A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.
After discovering a mysterious artifact buried beneath the Lunar surface, mankind sets off on a quest to find its origins with help from intelligent supercomputer H.A.L. 9000.
Director:
Stanley Kubrick
Stars:
Keir Dullea,
Gary Lockwood,
William Sylvester
A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.
Director:
Stanley Kubrick
Stars:
Jack Nicholson,
Shelley Duvall,
Danny Lloyd
A mentally unstable veteran works as a nighttime taxi driver in New York City, where the perceived decadence and sleaze fuels his urge for violent action by attempting to liberate a presidential campaign worker and an underage prostitute.
Director:
Martin Scorsese
Stars:
Robert De Niro,
Jodie Foster,
Cybill Shepherd
In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a plan to assassinate Nazi leaders by a group of Jewish U.S. soldiers coincides with a theatre owner's vengeful plans for the same.
A two-segment look at the effect of the military mindset and war itself on Vietnam era Marines. The first half follows a group of recruits in boot camp under the command of the punishing Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. The second half shows one of those recruits, Joker, covering the war as a correspondent for Stars and Stripes, focusing on the Tet offensive.Written by
Scott Renshaw <as.idc@forsythe.stanford.edu>
William Hope and Ricco Ross were both offered roles, but turned them down in favor of doing Aliens (1986). Ross initially tried to do both movies since both Full Metal Jacket and Aliens were shot around the same time in London (with members of each movie team often gathering together for parties), and his shooting schedules only overlapped by one week. However, he bowed out of Full Metal Jacket because Stanley Kubrick could not guarantee that he would be finished at the scheduled time. When Aliens finally premiered, Kubrick was still shooting. See more »
Goofs
During the Tet Offensive scene, several Marines are seen to be carrying their M-16 rifles by the carry-handle. This is poor technique as it does not allow good control and combat-readiness, and Marines would have had this drilled out of them. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman:
I am Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, your senior drill instructor. From now on you will speak only when spoken to, and the first and last words out of your filthy sewers will be "Sir". Do you maggots understand that?
Recruits:
[In unison in a normal speaking tone]
Sir, yes Sir.
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman:
Bullshit, I can't hear you. Sound off like you got a pair!
Recruits:
[In unison, much louder]
SIR, YES SIR!
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman:
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 ...
See more »
Crazy Credits
End credits list a song performed by Sam the Sham and The Pharaohs, misspelling the last word as "Pharoahs." This has not been corrected on any home video version of the movie. See more »
This superb film was a big improvement on Kubrick's previous film, The Shining. It is a far more confronting spectacle than the poetic, stylised violence of A Clockwork Orange, despite the latter's notoriety. The brutality of FMJ is unceasing.
While the war scenes may seem pointless and directionless, this film more than any other war film I have seen captures the small-scale and scrappy nature of urban warfare. There is no grand narrative from the point of view of the individual unit or the individual soldier - just lots of snipers and corpses and skirmishes over ruined buildings. These individual skirmishes have no obvious strategic value and no obvious relationship to one another or to the world war against communist imperialism. They may be fighting for freedom, but the soldiers are motivated by other things - camaraderie, macho posturing and the urge to kill instilled in them at boot camp.
I cannot understand those who criticise this Kubrick film above others for consisting of multiple episodes with very different feel and setting. It appears such people have never seen Kubrick's other films, such as 2001: A Space Odyssey or A Clockwork Orange or Barry Lyndon or Paths of Glory or Lolita. Indeed, 2001: A Space Odyssey is even more disjointed than FMJ, not even having common characters between the segments. The films are no less brilliant for it. This is a consequence of the way that Kubrick worked, as revealed in "Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures" and Fred Raphael's admittedly unreliable "Eyes Wide Open". In Kubrick's view a movie was ready to be made when he had 7 or 8 episodes to string together. Often you can see the joins. Kubrick's legendary perfectionism arose from the fact that he didn't know what he wanted, only what he didn't want. Hence the voluminous research, the continuous script rewrites, the endless prop redesigns, the dozens of takes (all for petty and arbitrary reasons if he gave reasons at all) until by chance someone came up with a great idea. Only then would he move on. All this is why the greatness of Kubrick's films lies in the sum of the brilliant parts rather than the whole.
FMJ fits right in to Kubrick's oeuvre. There is the ongoing theme of dehumanisation, the cynical world view, the hilarious black humour, the cold, distant and unsympathetic characters, the key use of pre-existing music, and the central role of war and conflict. Yet again, and very much like Werner Herzog he makes the surreal seem utterly believable, and reality seem surreal.
For those who say there are better anti-war films, Kubrick said himself he was making a war film, not an anti-war film. He was trying to show the full picture, and leaving it to the audience to judge. The dehumanisation and brutality of boot camp, the moral ambiguity of the war and the vanity, crassness & questionable mental stability of some of the American soldiers is shown unsparingly, but so is the uncompromising barbarity of the communist enemy. You understand why the soldiers need the dehumanising training they are given. Animal Mother may indeed be an Animal Mother, but when it comes to the crunch he is clear-headed, effective and fiercely loyal to his comrades, and even musters a grudging sympathy for the dying sniper in acceding to Joker's humane despatching of her.
All in all, an unforgettable film, totally different in feel to any other war movie I have seen. There is no glorification, no demonisation, and no redemption, but also no simplistic pacifist platitudes and despite everything, great beauty in the hellish ruins.
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This superb film was a big improvement on Kubrick's previous film, The Shining. It is a far more confronting spectacle than the poetic, stylised violence of A Clockwork Orange, despite the latter's notoriety. The brutality of FMJ is unceasing.
While the war scenes may seem pointless and directionless, this film more than any other war film I have seen captures the small-scale and scrappy nature of urban warfare. There is no grand narrative from the point of view of the individual unit or the individual soldier - just lots of snipers and corpses and skirmishes over ruined buildings. These individual skirmishes have no obvious strategic value and no obvious relationship to one another or to the world war against communist imperialism. They may be fighting for freedom, but the soldiers are motivated by other things - camaraderie, macho posturing and the urge to kill instilled in them at boot camp.
I cannot understand those who criticise this Kubrick film above others for consisting of multiple episodes with very different feel and setting. It appears such people have never seen Kubrick's other films, such as 2001: A Space Odyssey or A Clockwork Orange or Barry Lyndon or Paths of Glory or Lolita. Indeed, 2001: A Space Odyssey is even more disjointed than FMJ, not even having common characters between the segments. The films are no less brilliant for it. This is a consequence of the way that Kubrick worked, as revealed in "Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures" and Fred Raphael's admittedly unreliable "Eyes Wide Open". In Kubrick's view a movie was ready to be made when he had 7 or 8 episodes to string together. Often you can see the joins. Kubrick's legendary perfectionism arose from the fact that he didn't know what he wanted, only what he didn't want. Hence the voluminous research, the continuous script rewrites, the endless prop redesigns, the dozens of takes (all for petty and arbitrary reasons if he gave reasons at all) until by chance someone came up with a great idea. Only then would he move on. All this is why the greatness of Kubrick's films lies in the sum of the brilliant parts rather than the whole.
FMJ fits right in to Kubrick's oeuvre. There is the ongoing theme of dehumanisation, the cynical world view, the hilarious black humour, the cold, distant and unsympathetic characters, the key use of pre-existing music, and the central role of war and conflict. Yet again, and very much like Werner Herzog he makes the surreal seem utterly believable, and reality seem surreal.
For those who say there are better anti-war films, Kubrick said himself he was making a war film, not an anti-war film. He was trying to show the full picture, and leaving it to the audience to judge. The dehumanisation and brutality of boot camp, the moral ambiguity of the war and the vanity, crassness & questionable mental stability of some of the American soldiers is shown unsparingly, but so is the uncompromising barbarity of the communist enemy. You understand why the soldiers need the dehumanising training they are given. Animal Mother may indeed be an Animal Mother, but when it comes to the crunch he is clear-headed, effective and fiercely loyal to his comrades, and even musters a grudging sympathy for the dying sniper in acceding to Joker's humane despatching of her.
All in all, an unforgettable film, totally different in feel to any other war movie I have seen. There is no glorification, no demonisation, and no redemption, but also no simplistic pacifist platitudes and despite everything, great beauty in the hellish ruins.