pointing out that what Taylor seeks in Vietnam is nothing less than “the ‘born-again’ self of gospels and evangelical religion” (112), he has found it—by showing his allegiance to Elias (Jesus) and his killing of Barnes (the devil). This good vs. evil distinction between the Christ-like Elias and the devil-like Barnes manifests itself in the visual representation of the two characters. Elias’s death, captured in slow-motion, resembles the crucifixion of Jesus; his death “with his arms raised to heaven, near a ruined church,” (Bates 113) is reminiscent of “tradition Christian iconography” (Miller 161) and with the tragic “Adagio” playing in the background, the solemn, tragic atmosphere is complete. Similarly, during the final battle, Barnes is presented visually as the devil: with red face and blood-shot eyes, against the fiery background exploding in the napalm airstrike. His death is quick, decisively delivered by Taylor who has taken a firm stand. The end of the film and Taylor’s last voice-over was considered by some critics to be “banal” and a “dangerously romantic endorsement of war for the special kind of insight it can provide” (Bates 116). Through war, Taylor is transformed “from a callow recruit into a hardened veteran who has understood and survived both the horrors of the war and the portentous struggle for possession of his soul” (Auster and Quart 139). He underwent a serious disillusionment by seeing what the war does to all people involved, and how it probably affects those the living more than it affects those who die. However, the voice-over also communicates a different message: Taylor says that “[the war] will always be there—for the rest of my days […]. Those of us who did make it have an obligation to build again, to teach to others what we know and to try […] to find a

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goodness and meaning to this life” (Platoon). Thus, the end is essentially a happy ending, not so much looking back and praising the war, as looking forward into the future. It provides a glimpse of what might—and should—follow. Hope that, in spite of all the war has done and despite its burden which every veteran must carry, regardless of its disillusionment, the physical and mental damage it has caused, there is hope that the future can be, must be, and will be bright like the sun rising behind the hills during the closing moments of the film. The war is a tragedy that happened and which revealed the “dark side of human nature” inherently in every person. Yet this side must be suppressed and goodness must prevail.

2.6. Summary By combining many well-established narrative structures of previous combat films/war dramas, adding and highlighting certain controversial issues relating to the Vietnam War, and creating Vietnam as close and as real as ever, Stone managed to create a film that was hailed as a landmark in Vietnam War films; it was also highly acclaimed by critics, winning four Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Film Editing, and Best Sound). Having established a frame of reference for a “typical” combat film/war drama, it is now possible to analyze a more unconventional example of this genre, Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket.

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3. FULL METAL JACKET 3.1. Plot Summary Kubrick’s film is divided into two parts. The first part, taking place at Parris Island, South Carolina, follows a group of marines during the course of their basic training, “an eight-week college for the phony tough and the crazy brave” (Full Metal Jacket). During this period, the new recruits are transformed into soldiers through a continuous process of exercise, drills, songs, chants, and a around-the-clock supervision by the officers. The main character of this part of the film is Private Pyle (Vincent D’Onofrio). Immediately after his arrival, Pyle gets into a conflict with his drill instructor, Sergeant Hartman (played by R. Lee Ermey who had actually served for several years as a Marine drill instructor). Hartman considers Pyle totally incompetent and unable to do anything as ordered. Despite these problems, Pyle completes basic training, is assigned to an infantry squad, and is to leave for Vietnam shortly. During the last night at the training camp, Pyle kills Hartman and then turns the weapon against himself. The first part of the films concludes with a slow blackout as Private Joker (Matthew Modine) stares at the two bodies in horror. The second part of the film takes the viewer to Vietnam and takes place around and during the 1968 Tet Offensive.16 The main protagonist of this part of the film is Joker who returns to a squad let by Sergeant Cowboy (Arliss Howard), Joker’s friend from boot camp. Shortly after Joker is reunited with Cowboy, the marines are ordered to retake the city of Hue.17 During this mission, Cowboy’s squad gets lost and while trying

16

The Tet Offensive of 1968: A combined Vietcong/NVA operation launched during the Tet holiday in January of 1968. The Vietcong seized over 100 towns and cities all over South Vietnam while the NVA engaged U.S. forces in the northern part of South Vietnam. Intense fighting lasted for several weeks. The Vietcong/NVA suffered heavy losses and the U.S./ARVN forces regained all lost territory. The offensive, however, was a turning point in the war, intensifying anti-war protests in the U.S., leading to gradual withdrawal of U.S. troop and subsequent “Vietmanization” of the war. (Clark 506-507; “Tet!”) 17 Hue: “Cultural and religious center of South Vietnam and the country’s third largest city. […] During the ‘68 Tet Offensive, the NVA/VC captured the Citadel within the city. Extensive damage was done to the old city; after 31 days of house-to-house fighting U.S./ARVN forces cleared the city.” (Clark 238)

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to backtrack, encounters enemy sniper fire. After three soldiers (including Cowboy) are killed, the remaining members of the squad manage to find a wound the sniper. Standing over the wounded woman, they discuss what to do. The new leader of the squad (after Cowboy’s death Animal Mother [Adam Baldwin] takes command) suggests they “leave the gook for the mother-lovin’ rats,” while Joker argues that they “can’t leave her like that” (Full Metal Jacket). In the end, Joker kills the wounded Vietnamese sniper and the squad leaves. The films concludes with the soldiers marching through the burning city, singing the Mickey Mouse March. The Rolling Stones’ “Paint it Black” plays to the closing credits.

3.2. Overview Full Metal Jacket is often compared to and judged against such films as Hamburger Hill (1987) and Platoon (1986), a trend probably resulting from the fact that all three films appeared within less than eight months of each other. This is also due the fact that Full Metal Jacket is marked as “traditional war film” (Gilman 204) and “duplicates the structure” of this genre (Klein 31). However, as Klein also points out, “Kubrick inverts the combat film genre of Platoon and Hamburger Hill, in the process critiquing the chauvinism […] that often negates or undermines the antiwar stance of explicitly critical Vietnam War films” (2930). Consequently, Kubrick’s film is seen primarily as carrying a strong anti-war message, both by those who praise and condemn it.18 Kubrick creates this message by presenting the war very differently from other films. He follows the typical combat film/war drama pattern—boot camp, firefights, brutality of the war, the life of the soldiers etc. However, the films is totally devoid of 18

One critic said that the film provides “our regular, liberal anti-war inoculation;” another pointed out that Kubrick’s film supplies “the neat parcel of guilt” (Klein 29). For other, both positive and negative responses, see Hillstrom and Hillstrom 126-127.

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any redeeming philosophy, lacks any ideals, or a cause which might serve as a justification for all the horrors. Therefore, the film is often considered “nihilistic and emotionally distant” (Hillstorm and Hillstorm 123), “devoid of what we normally called human response” (Gilman 206), and full of “Hobbesian pessimism” (Klein 35). Full Metal Jacket can thus be characterized in two terms: “dehumanization” in relevance to the people involved in the war and “deglorification” of the war itself. What follows is a more detailed analysis of these two aspects of the film.

3.3. “All as One:” The Process of Dehumanization The first part of the film takes the viewer to the marine training camp. As one Vietnam veteran pointed out, basic training is not “about teaching people skills; it’s about changing them so they can do things they wouldn’t have dreamt of otherwise;” the aim of the eight-week procedure being to “strip away learned behavior governing even the most elementary of every-day practices […] so that the recruits could be reshaped in accordance with the military’s desires” (Hillstorm and Hillstorm 124).19 The ultimate goal is to turn young men into “gook-hating, misogynist, robot-like killers” (Klein 31) and thus give them “the greatest possible chance of survival in Vietnam” (Hillstorm and Hillstorm 124). Hartman makes this perfectly clear at the very beginning by saying that “if you ladies leave my island, if you survive recruit training, you will be a weapon, you will be a minister of death, praying for war” (Full Metal Jacket). This process of reshaping civilians into soldiers is composed of two stages. During the first stage, it is necessary to strip off the recruits of their pre-war identity and replace it with the identity of a soldier. At the very beginning of the film (the haircut scene), the new recruits lose one of the central facial features. At the next 19

On completing basic training, soldiers underwent another two months of Advanced Individual Training (AIT) according to their Military Occupational Specialty (MOS). It was there that soldiers were actually taught skills essential for survival in combat. (Appy 111)

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moment they are standing at attention: all alike—bald, in green uniforms and from that moment, they no longer have any individuality. Hartman further continues to strip them off of what they brought with them by issuing new names, creating such stock characters as “Private Joker,” “Private Snowball,” “Private Cowboy,” and others. Later, they are being stripped off of—and at the same time they themselves relinquish—another part of their individuality, a part that existed before the war: substituting their pre-war relationships with a new commitment, a commitment to a weapons “of iron and wood,” the recruits find that from now on, their only loyalty is that to the Marine Corps. What existed before the war is systematically taken away; “civilian identities were […] folded and stored away or shipped home for use in an inforeseeable future” (Hillstorm and Hillstorm 124). As these are “folded and stored away,” identities of a soldier are issued. The recruits are constantly reminded not to think of themselves as individuals, but as a part of the Marine Corps. Each recruit is turned into just one of many other soldiers, just a small part of the “big machine.” Throughout the first part of the film, every shot is constructed in such a way so as to show either rows of soldiers, all alike, standing at attention, or, similarly, to show all those in a shot employed at exactly the same task—lancing boots, negotiating an obstacle course, marching, shooting, etc—tackling the task perfectly synchronized. These scenes, together with “compositions in depth and long takes […] convey the regimentation and powerlessness of the trainees” (Falsetto 72). Along with this “regimentation” and creation of the identity of a soldier, “harnessing of the killer instinct” also takes place. This involves more than just the effective use of weapons, since, as Hartman instructs his men, “your rifle is only a tool. It is a hard heart that kills” (Full Metal Jacket). This “hard heart” is again achieved by chants (“What makes the grass grow?” “Blood, blood, blood!” “What do we do for a living?” “Kill, kill,

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kill!” [Full Metal Jacket]), songs, exercise, and weapons training. In addition, recruits are constantly insulted, mocked, and flooded with torrents of abuse. The aim is “to inflame the sort of anger that might be channeled into aggressive soldiering” (Appy 96). The film concentrates extensively on this aspect of basic training. Kubrick recalls that “Lee [Ermey] came up with, I don’t know, 150 pages of insults. Off the wall stuff: ‘I don’t like the name Lawrence. Lawrence is for faggots and sailors.’” (Hillstorm and Hillstorm 126). As Ermey himself said, “I wrote almost everything I said in that movie. It’s just the way a drill instructor talks. I had drill instructors in boot camp, and I was also a drill instructor for three years—that’s how I would talk to recruits” (Reed). Although some of the boot camp scenes and Hartman’s constant profanity might occasionally create a comical effect, the final goal is to “instill in recruits a focused hostility aimed at a prescribed enemy” (Appy 96). This is achieved. As Joker comments in one of the voice-overs, “graduation is only a few days away and the recruits of platoon thirty-ninety-two are salty. They are ready to eat their own guts and ask for seconds.” In another voice-over, he adds that “the drill instructors are proud to see that we are growing beyond their control. The Marine Corps does not want robots. The Marine Corps wants killers. The Marine Corps wants to build indestructible men, men without fear,” thus asserting that the process was a success. On graduation day, Hartman says to his men: “Today you are marines. You’re part of a brotherhood. […] From now on, until the day you die, wherever you are, every marine is your brother” (Full Metal Jacket). As an inevitable consequence, however, a substantial loss of individual character occurs. Critics of Gustav Hasford’s The Short-Timers (1979), a book which served as the basis for Full Metal Jacket, point out that his characters were “weakly drawn” (Hillstorm and Hillstorm 125). It might be a literary shortcoming of the book; however, in Full Metal

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Jacket, weakly drawn characters might be intentional so as to epitomize the impact basic training and the army in general has on young people and their individuality; also Kubrick uses this technique to purge the film of any sentimentality. Kubrick’s tactics is that used by King Vidor in The Big Parade (1925), a silent World War I film. Vidor, in order to “avoid any hint of war-film sentimentality” presents the men as “anonymous soldiers, part of the war’s merciless body count, rather than characters who elicit identification and sympathy from the audience” (Auster and Quart 4). Kubrick characters are presented in exactly the same way: they have no background, no past, and there is nothing distinctive about them, thus no emotional attachment of the viewer to a specific character is likely. And this holds true throughout the whole of Full Metal Jacket. During the entire film, almost all the characters except Joker, Pyle, Lockhart (the intelligence officer) and Hartman provide just the backdrop—they are a personification of the soldier, an archetype of the warrior—and for the most part can be regarded just as the film extras, merely as props. Most of them have only a very few lines of speech during the whole film; also, they are all alike: dressed in green uniforms, carrying a weapon, doing what everyone else does; all of them being “trigger-happy” young men looking for action; they clearly prove that the aim to form “men without fear” has been achieved. This is more than obvious when Rafterman is telling Joker that “I want to get out into the shit. I want to get some trigger time.” In the final scene after Rafterman shoots the Vietnamese sniper, he is extremely excited, even joyful, yelling “I saved Joker’s ass. I got the sniper. I fucking blew her away.” He them laughs hysterically, kisses his rifle and adds: “Am I bad? Am I a life-taker? Am I a heart-breaker?” His excitement at getting his first kill clearly shows that he has been successfully indoctrinated and is aware of what is his role. In another scene, Jokers says: “Listen up, pilgrim. A day without blood is like a day without sunshine” (Kubrick, Herr, Hasford). According to

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the screenplay, however, this is said in “a John Wayne voice,” thus being more a satirical remark than Joker’s own opinion and is one of the ways of parodying the combat film/war drama genre (see 3.4.). Some characters, indeed, might actually be considered parody or an exaggeration of “the soldier.” Animal Mother (Adam Baldwin) is closely reminiscent of Sylvester Stallone’s John Rambo in Rambo: First Blood, Part II (1985). Like Rambo, dressed in a military flak jacket with no sleeves showing his muscular arms, and, also like Rambo, carrying an M60 machine gun, this character clearly plays on the visual imagery of Stallone’s character. During his attempt to rescue two of the squad members wounded by the sniper, he runs berserk across an open space, maniacally spraying everything with a hail of bullets, thus further reinforcing the parallel: for that brief moment, Animal Mother is a one man army, again forwarding one aspect of Rambo: First Blood, Part II, an aspect “that was so much emphasized in advertisement for the film” (Waller 117). Playing further on the visual imagery, at one point during the scene, Animal Mother is shown in a very similar position as John Rambo, even the postures of these two characters are almost identical (see Appendix 1). Animal Mother is also the one who proposes that they should “get some payback” for the three members of the squad. As Rambo “reenacts the extraordinarily durable fantasy of revenge” (Waller 117), Kubrick’s film, though only for a moment and in a very different way, uses the cultural icon of the super-soldier. Another super-soldier character occurs, though just briefly, at the beginning of the Vietnam section of the film. As Joker and Rafterman are flown into the combat zone, they meet an M60 machine-gunner. Similar to Animal Mother in his visage (bare arms, muscular), he is the ultimate “killing machine.” Casually leaning onto the mounted helicopter M60 machinegun, he fires indiscriminately at the civilians on the ground,

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obviously enjoying it. This character might be considered “jarhead” par excellence, a person totally devoted to his work, devoid of any feelings, showing not only how far the dehumanization can go, but how far it did go. In the case of the M60 gunner, the process of military indoctrination goes much further than in the case of Animal Mother. Animal Mother is turned into a “killing machine” by the situation the squad is in. In the case of the M60 gunner, no explanation, except for basic training, is given, thus showing what the military inoculation can do. Both Animal Mother and the M60 gunner are essentially parody and exaggeration, but other characters are not very different. Only Joker and Pyle demonstrate that the process of regimentation can fail or be only partially successful, thought the reasons for this failure/partial success are different. Pyle represents a misfit. From the very beginning, he is conspicuous by his physical appearance, being significantly taller than the other recruits and overweight. He epitomizes all that does not constitute a soldier and his inability to withstand the physical and mental strains of basic training is his weakness. A weakness for which he will have to take punishment—both from the hands of the drill instructor and later from the hands of the other recruits. Despite his continuous and repeated effort, Pyle is unable to fit into the group and perform what is required of him. In order to “motivate” him and the other recruits, Hartman proposes a new rule: “So, from now on, whenever Private Pyle fucks up, I will not punish him, I will punish all of you!” (Full Metal Jacket). By showing this aspect of basic training—apart from being true to historical accounts (Appy 97-98)— Kubrick also makes another important point: As the soldiers gather around Pyle’s bed with bars of soup wrapped in towels and beat him while others hold him down with a blanket, it is clear that the process of dehumanization has gone so far that the recruits are willing to enforce the rules and “motivate” Pyle by any means necessary.

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The “blanket party”20 is an important turning point for Pyle. From that moment on, he withdraws and becomes a recluse. The only thing he cares about is his rifle. Pyle starts talking to it, scrupulously takes care of the weapon, and in the end becomes an excellent sharpshooter. He successfully completes basic training and is, as Hartman puts it, “born again hard” (Full Metal Jacket). This rebirth, however, is just an illusion. Pyle’s suicide demonstrates that his “full metal jacket” was hollow; he was not “born again hard” as Hartman had thought. He was just able to adapt to the rules of military life for a short period of time. As he pulls the trigger and shoots Hartman and himself, he is essentially saying two things: As he shoots Hartman, he gets revenge for all he had suffered during basic training. At the same time, he asserts the fact that his “killer instinct” has been successfully harnessed and that, indeed, he is a killer—thus the primary goal of basic training has been achieved. It might be noteworthy that as Pyle shoots Hartman, he does it very calmly—in the same way Barnes shoots the old Vietnamese woman. Thus this action might be considered to have been planned and executed according to that plan. At the same time, however, Pyle clearly demonstrates that basic training has caused permanent damage to his mental integrity. His suicide is ironic. It occurs at the very end, after successful graduation and is mediated to the viewer as being committed on a sudden impulse. As Pyle sits down on the toiled having just shot Hartman dead, he rests the rifle against the floor and draws—what appears to be—a breath of relief. His next action comes as a big surprise, as does the second shot that punctuates the scene. Pyle’s suicide makes it more than clear that he is not able to live down his military experience, to “leave behind the confusing miasma of his own infantilism, the blood and violence” (Gilman 209). Thus Pyle’s “major malfunction”

20

Blanket party: A retaliatory action against an erring recruit. Other soldiers would gather around the victim’s bed, throw a blanket over him to immobilize him and attack, most often with bars of soap wrapped in towels or their fists. After such an action has been carried out, the erring recruit would usually improve his conduct. (Clark 61)

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was not that he was not willing to adapt, but that he was not able to. Consequently, the dehumanization process backfired by creating a ticking time bomb, a soldier not able to regulate and control the skills he has mastered. Pyle’s story is basically a tragic one; the tragedy is brought about by the fact that he is not able to accommodate himself to the requirements of the army. Joker’s story, on the other hand, is a very different one. He represents a capable soldier able to fulfill the requirements of basic training. From the very beginning, he could have fit in perfectly with the group. However, he—by his own free decision or by the nature of his character—does not want to. Unlike Pyle, Joker attracts Hartman’s attention by a witty remark “Is that you, John Wayne? Is this me?” (Full Metal Jacket). What Joker does is that he takes a stand and shows his attitude—after all, he is Private Joker, taking everything less seriously than the other recruits. In spite of this fact, he does not despise the authority of the drill sergeant and he fits in with the rest very easily. Unlike Pyle, who is unable to fulfill the requirements of basic training, Joker has no difficulties meeting the standards. Answering Hartman’s question why did he join the Marines with “to kill, sir!” (Full Metal Jacket), he acknowledges his responsibility and makes it clear that he knows his place. It is also very probable that Joker had volunteered for the Marines.21 Yet despite all these facts, Joker does not succumb easily to the dehumanization process and the military indoctrination. This is shown during the “blanket party.” Unlike all the other soldiers, Joker hesitates before hitting Pyle and then hits him repeatedly; however, as Pyle starts to cry, Joker covers his ears, showing that there is still enough humanity left in him to reflect on his actions. Joker, though able to fight and kill, is much more careful than the other soldiers and does whatever he can to keep himself and others safe. When Rafterman is taking about 21

75% of those who served in the armed forces during the Vietnam War were volunteers. The proportion of volunteers in the Marine Corps was even higher. (“Vietnam War Statistics”)

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“getting some trigger time,” Joker (from the position of being Rafterman’s superior) decides against this by saying “if you get killed, your mom will find me after I rotate back to the World and she’ll beat the shit out of me. That’s a negative, Rafterman” (Full Metal Jacket). But what truly epitomizes Joker’s attitude and position as the middle-ofthe-road character is the peace symbol on his jacket and the “Born to Kill” slogan on his helmet. As he explains to the colonel, he “was trying to suggest something about the duality of man” (Full Metal Jacket). Joker is a very interesting character—what he tries to do is to get through the war as easily as possible, to stay alive, and, in words of Chris Taylor, to maintain his “strength and sanity.” At the same time, he also tries to maintain as much humanity and individuality as he can. His final test comes as the squad is standing over the wounded Vietnamese sniper. This scene is almost identical to the last scene of basic training when Pyle kills Hartman and then shoots himself. Both scenes use the same background music and sound effects (both Pyle’s and Joker’s shots sound the same though are being fired from two different weapons), and employ slow-motion photography. Both depict great moments of proof and difficult decision: as Pyle kills Hartman he takes a definitive stand against the abuse he had to endure during basic training. As Joker kills the wounded sniper, he as well takes a stand, but the ambiguity of his character is not resolved. As Falsetto claims, Joker’s act is “at once brutal and merciful” (73). Joker kills the sniper since he thinks that it would be barbaric to leave her to die in slow agony and he stands by his decision. As the pulls the trigger, however, along with the sniper he also kills the last part of his consciousness that was still humane; hence—like Pyle—he commits suicide, albeit just figuratively. He is being merciful, yet at the same time uses methods which he had been indoctrinated with during the course of basic training.

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This is the last action Joker performs as the individual he has been trying to remain throughout the whole film. In the last scene, as the soldiers march through the burning city, “the interdependency of group and individual […] is brought into stark relief, then finally dissolved […] as Joker melts into the now irrevocably infantilized group” (Gilman 208). Singing in perfect unison, Joker is now indistinguishable from the other soldiers; lost “in a world of shit,” he gives up his individuality for the sake of the “homecoming fuck fantasy” (Full Metal Jacket). He has become what he was trying to resist from the beginning, a soldier—just one of the group, thus the dehumanization process is proved victorious. Joker’s character is, however, more than just a free-thinker who epitomizes the resistance to the army. Kubrick uses Joker as well as other stylistic and narrative structures to deglorify the war; he succeeds by creating “an emotionally distant, ironic and unsentimental work” (Falsetto 71).

3.4. “Better You than Me:” Deglorification of the War Kubrick’s deglorification of the war can be seen on several levels. On the first, Kubrick’s depiction of hardships of war is crude, though not necessarily realistic; on the contrary it is often strongly stylized, and borrows heavily from previous war films. Thus it is no surprise that some critics see the second part of Full Metal Jacket as “clichéd and routine” (Lanning 229) or “derivative” (Auster and Quart 147). However, Kubrick uses these well-known structures (and even well-worn clichés) to rewrite and invert the typical formula of a combat film/war drama. The dehumanization process has already been discussed in the previous sub-chapter. Of similar importance is Kubrick’s depiction of death, the ultimate price to pay in every war. The phenomenon of death and dying in Full Metal Jacket is presented as an

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unsentimental occasion/event, which often comes as a total surprise for the victim. As the soldiers advance into the city of Hue, they encounter brief mortal fire from the enemy. Several shells hit the ground, the platoon leader (Lt. Touchdown [Ed O’Ross]) falls down and is dead before he hits the ground, his left foot still twitching. There are no deafening screams, no tears are being shed, no blood stains the ground. When another soldier is killed moments later, the scenario is repeated: “HAND JOB peers cautiously around the corner of a house and is killed instantly by a burst of automatic fire” says the screenplay (Kubrick, Herr, Hasford). On yet another occasion, a soldier is killed when he picks up a booby-trapped toy. He falls to the ground, the medic performs CPR, concludes that “he’s not gonna make it,” and Cowboy radios the headquarters to report the incident (Full Metal Jacket). Later as the sniper kills the squad members one by one, Kubrick uses slow-motion photography. However, unlike in Platoon, its use is limited to highlight the agony of the wounded men lying helplessly on the ground. At the moment of their death, one fast burst ends their suffering. Similarly, when the sniper shoots Cowboy, a slow-motion shot is used, probably to emphasize the shock. But moments later, Cowboys dies quietly, lying among the rubble. Throughout the film, death is presented merely as a fact of life, mediated very coldly and unsentimentally. Likewise, reactions to it are also totally devoid of any feelings and clichés so often found in other films. As the marines are standing over the dead bodies of Lt. Touchdown and Hand Job, the camera pans across their faces and each of them says something as his last personal goodbye. Their comments are as follows: “You’re going home now.” “Semper Fi.”22 “We’re mean marines, sir.” “Go easy, bros.” “Better you than me” (Kubrick, Herr, Hasford). Reaction to Cowboys death is similarly sober and 22

Semper Fi: An abbreviated form of the Latin “Semper Fidelis,” meaning “always faithful.” This phrase is still used as the motto of the U.S. Marine Corps expressing the allegiance and devotion of the soldiers to the Corps. (Clark 460)

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unsentimental, yet, given the imminent danger posed by the sniper at the moment, even fewer words are spoken and the action moves dynamically forward. The only thing said is: “Let’s go get some payback.” And Joker replies: “Okay” (Full Metal Jacket). One last aspect of death and dying in Full Metal Jacket should be mentioned: it is quiet and calm. The absence of any background music in conspicuous when compared with most other war films, for example with Stone’s mediation of Elias’s death in Platoon. The stillness is emphasized even further by lack of any conversation, crying, screams, or prayers. This renders death a solemn and sad, or even tragic occasion, but not a sentimental one. It is, however, not only death that is deglorified and stripped off of any pathos so commonly found in war films. The war itself is presented as nothing worthy of the immense human sacrifice it involves. It is not an important part of life, nor is it a groundbreaking event for men in terms of their maturation; there is no political, moral, or individual justification behind it. “Kubrick’s war” is neither explained, nor judged. It simply is, being “reduced to [its] most basic elements” (Falsetto 73). As Cowboy points out during an interview, war is, in fact, a very simple matter: “There’s the enemy, kill ‘em” (Full Metal Jacket). There is no cause, no goal, no objective, no redeeming philosophy, not even any attitude which could justify the killing, beyond the basic need for survival. The soldiers themselves see it this way as well. As the squad is standing above the corpses of Hand Job and Lt. Touchdown, Rafterman expresses the opinion that “at least they died for a cause.” He is immediately corrected by Animal Mother: “Flush out your head gear, new guy. You think we waste gooks for freedom? This is a slaughter. If I’m gonna get my balls blown off for a word, my word is ‘poontang’ [female genitalia, sexual intercourse]” (Full Metal Jacket).

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But Kubrick goes even further than just to deglorify the war. At certain points, he parodies the typical combat film/war drama formula, primarily—as his name suggests— through remarks and comments made by Joker. There are moments in the film which lead the viewer to expect the traditional answers to the well-known, traditional war-film questions. These answers, however, are radically different from those typically provided in other war films. The M60 gunner shooting the Vietnamese civilians echoes the well-known “war is hell” phrase. However, instead of making it a statement, he turns it into an ironic rhetorical question, saying “Ain’t war hell?” The irony of this statement/question lies in the fact that it comes from a person who, it can be presumed, spends most of his time onboard a helicopter, far-away from any actual combat; the fact that it is the machine gunner who makes war the “hell” he speaks of also adds to the irony. In addition, he “asks” the question after boasting of his war achievements (number of men, women, children, and water buffalos killed), saying “I’m so fucking good” (Full Metal Jacket). The war itself is deglorified and reduced to “a slaughter.”. But the motivations of the soldiers are also reduced from idealistic convictions to something much more superficial. When Joker’s motivations for enlisting are about to be revealed, when he is about to provide the answer to the well-known question, he simply says “to kill.” Later on, during an interview, he goes on to say: “I wanted to see exotic Vietnam, the jewel of Southeast Asia. I wanted to meet interesting and stimulating people of an ancient culture.” As Joker finishes the sentence with “and kill them,” it is more than clear that he is making fun of the whole affair, parodying the notion of the high ideals which make young men join the army. He crowns his speech with “I wanted to be the first kid on my block to get a confirmed kill” (Full Metal Jacket). Since Joker has no expectations and no ideals, he is neither disillusioned nor rewarded with any kind of “insight” or “deeper understanding”

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as Chris Taylor is. Joker’s attitude does not change at the end of the film. At the point where Taylor is saying that those who survived have an obligation to create a better future, Joker’s final voice-over is concerned with a different aspect of life after the war: with “erect nipple wet dreams about Mary Jane Rottencrotch and the homecoming fuck fantasy” (Full Metal Jacket). He does not think about his future life, thus it is possible to infer that the war has not taught him anything new about it. As Moore points out, what does matter to the fictional troops marching home through burning wastes is not the Marinecorps hymn that ends The Sands of Iwo Jima, not the ballad that ends The Green Berets, but the […] Mickey Mouse question. […] Belonging to the club that is a killing machine makes Joker glad to be alive and not afraid, but it does not make him admirable. (43-44) The ending of the film is just another satirical inversion of the typical combat film/war drama formula. Where the film is expected to provide a gung-ho endorsement and promotion of the war effort (The Green Berets), a confession of the main character about how the war has turned him into a man (Platoon), or a solemn and tragic grieving of the living over the dead (Hamburger Hill), Kubrick provides an ending that does not fit. It is neither optimistic nor solemn enough to end a combat film/war drama. The lyrics of The Rolling Stones’ “Paint it Black” (see Appendix 2) are a clear indication that the soldiers’ life after the war will be neither easy nor glorious: the destruction caused by both basic training and the war will be permanent and the troops marching into the darkness will have to bear the burden for the rest of their lives; yet there is nothing to gain from all that.

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3.5. Summary Kubrick’s film is nothing more and nothing less than a satirical inversion and parody of the combat film/war drama genre. Emphasizing the negative aspects of the war and the hardships the soldiers have to suffer both during basic training and during the war itself, but providing no explanation why this should be done or why this is worth it, Kubrick delivers a very strong anti-war message. However, it is not overtly presented and is hidden behind a seemingly unremarkable, and cold spin-off of the combat film/war drama.

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4. “AND THE BATTLES WILL RAGE ON:” CONCLUSION Both Stone’s Platoon and Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket might be placed within the combat film/war drama genre. As such, they follow certain narrative techniques and stylistic patterns: both concentrate on individual soldiers and their experience of the war. As far as their narrative structure is concerned, they both follow a group of soldiers during the course of their service and depict their lives during the war. Both films, as is the general trend within the body of Vietnam War films, are “small narratives,” i.e. they do not provide “the big picture” or any overt explanation as to the reasons for the U.S. involvement in the war. They “place themselves squarely at the ground level, focusing on the situation of men in combat […], avoid historical specificity, [and] repress politically sensitive issues” (Dittmar and Michaud 6). However, despite these general similarities, in their specificities the two films provide a very different picture of the war and communicate strongly contrasting messages. Platoon is a solemn means of remembrance, not necessarily glorifying the war, although such interpretations are also possible. The film tries to acknowledge the soldiers who did the fighting, both by the dedication screen at the end of the film and by Lee Iacocca’s speech preceding the film witch is part of the video tape version of Platoon (see Appendix 3). As Stone himself pointed out during his Oscar acceptance speech, “through this award, you really are acknowledging the Vietnam veteran and […] [the fact] that for the first time you really understand what happened there” (Auster and Quart 139). The strength of Platoon lies in its realistic recreation of the war on screen and the fact that it addresses the controversial issues of the war, such as civilianrelated incidents and the decline in morale. On the contrary, its underlying message presenting the war as an important life experience and an event which can reveal the “dark side of human nature” might seem clichéd and too sentimental.

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Full Metal Jacket, on the other hand, is an unsentimental, cynical parody of the combat film/war drama genre. Focusing primarily on the dehumanization process of basic training during which civilians are transformed into soldiers, the film explores the loss of individual identity and character and the price young men have to pay for becoming soldiers. The film, however, does not provide anything that might justify this sacrifice: in Kubrick’s view, the war comes down to pointless killing without any moral, political, or individual rationale. Thus, Full Metal Jacket is primarily a strong anti-war critique and only them a realistic depiction of boot camp. However, the main difference between the two films is the way they present the war—either the conflict is SE Asia or war as a generalized abstraction. Platoon makes the claim that war is the catalyst responsible for changing people into killers fighting for their own survival. Hence, the film’s basic line of argument is that “war happens;” the people involved are merely its victims, forced by circumstances to alter their behavioral patterns so as to survive; those involved simply have no choice and must kill in order to survive since they are brought into such “swift and close collision in critical moments” (Emerson). On the contrary, Kubrick’s film reverses this argument; the basic premise of Full Metal Jacket is that “war is done;” people are intentionally and deliberately turned into killers, their behavior is conditioned so as to best fit the circumstances they might encounter in combat; the “dark side of human nature” dormant in every individual is woken up to serve a specific purpose. These different viewpoints are yet just another proof of how controversial the Vietnam War still continues to be. On the one hand reflecting the effort of American culture to come to terms with its past, to understand and acknowledge—or, at least, to try to articulate—what happened in Vietnam; on the other, responding very critically to

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the longest, strangest, most incomprehensible, and controversial war the U.S. has ever fought, condemning “its brutality, its futility, its stupidity” (Eisenhower). Neither of these two films—as indeed none of those made about the war—is, nor ever will be, a definitive answer. They will merely, in a different form, continue the battles and struggles of a war that ended more than three decades ago. This time, there will be no bodies to send home in aluminum coffins; only supporters and critics will be exchanging their opinions and moviegoers will think they are “re-living” the war—with popcorn in one hand soda in the other.

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5. WORKS USED AND CITED 84 Charlie MoPic. Dir. Patrick Sheane Duncan. Perf. Jonathan Emerson, Nicholas Cascone, Jason Tomlins, and Christopher Burgard. New Century Vista Film Company, 1989. Anderegg, Michael. Introduction. Inventing Vietnam: The War in Film and Television. Ed. Michael Anderegg. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1991. 1-14. Questia. 17 Apr. 2008 . “America’s Wars.” Infoplease.com. 2007. Pearson Education, Inc. 31 Jan 2008 . Apocalypse Now. Dir. Francis Ford Coppola. Perf. Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, and Frederic Forrest. United Artists, 1979. Appy, Christian G. Working-Class War: American Combat Soldier and Vietnam. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1993. Questia. 17 Apr. 2008 . Auster, Albert, and Leonard Quart. How the War Was Remembered: Hollywood and Vietnam. New York: Praeger, 1988. Bates, Milton J. The Wars We Took to Vietnam: Cultural Conflict and Storytelling. Berkley: U of California P, 1996. BoxOfficeMojo. 3 Feb 2008. Box Office Mojo, LLC. 3 Feb 2008 . “Countdown to Tet.” Battlefield: Vietnam. Narr. Gavin MacFadyen. Dir. Ken Maliphant, David McWhinnie, and Dave Flitton. PBS. 1999. Clark, Gregory R. Words of the Vietnam War. Jefferson: McFarland, 1990. Questia. 17 Apr. 2008 . Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam. Dir. Bill Couturié. Corsair Pictures, 1987.

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Dittmar, Linda, and Gene Michaud. “America’s Vietnam War Films: Marching towards Denial.” Introduction. From Hanoi to Hollywood: The Vietnam War in American Film. Ed. Linda Dittmar and Gene Michaud. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1990. 1-14. Dornfeld, Barry. “Dear America: Transparency, Authority, and Interpretation in a Vietnam War Documentary.” From Hanoi to Hollywood: The Vietnam War in American Film. Ed. Linda Dittmar and Gene Michaud. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1990. 283-297. “The Fall of Saigon.” Battlefield: Vietnam. Narr. Gavin MacFadyen. Dir. Ken Maliphant, David McWhinnie, and Dave Flitton. PBS. 1999. Eisenhower. Quote. Great-Quotes.com. 7 Apr. 2008 . Emerson. Quote. Think-exist.com. 7 Apr. 2008 . Falsetto, Mario. Stanley Kubrick: A Narrative and Stylistic Analysis. 2nd ed. Westport: Praeger, 2001. 71-75. Questia. 17 Apr. 2008 . Frey-Wouters, Ellen, and Robert S. Laufer. Legacy of a War: The American Soldier in Vietnam. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1986. Questia. 17 Apr. 2008 . Full Metal Jacket. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, Vincent D’Onofrio, and R. Lee Ermey. Warner Bros. Pictures, 1987. Gilman, Owen W. “Male Bonding, Hollywood Orientalism, and the Repression of the Feminine in Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket.” Inventing Vietnam: The War in Film and Television. Ed. Michael Anderegg. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1991. 204-223.

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Grosser, David. “‘We Aren’t on the Wrong Side, We Are the Wrong Side:’ Peter Davis Targets (American) Hearts and Minds.” From Hanoi to Hollywood: The Vietnam War in American Film. Ed. Linda Dittmar and Gene Michaud. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1990. 269-282. Haines, Harry W. “‘They Were Called and They Went:’ The Political rehabilitation of the Vietnam Veteran.” From Hanoi to Hollywood: The Vietnam War in American Film. Ed. Linda Dittmar and Gene Michaud. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1990. 81-97. Haflidason, Almar. “Realistic Combat in Films.” Interview with Dale Dye. BBC. 5 Oct. 2001. BBC.co.uk. 4 Apr. 2008 . Hillstrom, Kevin, and Laurie Collier Hillstrom. The Vietnam Experience: A Concise Encyclopedia of American Literature, Songs, and Films. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1998. Questia. 17 Apr. 2008 . “The Impact of Barber’s ‘Adagio for Strings.’” The Sounds of American Culture. NPR. 4 Nov 2008. npr.org. 18 Mar. 2008 . Italie, Hillel. “Huge Decline In Book Reading.” CBS News 8 July 2004. 1 Feb. 2008 . Jeffords, Susan. “Reproducing Fathers: Gender and the Vietnam War in U.S. Culture.” From Hanoi to Hollywood: The Vietnam War in American Film. Ed. Linda Dittmar and Gene Michaud. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1990. 203-216. Keegan, Rebecca Winters. “10 Questions for Francis Ford Coppola.” Interview. Time 14 Aug. 2006. 12 Mar. 2008 .

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Klein, Michael. “Historical Memory, Film, and the Vietnam War.” From Hanoi to Hollywood: The Vietnam War in American Film. Ed. Linda Dittmar and Gene Michaud. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1990. 19-40. Kubrick, Stanley, Michael Herr, and Gustav Hasford. “Full Metal Jacket.” Screenplay. 2 Nov 1999. INFlow’s Sceenplay Repository. 28 Mar. 2008 . Lanning, Michael Lee. Vietnam at the Movies. New York: Ballantine Books, 1994. Miller, Daniel. “Gardens of Stone, Platoon, and Hamburger Hill: Ritual and Remembrance.” Inventing Vietnam: The War in Film and Television. Ed. Michael Anderegg. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1991. 153-164. Questia. 17 Apr. 2008 . Moore, Janet C. “For Fighting and for Fun: Kubrick’s Complicitous Critique in Full Metal Jacket.” Velvet Light Trap 31 (1993): 39-47. Questia. 28 Mar. 2008 . Platoon. Dir. Oliver Stone. Perf. Charlie Sheen, Willem Dafoe, Tom Berenger, and Forest Whitaker. Orion Pictures, 1986. Reed, Jebediah. “Trigger Happy.” Interview with R. Lee Ermey. RADAR 2 Oct. www.radaronline.com. 2006. 20 Mar. 2008 . The Rolling Stones. “Paint It Black.” Song Lyrics. OldieLyrics.com. 9 Apr. 2008 . Schulzinger, Robert D. A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941-1975. New York: Oxford UP, 1997. Questia. 17 Apr. 2008 .

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“Soldiering On.” Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War. Narr. Richard Basehart. Dir. Ian McLeod. CBC. 1999. “Tet!” Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War. Narr. Richard Basehart. Dir. Ian McLeod. CBC. 1999. Tomasulo, Frank P. “The Politics of Ambivalence: Apocalypse Now as Prowar and Antiwar film.” From Hanoi to Hollywood: The Vietnam War in American Film. Ed. Linda Dittmar and Gene Michaud. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1990. 144-158. “The Unsung Soldiers.” Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War. Narr. Richard Basehart. Dir. Ian McLeod. CBC. 1999. The Vietnam War. 1999. The History Place. 31 Jan 2008 . “Vietnam War Statistics.” MRFA.org. 2 Feb. 2008. Mobile Riverine Force Association. 7 Feb 2008 . “The Village War.” Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War. Narr. Richard Basehart. Dir. Ian McLeod. CBC. 1999. Waller, Gregory A. “Rambo: Getting to Win This Time.” From Hanoi to Hollywood: The Vietnam War in American Film. Ed. Linda Dittmar and Gene Michaud. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1990. 113-127. White, Hayden. “The Modernist Event.” The Persistence of History: Cinema, Television, and the Modernist Event. Ed. Vivian Sobchack. New York: Routledge, 1996. 17-37.

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6. APPENDICES 6.1. Appendix 1: John Rambo v. Animal Mother

Fig. 2. Animal Mother (Full Metal Jacket)

Fig. 1. John Rambo (Waller 117)

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6. 2. Appendix 2: The Rolling Stones: Paint It Black I see a red door and I want it painted black No colors anymore I want them to turn black I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes I have to turn my head until my darkness goes

I see a line of cars and they're all painted black With flowers and my love both never to come back I see people turn their heads and quickly look away Like a new born baby it just happens ev’ry day

I look inside myself and see my heart is black I see my red door and it has been painted black Maybe then I’ll fade away and not have to face the facts It's not easy facin’ up when your whole world is black

No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue I could not foresee this thing happening to you If I look hard enough into the settin’ sun My love will laugh with me before the mornin’ comes

I see a red door and I want it painted black No colors anymore I want them to turn black I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes I have to turn my head until my darkness goes Hmm, hmm, hmm,...

I wanna see it painted, painted black Black as night, black as coal I wanna see the sun blotted out from the sky I wanna see it painted, painted, painted, painted black Yeah!

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6. 3. Appendix 3: Lee Iacocca’s Speech This jeep is a museum piece, relic of war. Normandy, Anzio, Guadalcanal, Korea, Vietnam. I hope we will never have to build another jeep for war. This film Platoon is a memorial not to war but to all the men and women who fought in a time and in a place nobody really understood. Who knew only one thing. They were called and they went. It was the same from the first musket fired at Concord to the rice paddies of the Mekong Delta. They were called and they went. That in the truest sense is the spirit of America. The more we understand it, the more we honor those who kept it alive. (Haines 81)

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