The first part of the film Full Metal Jacket is set on Parris Island, South Carolina at a recruit training camp. At this camp, groups of young soldiers, most of them draftees, are trained and prepared for military life and combat for 8 weeks. The young men's heads are shaven, and they are all given the same articles of clothing, which shows how they are viewed as cloned killing machines. The group the film focuses on is under the instruction of Sergeant Hartman, who is an unrelenting in his treatment of them. He does this to prepare them for the harsh and brutal life awaiting them in Vietnam.
One soldier, nicknamed Joker by Hartman, becomes the squad leader. He is instructed by Hartman to help one soldier, named Pyle, who is mentally and physically slow. After being beaten by the squad members one night, Pyle seems to snap. He begins to do everything right, but he is not the same innocent young man that he used to be. One night, he loads his gun and shoots both Hartman and himself. This symbolizes the loss of innocence of young soldiers who are sent to fight in the war, as well as the negative mental effects the war had on the mind. For example, soldiers would often lose their sense of identity and grow depressed or suicidal.
The second part of the film takes place in Vietnam, where Joker becomes a journalist for the U.S. newspaper there. He enjoys the privilege of being away from the fighting for a while, but it doesn't take long before he is sucked into it. When Joker is instructed to do some investigation for a story, he is required to fight with the soldiers in the area. He meets up with his old friend Cowboy from Parris Island, and he joins Cowboy's squad to fight the enemy. This involvement shows how everybody, no matter who they were, were somehow involved or affected by the war. There was no escape, and certainly no guarantee of living.
The third part of the film is when Joker is transformed from an innocent, care-free young man to a hard, killing soldier. It happens when he witnesses the death of his friends, including Cowboy, by an enemy sniper. The sniper, who turns out to be a young Vietnamese girl, turns her gun on him and a fellow soldier, Rafterman, shoots her to protect Joker. The soldiers watch the girl as she writhes in misery, pleading for them to shoot her. This task is given to Joker, who slowly and painfully takes out his gun and shoots her. The scene ends with Joker staring with the "thousand-yard stare" as the other soldiers offer words of encouragement. This marks Joker's transformation because instead of joking about death and killing like before, he now realizes the true depth of it and of the war.
The end of the film depicts the soldiers marching back to camp after the fight, singing the Mickey Mouse theme song. Singing a familiar song together from home and from their childhood allows them to form a sort of bond, as well as to recall the innocence of their "past lives." The song also points out how young the soldiers really are, since most of them are essentially still boys.
The film as a whole depicts the Vietnam War from the point of view of the American soldiers. It shows how they were thrust into a war they did not understand, and how it negatively affected them. The soldiers in the film admit that they do not feel like they are doing much good for the Vietnamese people, and that the natives there do not appreciate them. This shows how ineffective the war really was.
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The first part of the film Full Metal Jacket is set on Parris Island, South Carolina at a recruit training camp. At this camp, groups of young soldiers, most of them draftees, are trained and prepared for military life and combat for 8 weeks. The young men's heads are shaven, and they are all given the same articles of clothing, which shows how they are viewed as cloned killing machines. The group the film focuses on is under the instruction of Sergeant Hartman, who is unrelenting in his treatment of them. He does this to prepare them for the harsh and brutal life awaiting them in Vietnam.
ReplyDeleteOne soldier, nicknamed Joker by Hartman, becomes the squad leader. He is instructed by Hartman to help another soldier, named Pyle, who is both mentally and physically slow. After being beaten by the squad members one night, Pyle seems to snap. He begins to do everything right, but he is not the same innocent young man that he used to be. One night, he loads his gun and shoots both Hartman and himself. This symbolizes the loss of innocence of young soldiers who are sent to fight in the war, as well as the negative mental effects the war had on the mind. For example, soldiers would often lose their sense of identity and grow depressed or suicidal.
The second part of the film takes place in Vietnam, where Joker becomes a journalist for the U.S. newspaper there. The newspaper prints lies about the progress of the American soldiers in order to boost moral. Joker enjoys the privilege of being away from the fighting for a while, but it doesn't take long before he is sucked into it. When Joker is instructed to do some investigation for a story, he is required to fight with the soldiers in the area. He meets up with his old friend Cowboy from Parris Island, and he joins Cowboy's squad to fight the enemy. This involvement shows how everybody, no matter who they were, was somehow involved or affected by the war. There was no escape, and certainly no guarantee of living.
The third part of the film is when Joker is transformed from an innocent, care-free young man into a hard, killing soldier. It happens when he witnesses the death of his friends, including Cowboy, by an enemy sniper. The sniper, who turns out to be a young Vietnamese girl, turns her gun on him and a fellow soldier, Rafterman, shoots her to protect Joker. The soldiers watch the girl as she writhes in misery, pleading for them to shoot her. This task is given to Joker, who slowly and painfully takes out his gun and shoots her. The scene ends with Joker staring with the "thousand-yard stare" as the other soldiers offer words of encouragement. This marks Joker's transformation because instead of joking about death and killing like before, he now realizes the true depth of it and of the war.
The end of the film depicts the soldiers marching back to camp after the fight, singing the Mickey Mouse theme song. Singing a familiar song together from home and from their childhood allows them to form a sort of bond, as well as to recall the innocence of their "past lives." The song also points out how young the soldiers really are, since most of them are essentially still boys.
The film as a whole depicts the Vietnam War from the point of view of the American soldiers. It shows how they were thrust into a war they did not understand, and how it negatively affected them. The soldiers in the film admit that they do not feel like they are doing much good for the Vietnamese people, and that the natives there do not appreciate them. This shows how ineffective the war really was.