FULL METAL JACKET "The hidden hand"

“THE HIDDEN HAND”

An in-depth analysis of
Stanley Kubrick’s

FULL METAL JACKET

19) If this were real I'd be scared

Before offering some final thoughts on FMJ, I would like to delve into a concept that is also present in several other Kubrick films - most notably Eyes Wide Shut and 2001: A Space Odyssey. That topic is the crossover between film reality and actual reality. We've already touched on it in this review - the burning monolith as a gateway to hell and the play acted war experience - but there is more.

The transition between war fantasy and war reality is made when Animal Mother walks into the cinema entrance with the prostitute. A brief fade to black then separates these two portions of the film from each other, but there is another very powerful visual clue here and it's easy to miss. When the Lusthogs are outside the cinema they are sat on rows of red cinema seats that have been dragged out and scattered onto the streets.

Symbolically the Lusthogs are actually inside the cinema and are sat at the back row of seats with the exit behind them. The Hue cityscape that we see is simply the fantasy war movie which they have been both watching and acting in. This gives new meaning to the line: "Start the cameras. This is Vietnam the movie". Joker also comments on this in the script before the first Lusthog battle. He says: "If this were real I'd be scared".

So what appears to be an entrance to the cinema is more likely a symbolic exit from the Lusthogs fantasy world. This would also mean that the prostitute was actually picked up inside the cinema and taken outside - we've already noted the gang rape theme in chapter 11.

Here are some other hints in FMJ of the duality between reality and film reality.

Whenever the Lusthogs radio in to their commanders they are speaking to Kubrick himself, who played the role of Murphy, and whose transmitted voice we faintly hear. They refer to this commanding radio source as "Delta Six Actual". As the film's director it is Kubrick who refuses to send tanks during the sniper battle.

The Lusthog interview sequence has some irregularities. Sometimes the men are talking directly to us via Kubrick's camera, sometimes the onscreen film crew's equipment can be seen edging into the frame and sometimes the Lusthogs are still looking directly at us, even though the onscreen crew's camera is pointing in at them from the within the frame.

This may also have been a choice in the opening sequence of haircut shots. The very last recruit shown is looking directly at us.

Character responses to music are also interesting. The first prostitute is dancing away to These Boots are Made for Walking, which is actually part of the film's soundtrack as opposed to being played on the street.

After Crazy Earl shoots two NVA the song Bird is the Word kicks in. He quickly looks behind him, possibly in response to the music itself.

When asked by Animal if he's seen much combat, Joker replies: "Well I've seen a little on T.V."

The graduation ceremony before Pyle's death is intercut with actual footage of real Marine Graduation parades.

A clue in the script is that when looking for the Lusthogs, Joker and Rafterman are told to go to the gasworks. The city battles were actually filmed in an old derelict gasworks in England.

When the camera crew are filming the Lusthogs we sometimes cut to shots where they are filming us and we are filming them back.

Many of my email correspondants who have contributed to this review have suggested that the theft of Rafterman's camera somehow implies a shift in the film narrative. However, I'm so far unable to specify what this shift is.

In the scene of Joker and Rafterman's helicopter ride the sequence begins with a view of passing jungle, seen from the helicopter itself. The shadow of the helicopter can be seen bouncing across the tree tops center screen, but it is the shadow of a small round helicopter with it's tail high at the back. This totally mismatches the actual army helicopters that are shown throughout the story. To emphasize the difference of shadows Kubrick shows us what the shadow should really look like during the same helicopter flight scene. As the crazy gunner says: "Aint war hell", the correct helicopter shadow appears on the landscape behind him. These details are too specific and blatant to convincingly pass as continuity errors. They are most likely related to the film's subliminal subjects. Possibly related to this, a famous "continuity error" in The Shining was that a helicopter shadow could be seen right screen in the opening rocky mountain shots.