Born to Kill

748 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: full metal jacket summary

The film Full Metal Jacket (1987) is a film about the Vietnam War. The movie shows the war from a Marines’ perspective. The protagonist is nick-named Joker. He becomes an enlisted reporter. The movie begins at basic training on Parris Island, South Carolina and ends in the middle of the conflict in Vietnam. The depiction of Boot camp, The Tet Offensive, and War correspondents solidifies Full Metal Jacket as an honest representation of the soldier’s entire experience during Vietnam.

Boot camp is accurately depicted in Full Metal Jacket. Parris Island is one of the two Marine training facilities. The two complexes are Parris Island, South Carolina and San Diego, California. In March of 1966 Parris Island had 10,979 recruits. The harsh treatment of enlisted personnel shown in the film parallels the treatment of some Drill Instructors. The actor who played the Drill Instructor, R. Lee Ermy, was a marine drill sergeant before he became an actor. He was quoted as saying “If I thought he was making an anti war movie I would have had no part in it.” He was, of course, speaking of Stanley Kubrick’s ground breaking picture which is widely perceived as an anti war demonstration. Treatment by drill sergeants often led to psychotic breaks. The verbal and physical abuse Drill Sergeants gave to new recruits has lead to later problems such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The thirteen week training program enlistees are put through is strenuous and sometimes fatal. Boot Camp in Full Metal Jacket is one of the most accurate aspects. (Pike, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/mcrd-parris-island.)

The realities of the Tet Offensive were offered in the film. Tet is a major holiday in Vietnam and treaties were signed...

... middle of paper ...

...e reporters, like the protagonist tried to stay true and went against their commanding officers. This force of reporters made up of civilians and enlisted men saw frontline combat like the grunts in the war but were still looked down upon. These people were forced to shoot and kill men as depicted in the scene at the barracks. During the War correspondents were put on long patrols and were up “all night setting up ambushes”

(https://www.amherst.edu/aboutamherst/magazine/issues/2009fall/warcorrespondents)

Full Metal Jacket exemplifies a brutally honest illustration of the horrible events of the Vietnam War. The movie is not anti war but makes one contemplate the morality of war. Kubrick makes the actions in the movie believable because of the documentary style filming and dialogue. The film is an emotion torrent scene through the eyes of an enlightened man.

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of David Snead's An American Soldier In World War I

    1362 Words  | 3 Pages

    In An American Soldier in World War I, David Snead examines account of George Browne, a civil engineer who fought as part of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) during World War I. Snead shares Browne’s account of the war through the letters he wrote to his fiancé Martha Ingersoll Johnson. Through Browne’s letters and research conducted of the AEF, Snead gives a concise, informative, and harrowing narrative of life as a soldier serving in the camps and front lines of the Great War. Snead attempts to give the reader an understanding of Browne’s service by focusing on his division, the 42nd Division, their training and preparation, combat on the front lines, and the effects of war on George and Martha’s relationship. As Snead describes, “Brownie’s letters offer a view of the experiences of an American soldier. He described the difficulties of training, transit to and from France, the dangers and excitement of combat, and the war’s impact on relationships.” (Browne 2006, 2) Furthermore, he describes that despite the war’s effect on their relationship, “their

    Read More

  • Destruction in Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front

    1541 Words  | 4 Pages

    The story takes place through the eyes of a German infantryman named Paul Baumer. He is nineteen and just joined up with the German army after high school with the persuasion of one of his schoolteachers, Mr. Kantorek. Paul recalls how he would use all class period lecturing the students, peering through his spectacles and saying: "Won't you join up comrades?"(10). Here was a man who loved war. He loved the "glory" of war. He loved it so much as to persuade every boy in his class to join up with the army. He must have thought how proud they would be marching out onto that field in their military attire.

    Read More

  • Operatic Melodrama in Apocalypse Now

    2286 Words  | 5 Pages

    ... out of a 1950s woman's film. The melodramatic influences of the film continue to manifest themselves in the newer release, just as Apocalypse Now continues to influence the epic movies of contemporary filmmakers. The unison of operatic spectacle and personal conflict spawned an original genre in the 1970s that remains an effective method of addressing social concerns. As we enter another period of political unrest and social change, it is likely that a new wave of melodramatic films is beginning to form on the horizon; there are certainly parallels between a government that declares war on terrorism and the U.S. army in Vietnam, who "knew everything about military tactics, but nothing about where they were or who the enemy was" (Cowie 143). From Conrad to Coppola, nuclear family to nuclear terrorism; never get off the boat, unless you're willing to go all the way.

    Read More

  • The Crucible Essay Joker

    690 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 1967, during the Vietnam War, a group of new U.S. Marine Corps recruits arrive at Parris Island, South Carolina, for basic training. After having their heads shaved, they meet Senior Drill Instructor Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, who employs forceful methods to turn the recruits into hardened, combat-ready Marines. Among the recruits are privates "Joker", "Cowboy", and the overweight, bumbling Leonard Lawrence, who earns the nickname "Gomer Pyle" after incurring Hartman's wrath.

    Read More

  • All Quiet On The Western Front

    611 Words  | 2 Pages

    War slowly begins to strip away the ideals these boy-men once cherished. Their respect for authority is torn away by their disillusionment with their schoolteacher, Kantorek who pushed them to join. This is followed by their brief encounter with Corporal Himmelstoss at boot camp. The contemptible tactics that their superior officer Himmelstoss perpetrates in the name of discipline finally shatters their respect for authority. As the boys, fresh from boot camp, march toward the front for the first time, each one looks over his shoulder at the departing transport truck. They realize that they have now cast aside their lives as schoolboys and they feel the numbing reality of their uncertain futures.

    Read More

  • Analysis: All Quiet On The Western Front

    1391 Words  | 3 Pages

    Have you ever thought about what it was like to live during World War 1, or what it was like to fight at war? At first glance of any war piece, you might think the author would try to portray the soldiers as mentally tough and have a smashing conscience. Many would think that fighting in a war shows how devoted you are to your country, however, that is not true. According to All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, the reality of a soldier's life is despondency, carnage and eradication at every bombardment. Living every day is not knowing if they will eat, see their families, or even if they will awaken the next day. Demeaning themselves from heroes to barely men without their military garment or identity. Remarque conveyed how

    Read More

  • All Quiet on the Western Front

    1386 Words  | 3 Pages

    Imagine being in an ongoing battle where friends and others are dying.  All that is heard are bullets being shot, it smells like gas is near, and hearts race as the times go by.  This is similar to what war is like.  In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the narrator, Paul Baumer, and his friends encounter the ideals of suffering, death, pain, and despair.  There is a huge change in these men; at the beginning of feel the same way about it.  During the war the men experience many feelings, especially the loss of loved ones.  These feelings are shown through their first experience at training camp, during the actual battles, and in the hospital.  Training camp was the first actuality of what war was going to be like for the men.  They thought that it would be fun, and they could take pride in defending their country.  Their teacher, Kantorek, told them that they should all enroll in the war.  Because of this, almost all of the men in the class enrolled.  It was in training camp that they met their cruel corporal, Himelstoss.&nbs most by him.  They have to lie down in the mud and practice shooting and jumping up.  Also, these three men must remake Himelstoss’ bed fourteen times, until it is perfect.  Himelstoss puts the young men through so much horror that they yearn for their revenge.  Himelstoss is humiliated when he goes to tell on Tjaden, and Tjaden only receives an easy punishment.  Training camp is as death and destruction.  Training camp is just a glimpse of what war really is.  The men do not gain full knowledge of war until they go to the front line.   The front line is the most brutal part of the war.  The front line is the place in which the battles are fought.  Battles can only be described in one word- chaos.  Men are running around trying to protect themselves while shooting is in the trench with an unknown man from the other side.  This battle begins with shells bursting as they hit the ground and machine guns that rattle as they are being fired.  In order to ensure his survival, Paul must kill the other man.  First, Paul stabs the man, but he struggles for his life.  He dies shortly after, and Paul discovers who he has killed.  The man is Gerald Duval, a printer.&n Having to deal with killing others is one of the horrors of war. The men who are killed and the people who kill them could have been friends, if only they were on the same side.    The other important battle leaves both Paul and Kropp with injuries.

    Read More

  • Memento as a War Movie

    1392 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...tures. One of this winter's mostly eagerly awaited releases is Lord of the Rings, based on J.R.R. Tolkien's brilliant books about warfare and other adventures in a mythological Middle Earth realm. Fans may not pigeonhole these as war films, but part of their appeal comes from their place in a long tradition of war-centered fiction stretching back at least as far as Homer, whose Iliad and Odyssey have been cited as sources for Apocalypse Now and other combat films. It is sometimes seen in movies that they do not own up to being a true war movie, but there is a basic sense of what a war movie is. In The Things They Carried , novelist and Vietnam vet Tim O'Brien wrote that “if at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been the victim of a very old and terrible lie. As a first rule of thumb, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil. You can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you.” That is Memento; a movie that exposes all of the realities of its own story and leaves the audience ashamed of rooting for their fallen hero.

    Read More

  • The Truth About War Revealed in the Film, The Thin Red Line

    2138 Words  | 5 Pages

    Basinger, Jeanine. The World War II Combat Film: Anatomy of a Genre. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986.

    Read More

  • Film Analysis: The Hurt Locker

    902 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Hurt Locker is a war film that is set in Iraq during the Iraq War and fits in the adventure and action genre. The plot is about a three man bomb defusal team consisting of James, Sanborn, and Elridge finding themselves is extreme, life-threatening situations where they must defuse explosives over the violent conflicts. The director, Kathryn Bigelow, has done a good job with the mise-en-scene, making the setting overall extremely believable, giving a sense of realism in the film. The film’s mise-en-scene creates a believable Iraq War settings with the use costumes, weaponry, and all the grime and dirt present in places which sells the idea. Sounds and symbolism is used to show heavy tension amongst the soldiers .The film also contrasts James’s time in Iraq and his life back in America using the Supermarket scene. The idea portrayed in this film is the addiction to war which can be seen in James.

    Read More

  • Understanding War Trauma: American Soldiers in Vietnam

    1382 Words  | 3 Pages

    Being an American soldier who fought on the front lines was stressful, and a lot of men such as the fictional

    Read More

  • The Vietnam War

    1443 Words  | 3 Pages

    During the Vietnam War, the first platoon (approximately forty men) was lead by a young officer named William Calley. Young Calley was drafted into the US Army after high school, but it did not take long for him to adjust to being in the army, with a quick transition to the lifestyle of the military, he wanted to make it his career. In high school, Calley was a kind, likable and “regular” high school student, he seemed to be a normal teenager, having interest in things that other boys his age typically had. He was never observed acting in a cruel or brutal way. In Vietnam, Calley was under direct order of company commander, Captain Ernest Medina, whom he saw as a role model, he looked up to Medina. (Detzer 127).

    Read More

  • 1968: A Year Of American Transformation

    1636 Words  | 4 Pages

    The political and societal ramifications of Vietnam's Tet Offensive indubitably illustrate the historical oddity of 1968. 1967 had not been a bad year for most Americans. Four years after the profound panic evoked by the assassination of John Kennedy, the general public seemed to be gaining a restored optimism, and even the regularly protested Vietnam War still possessed the semblance of success (Farber and Bailey 34-54). However, three short weeks following the eve of ‘68, Americans abruptly obtained a radically different outlook. The Tet Offensive, beginning on January 30, 1968, consisted of a series of military incursions during the Vietnam War, coordinated between the National Liberation Front's People's Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF), or "Viet Cong," and the ...

    Read More

  • full metal jacket

    937 Words  | 2 Pages

    Full Metal Jacket and Platoon are clearly two of the biggest movies ever made about the

    Read More

  • The Schindler's List Film Analysis

    1852 Words  | 4 Pages

    There is an intellectual discussion over the accuracy of war films and whether or not these should focus more on telling the truth or decorating it a little. Indeed, the narrative of war films has change throughout the years because the purpose of such films has evolved, especially those representing the World War II years and the aftermath. At the time of war, films were employed with diverse objectives for example to urge the public to support the war, to narrate the latest events, or to rebuild the image of the heroes. Most of the times the perspectives of films could vary depending on the country the film was produced in or which side of the story was being narrated. The plot of most war films might not be real, but they were necessary

    Read More

More about Born to Kill

Open Document