So, I've seen 'Full Metal Jacket' 3 times now. The first time was definitely for the boys, I've traded all of Hartman's lines with male friends at parties, during set ups for work events, even with men I'd just met-- to show common ground that we both love the film. Of course "Me So Horny" took on a life of it's own, and became its own running joke after 2 Live Crew sampled it. Also, regarding the sniper scene-- seeing it for the first time, the shock value was so great that I didn't even really think to process the age of the sniper herself. Upon my first viewing, my first take away was that throughout the film, the Marines treat the women as sex objects, and see them as little else than a warm body for them to relieve the second half of their most primal urges (with killing and fighting being the first); and now they have been bested by one, who has not only gunned down three marines-- but suckered in two of them into trying to rescue the other one. Also, the line "You've been messing, where you shouldn't have been messing-- and now someone else is getting all your best", from Nancy Sinatra REALLY stuck out to me as well. The second time was at home with my dog. Hartman's lines weren't so funny anymore, and my attention really turned to Joker. Who we see has quite the whimsical attitude towards the war itself, but seems to see it as a sick joke; which he'll take part in-- but from a distance, he's VERY careful not to leave his humanity at the door. The John Wayne imitations to me, showed that he was well aware of the attitude of "real men" in war; but saw it as nothing more than a caricature of "American Nationalism and Masculinity". I remember hearing Modine recite the "I wanted to meet people of an ancient culture, and kill them", and thinking-- Jesus, he's really taking the piss here. The sniper scene hit hard again, but for some odd reason; my mind went straight to the end with the "Mickey Mouse" chant, and I tried to make sense of it. The THIRD time, was after I'd seen 'Platoon', and 'Hamburger Hill'. I had done some reading about the Tet Offensive, and my landlord (who sadly left us a few years back), was an MP in Saigon-- who I'd talk to about Vietnam a bunch. I don't know what was more vomit inducing, the stories he told about what went down on both sides, or the copious lies the American government was pumping out, to conceal how absolutely over our heads we were. "You keep lyin' when you oughta be truthin' And you keep losing when you oughta not bet-- You keep samin' when you oughta be a'changin' Now what's right is right BUT YOU AIN'T BEEN RIGHT YET". Hartman's lines got a chuckle at best; but the focus became how cruel he was to Pyle, and how POMPUS he was-- letting someone who very clearly lacked the mental capacity to be a solider, around live ammunition and weapons (Can we also talk about how child abuse seems to be RAMPANT in Kubrick's films, 'Lolita', 'The Shining', 'Eyes Wide Shut', 'Barry Lyndon', and of course here). Of course, the joke isn't so funny anymore for our protagonist-- when he inadvertently gets put in the ultimate 'lose/ lose' situation with euthanizing a child (who also was robbed of her innocence as well). Besides his newly minted 'thousand yard stare', I remembered hearing his "I can't wait for the fuck fest when I get home" line, and knowing right then and there that his calculated approach to Vietnam was clearly gone, and he was nothing more than a 'Fuck/Fight' machine like Animal Mother. Critics be damned-- this film is nothing short of a masterpiece, which absolutely requires multiple viewings; and never fails to offer fresh perspectives each time. Salute to the greatest filmmaker of all time.
It’s worth noting that this film echoes the end of “Paths of Glory,” wherein the only “enemy” the soldiers ever meet is a young woman. In the earlier film, she trembles as she sings a sentimental song. In the later film, this penultimate scene is followed by the Marines marching to a children’s song.
This is post-facto reading-in nonsense akin to finding out that Billy Kwan in The Year of Living Dangerously is NOT a Chinese Australian man with dwarfism but an American actress Linda Hunt - and then making wild assumptions about "well actually" the director trying to make a statement about Chinese being like American women. Nonsense. Nowhere in the movie is it explained how old the character OR the actress were. Maybe Kubrick wanted to say something about Vietnamese women with dwarfism and he never shared that in an interview? Reading real-life facts into a fictional story makes an ass of the one doing the reading in. Further - Kubrick didn't make his films to be dissected frame by frame. They were meant to be seen once or twice, in a theater with no pauses, rewinds of fast forwards. Not autopsied and fetishised, pixel by pixel. It is an artwork of the art and work of acting and work and art of directing and editing captured on film, exploiting the illusion of motion in order to have that artwork presented to the audience - not to have the building blocks of illusion dissected and "meaning" read into each single building block. Not everything has secret meaning or symbolism attached to it. Most of the time cigar is just a cigar. The "subliminal trickery" here is nothing but self-trickery. Here's a simpler, Occamian, explanation of the scene. The scene juxtaposes a young, slim, starved, untrained and poorly equipped little girl - to a whole bunch of male soldiers, with their guns and muscles and all the power of US military-industrial complex behind them. So he found a smaller actress.
"Nowhere in the movie is it explained how old the character OR the actress were. Maybe Kubrick wanted to say something about Vietnamese women with dwarfism and he never shared that in an interview?" And at the end of your comment: "So he found a smaller actress." Did you actually watch the video in its entirety? Kubrick and the actor who played Rafterman specified the sniper as a 12 year old, and so the actress was likely 12 years old as well. She was certainly not a "Vietnamese woman with dwarfism", and I even mentioned about a Vietnamese prostitute character who herself is nearly as tall as Joker. Ironically, you saying assuming the sniper to be a "Vietnamese WOMAN with dwarfism" proves the point of this video. And you haven't debunked any of the important details that support the idea that Kubrick intentionally played mind games with people in this scene. --- First, the low camera angles with the short sniper looking into the camera, even though she is clearly much shorter than Joker. Why do you think Kubrick directed her scenes that way other to mislead audiences into thinking the sniper is taller than she was? --- Second, both the movie and screenplay had marines share dialogue about the sniper in a sexual context, which I think contributed to the adult sniper illusion. Can you explain that? --- Third, can you explain why multiple critics and audiences have mistaken the sniper as a person in her late teens or early adult years to this day, as I cited in this video? That alone is interesting.
I really like these analysis videos, hate to say this, but her weapon isn't an AK at all, that's vz 58 which looks like an AK but technically, they only share their ammo (not even magazines are interchangeable)
The thing that puzzles me....this film but especially The Shining..all the subtle slight of hand , allusions etc, only become fully exposed years later when we have home tape, dvd& then bluray...I don't believe in a cinema any of this can be spotted by the normal Joe blogs..so....why would Kubrick go to such depths- it might have been NO one would spot it all...especially in The Shining ( leaving out the moon stuff - nada) but SO much of the other...makes your head spin..
The huge effort Kubrick did with thematic depth in his movies is partly because of rewatch value, for us to keep talking and discussing them, and to discover new things next time we watch his movies. (That's the same with loads of other films as well.) 🙂 But also, as I illustrated in the video, Kubrick used subliminal communication to bypass censors and audience conscious awareness and possible rejection, while still maintaining its power. There's hardly any other movie I've seen which shows a kid being shot to pieces in a bloody manner. This kind of thing goes back to Kubrick's earlier film Lolita, which involved Kubrick having to communicate the darker themes of the original novel through a lot of innuendos and metaphors to get around hefty censorship. That film project rocketed Kubrick's artistic skills from thereon.
My guess would be around 15 yrs old... _12?_ 🥺 Typical Kubrick to trick us into thinking it's an elite male vietcong sniper. As stated in one of your screenshots, that rifle could not be used that way on such a long distance. That sort of makes her feat more impressive. I don't feel sorry for the yankees.
@@galil_6863 -Meh, she got off a pile of single accurate shots with a supposed AK (actually a VZ58)...Well, no matter, dont want to fight, just want to remind everyone to never get their history from movies...or their politics from actors.
Not until 1995 did Vietnam release its official estimate of war dead: as many as 2 million civilians on both sides and some 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters. Vietnam is not small country but it take tool, old people, kids and women can involved in partisan wars, it happened in Barbarossa where 70% activity been women, 26 million dead in total but in first 2 months 6 million men captured or dead so compensate lost men (soldiers) all genders and all age groups been involved.
