The Horrors of War in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket

Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket uses a variety of techniques to illustrate the destructive effects of modern warfare on the psyche of both soldiers and civilians exposed to the brutality of major combat, with a handful of particularly stunning scenes leaving an absolutely unforgettable impression of soldiers during the Vietnam war. The boot camp sequence that begins the film, culminating in the “Gomer Pyle’s” murder of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman and subsequent suicide, powerfully demonstrates the psychological toll that military life takes on soldiers and the potentially devastating consequences of such barbaric values and conditions. Sergeant Hartman’s speech where he declares to the troops—“You are the lowest form of life on Earth. You are not even human fucking beings.You are nothing but unorganized grab-asstic pieces of amphibian shit!” —demonstrates quite literally the dehumanization inherent to the process of militarization, while Pyle’s ensuing violent mental breakdown pointedly illustrates the potentially horrific outcomes that can arise as a result. These sequences, with their vivid depiction of the brutal aspects of military training and the ratcheting tension, culminating in the unforgettable sequence of murder-suicide, are quite simply masterful filmmaking from a legend in the field, and vividly illustrate the film’s larger message of the damage done by militaristic thinking, even prior to the portrayal of actual physical combat.

Furthermore, the scenes depicting the aftermath of combat exhibit the horrific effects of violence on the human ability for empathy and compassion. The scene where the soldiers take pictures with the corpse of a Viet Cong soldier, while gleefully declaring that they “love the little commie bastards” powerfully demonstrates war’s ability to desensitize combatants and numb their basic human instincts towards their fellow man. The glee that the soldiers take in death and destruction is an unmistakable symptom of the psychological degradation of warfare, although in a certain sense it also appears to be bravado that the soldiers utilize to minimize their heinous actions.

There are additional scenes in the film where the dialogue Kubrick records between soldiers illuminates the film’s message. One of these moments that brilliantly portrays the toll war takes on the moral compass of combatants is the scene in the helicopter where “Joker” asks the gunner how he can shoot women and children, and the gunner cheerfully responds “Easy, you just don’t lead ‘em as much.” This chilling exchange displays the inherent inhumanity of war and the difficulty in reconciling the mindset necessary for combat with what is necessary to function and thrive in a civilized society. Furthermore, in many ways, the film demonstrates the toll war takes on society beyond the field of battle.

Certain sequences in the film profoundly convey the negative consequences of combat on civilians. One of the most striking scenes in the film in this vein occurs when the soldiers encounter a Vietnamese prostitute, who spouts phrases like “Me so horny. Me love you long time, and “Me sucky-sucky. Me love you too much.” The graphic nature of these phrases juxtaposed with the childlike quality of the language forcefully demonstrates the loss of innocence that affects even civilians caught in the midst of the brutality of warfare. While war cannot be solely blamed for the existence of prostitution, the film makes it clear that the presence of soldiers and devastation of war has created an environment where this sort of degrading work is likely one of the only avenues available to such a character. The well-constructed and heartbreaking dialogue in this sequence unmistakably and brilliantly demonstrates the profoundly negative effects of warfare on the civilian population. These powerful scenes and sequences create an unforgettable impression on the viewer and are some of the most effective and well-crafted illustrations of the horrors of war in the history of cinema.

Bibliography

Full Metal Jacket. Film. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Burbank, CA: Warner Bros. Entertainment, 1987.