Full Metal Jacket by Stanley Kubrick - Essay Example

Full Metal Jacket and the Freudian Concept The Freudian concept of the threat or fear of castration is essential in accomplishing the theme of war in film. That is, as Laura Mulvey writes in her Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, “[…] it depends on the image of the castrated woman to give order and meaning to its world (1).” Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket is a film that exemplifies the combination of the Freudian concept of castration with the theme of war, which in turn brings meaning to the world of enlisted man first in boot camp, then in battle. Right away, in Full Metal Jacket, we have young men who are experiencing release into the patriarchal society in which they will exist, away from the source of their fear of castration, and where that object of their fear ceases to have a presence in the meaning of their new world, “[…] except as a memory which oscillates between memory of maternal plenitude and memory of lack (Visual 2).” The role of the maternal object of fear is supplanted by tough talking mentally and physically abusive drill sergeant who utilizes the fear of castration as a tool in assuring the success of his recruits in completing boot camp training. The drill sergeant, portrayed by actor Lee Ermey in an outstanding performance, immediately re-establishes the environment of fear, which they have left behind with the image of their mothers. The sergeant refers to his recruits as “ladies.” The recruits do not, as new recruits, represent the symbolic phallus, but that is the assumed reward if they are successful in their training (Visual 2). Boot camp, which is intended to “[…] weed out the non-hackers who do not pack the gear to serve in my beloved corp (Full Metal Jacket),” could work the other way, fulfilling the young men’s worst fear in falling victim to castration. The character of Leonard Lawrence, portrayed by actor Vincent D’Onofrio, serves to exemplify for his peers that the threat of castration is real. Leonard has not accomplished release into a world that has relevant without the presence of his mother (Visual 2). The character of Leonard, who is nick-named Private Gomer Pyle by the drill sergeant in reference to Leonard’s similarities to a real life television character of the same name who was bungling but lovable, portrayed by actor Jim Neighbors; is not in harmony with his space. Leonard is needy, in the fashion that shows he has not suffered fear of castration, and therefore Leonard clings to the nourishing aspect of his relationship with his mother. Leonard quickly becomes the object of resentment for the rest of his platoon, who are held accountable for Leonard’s bungling ways. Leonard is the threat of castration, that which can prevent his peers from accomplishing a symbolic phallus status. Leonard serves as the “[…] signifier for the male other,” whose presence then prevents his peers from living out their fantasies and obsessions (Visual 2). The relationship between Leonard and his space, inhabited, too, by his peers is demonstrated by the relationship between the character of Leonard and that of Private Joker, the story protagonist, played by Matthew Modine. Private Joker becomes responsible for nurturing Leonard to the release that Leonard’s mother has failed to accomplish for him (Full Metal). Private Joker does this by mentoring Leonard, helping him find the confidence in himself and to establish the meaning between Leonard’s physical presence and his environment, which is one where the object of the threat of castration must remain absent (Visual 2, 12). When Leonard fails to respond to Joker’s nurturing, the group takes charge and metes out punishment to help Leonard understand the pain of castration, which would cause him lose membership in the brotherhood of the symbolic phallus. During this punishment scene, Private Joker, somewhat reluctantly at first, joins in meting out the punishment to Leonard and in so doing releases his frustration of having been reduced to the role of nurturer, a feminine role, in direct opposition to his desire. The hazing episode does succeed in making Leonard understand the pain of castration. Leonard falls into the role of a focused recruit and his new focus elicits praise from the drill sergeant. However, Leonard’s lesson in castration comes from the group instead of his mother, and causes Leonard to manifest the psychological dysfunction that comes from having “[…] just two avenues of escape from this castration anxiety: the preoccupation with the re-enactment of the original trauma (investigating the woman, demystifying her mystery), counterbalanced by the devaluation, punishment or saving of the guilty object (an avenue typified by the concerns of film noir); or else complete disavowal of castration by the substitution of a fetish object or turning the represented figure itself into a fetish so that it becomes reassuring rather than dangerous (Visua 14).” Leonard’s dysfunction has gone the route of the latter, a complete disavowal of castration by turning the object into a fetish, his gun, that he finds more reassuring than dangerous. The Boot Camp Female and Feminine in Full Metal Jacket Leonard’s dysfunction is no secret, and Joker soon realizes that Leonard has suffered a psychological breakdown. Until this point, the only feminine in the boot camp are those feminine images representing the threat of castration for failure, and the images of woman as conjured by the drill sergeant. Among those images of the feminine, we find Leonard himself in both his inability to move beyond the symbolic mother-nurturer, and in his role as reminder to the group of their own fears of castration. Also, there is the feminine/female, again, introduced by the drill sergeant as that female which all Marines would seek to have, the virgin, as referenced by the drill sergeant’s remarks about the Virgin Mother. There is, too, the extreme opposite of that female/feminine as represented by the Virgin Mary, and that is the woman whose purpose it is to satisfy the base sexual needs of the Marine man, most often referred to by the drill sergeant as “pussy.” Finally, there is the feminine/female as referenced by the Marines themselves, in an exchange between Joker and Cowboy, that is significant of the bond between Joker and Cowboy when Joker, having just revealed his concerns about Leonard’s breakdown, pushes the threat of castration represented by Leonard away, telling Cowboy, “I want to slide my tube steak into your sister (Full Metal).” This signifies the bond between the two men in that Joker’s remarks are as physically close to Cowboy as he can get with the idea that Joker inserted himself physically into Cowboy’s sister. The next image of the female/feminine is one, again, suggested by the drill sergeant, that his recruits will replace their apparently loose relationship with the give it up Mary Jane Rotten Crotch, and now have a new relationship with their rifles. The recruits must name their rifle a female’s name, and sleep with their rifles so that they know “her” feel. The recruits dismantle and reassemble their rifles, knowing “her” inside and out and she, like the Virgin Mary, will not betray the Marine. The only recruit whose rifle’s name we come to know is Leonard’s, Pyle’s, when post hazy Leonard is ready for drill and the drill sergeant asks the name of Leonard’s rifle. “Charlene,” is the name Leonard gives. Later, the spectator/voyeur will watch as Leonard makes love to Charlene as he dismantles and then reassembles her, whispering softly words of affection that are exchanged only between a Marine and his rifle. The scene is meant to be erotic, in that Leonard has manifested his fear of castration and the rifle has become the object of his fetish. Leonard, taking strength from his fetish, his gun, confronts what he perceives as the source of his castration, the drill sergeant. In one of the most emotionally and psychologically significant scenes in film history, Leonard conquers his pain of castration by using his rifle to kill the drill sergeant, then turns his rifle on himself committing suicide in front of the only person who has nurtured him, Private Joker. With Leonard gone, Kubrick has eliminated the threat of castration and can now move his Marines to the battlefield, where the image of woman is no longer a threatening one since the recruits have transcended the image of the bleeding wound, becoming Marines no longer capable of being castrated. Thus, “The male protagonist is free to command the stage, a stage that of spatial illusion in which he articulates the look and creates action (Visual 13).” We should note that in Full Metal Jacket, there is no funeral scene of the tough talking drill sergeant or for Leonard. There is no mourning for newly emerged men. By the time our group of recruit “ladies” emerge as Marine men, now themselves phallus symbols, they are no longer focused on their drill sergeant phallus symbol of whom they would become, and they never were able to relate to Leonard’s inability to move beyond the image of his mother into the world that would give rise to their own identity in their own worlds. The Scopophilia of Full Metal Jacket Scopophililia, according to Freud, is the spectator/voyeur’s fascination with human form and the dual pleasure of looking and being looked at (Visual 5). Freud’s concept of scopophilia centers on the spectator/voyeur’s ability to control his focus and gaze using as the object of focus another human’s form (Visual 5). Scophophilia addresses the need to experience pleasure through narcissistic identification with the protagonist’s physical form, as well as that of the protagonist’s interaction with his space (Visual 6). How that voyeuristic pleasure feeds the male narcissist within the framework of a war film is different than a film where the female form is present and surrenders to the mental and physical strength of a protagonist. We have already established that the lack of female forms is tangential to the theme of a war film, and Kubrick has gone to great lengths in extricating the female form in the film’s boot camp scenes, and replacing the form with symbolic images. This prepares the spectator/voyeur for a different experience of pleasure to satisfy the voyeur’s narcissistic needs. In Full Metal Jacket we have a “[…] ‘buddy movie’ in which the active homosexual eroticism of the central male figures can carry the story without distractions (Visual 11).” In the characters of the protagonist Joker, Cowboy, Animal Mother and Eight Ball, we have strong male figures and characters that help the story move forward (Visual 11). These characters satisfy the narcissistic and egotistic needs of the female spectator/voyeur in providing her with the handsome, strong and ultra masculinity to satisfy her own desires (Visual 11). For the male spectator/voyeur, however, the entire movie has to be something that he can relate to, envision himself in the role of (Visual 11). “This is accomplished by structuring the film around a main controlling figure with whom the spectator can identify (Visual 11).” In Full Metal Jacket, the main character is Joker, who is intelligent, capable, strong, tall and athletic in appearance and “[…] can make things happen (Visual 12).” Thus, the spectator establishes a relationship with Joker “[…] giving a satisfying sense of omnipotence (Visual 12).” This requires the multi-dimensional environment that Kubrick has created that allow the spectator to “[…] reproduce as accurately as possible the so-called natural conditions of human perception,” where the character is the embodiment of the spectator’s “imaginary existence (Visual 12).” In a buddy film, the meaning that the woman brings to the world in which the buddies make things happen, is one of base sexual satisfaction “[…] displayed for the gaze and enjoyment of men, the active controllers of the look, always threatens to evoke the anxiety it originally signified (Visual 14).” Kubrick’s women in the battle zone are, accordingly, images associated with sadistic pleasure that alleviates the anxiety (Visual 14). The women in the battle zone are women for hire, seductive yes, but not desirable beyond their base implication of satisfying sadistic need that manifests itself in war zone (Visual 14). In freeing themselves from guilt in using the females, the Marines have, again, purged themselves of the threat of castration that is the image of woman (Visual 14). The use of the sadistic relationship with women means that there must be the space of “[…] linear time with a beginning and an end (Visual 14). In Full Metal Jacket, there is only real close up of a woman, and that is the prostitute being pimped to the American Marines that have just Hue City. The lack of close ups of the women in the film signify the focus as being not on the relationship between the men and the two women in the film that signify the satisfying of base needs and prevents the story line from coming to a stop. It serves, too, to redirect the spectator’s attention to the dialogue in the film. God in Full Metal Jacket In this film, God is introduced as that which is greater than the Marine. God is the only thing that is greater than the Marine, and that is important because God represents the Marine’s salvation from himself as a killer. God and the Marines, the tough talking drill sergeant assures the “ladies,” have a relationship that exists within identified boundaries. The Marines, on earth, will kill and be killed, keeping heaven supplied with fresh souls for God to judge. The only other mention of religion in the film is that of the Virgin Mary, and when Joker denies belief in the Virgin, he offends the drill sergeant. Joker demonstrates his own clever abilities in dealing with the drill sergeant and avoiding the threat of castration by confessing to the drill sergeant that Joker does not how to respond to a question as to his own belief in the Virgin. That no reply would satisfy the drill sergeant, and Joker would be the victim to further abuse by drill sergeant. Oddly enough, and it sticks out like a sore thumb, the drill sergeant never forces Joker to resolve the question of his faith or lack of faith, and it lingers as one of the mysterious elements of Joker’s personality throughout the remainder of the film. This is in direct conflict with the theme that has been established of a Marine’s love for God and country that is on equal fields, one cannot be greater or less than the other. The Protagonist In Full Metal Jacket, Joker, the protagonist who narrates portions of the story line to move it along, represents the rational, but yet the fearless in that he is willing to take on the wrath of his superiors. Joker wears the helmet scrawled Killer, and the peace button, he says, to speak to the duality of man. In this buddy film, it is okay for the male viewer to identify with Joker, it is a safe identification. Joker is not too feminine, but not so masculine as to cause conflict or inability to resolve the spectator’s guilt of the unconscionable act of killing. Joker is safe for the spectator to mirror. Still, there are insights into Joker’s personality that gives rise to speculation as to who Joker really is. Certainly in the hazing scene, when encouraged by Cowboy to take his hit, Joker goes at Leonard with a vicious resentment at having been made the figure of nurturing. That image is in direct conflict with the environment in which Joker must exist, and gives rise to Joker’s own internal conflict. We find, however, that the image of Leonard committing suicide has impacted Joker, in that Joker does not want to accept responsibility for the welfare of the newly arrived Rafter Man, who is anxious to experience the “shit,” of combat. Joker resists the command to go to the battlefield with Rafter Man in tow, and the Captain of the Stars and Stripes sensing this weakness or conflict in Joker’s reasoning, and uses it to punish Joker for being contentious and confusing in his presence as a Marine, but his tendency toward humanitarianism. What we find is that Joker has an agenda for going to the battlefield. It is Joker’s goal to touch base with Cowboy, who Joker bonded with during boot camp, and, we might speculate, will relieve some of Joker’s anxiety that lingers over Leonard’s suicide. Indeed, once Joker and Cowboy reunite, there is a change in Joker from the leader, or care taker, to the cared for under the charge of Cowboy. Joker has surrendered his control to Cowboy for the security that Cowboy represents for Joker. Just when we think we’ve hit a weakness in Joker, we find, through dialogue, that Joker is perhaps less weak than we imagined as a result of surrendering his control to Cowboy. Joker stands up to Animal Mother, not looking for a fight, but not willing to back down either. Joker’s masculinity manifests itself in a happy, teasing way which will later present itself in direct conflict with the image of Joker that the spectator has chosen to identify himself with. Dialogue in Full Metal Jacket The dialogue in the film is intended to seal the bonds between men, and in doing so often involves denigration of the female image. This was done in the boot camp segment of the film, but the denigration was controlled by the drill sergeant, with the exception of the conversation between Joker and Cowboy. In the battle zone, the denigration of the female image continues. In Da Nang, where Joker’s character is reintroduced, free now to live within his intellect working as a journalist with Stars and Stripes. Joker is orienting a newly arrived war photo journalist to the in-country environment when they are approached by the first image of a woman in the battle zone. The woman, again, a prostitute poses and struts before the Joker and Rafter Man as she bargains for her services. The denigration of the woman is important to maintain the illusion that the Marines, as men, members of the brotherhood, are no longer threatened by the idea of castration. In this scene, there is no close up of the prostitute, and this allows the focus to be on the dialogue (Visual 22). The focus on dialogue, the male bonding process in this film, “[…] destroys the satisfaction, pleasure and privilege of the ‘invisible guest,’ and highlights how the film has depended on voyeuristic active/passive mechanisms (Visual 22).” This allows the director to dialogue the film to conclusion. Full Metal Jacket in Conclusion Kubrick has worked hard in this film to help his characters transcend the threat of castration, and must in conclusion give the final lesson; there is no escape from the threat of castration, even for killing machine Marines. The film that has had a stark absence of the image of the woman, except as conjured by its characters in dialogue and in symbolism, and the spectator has established in his mind the likeness of himself in the character of Joker as protagonist, not for Joker’s physical attributes, but for his mental acumen and humanity. All is comfortable between the spectator and the film’s progress. Then Kubrick throws us the curve. In the final scenes of the movie the character of Eight Ball, whose character has been tangential to the progress of the story line, falls in the line of duty after being hit by a sniper’s bullet. Wounded around the groin area, as we can tell from the visual of the hit, Eight Ball is down and now Kubrick will test the bonds that have been developed through the dialogue between the Marines. There is a strong desire to rescue Eight Ball, but Cowboy, who has been elevated to the rank of NCO (non-commissioned officer) as a result of the deaths of the two ranking officers who were killed in the progression of the film; recognizes the wounding of Eight Ball as a tactic being utilized by the sniper to lure, one at a time, the Marines out from their cover. As, one by one, they attempt rescue of their brotherhood, the sniper eliminate them. It’s a tactic, Cowboy warns his peers, “I’ve seen this before (Full Metal).” Cowboy tries, unsuccessfully to keep the Marines back, out of the open space of the sniper’s range. But camaraderie perseveres, and Doc breaks Cowboy’s command and goes to Eight Ball’s rescue. The sniper takes Doc down, making Cowboy right, but not posing enough a threat to keep Animal Mother from breaking command to go to the rescue of Eight Ball and Doc. Tough and fearless, brandishing his fetishism of a big automatic gun with large millimeter fed rounds Animal Mother makes a charge towards the sniper. Doc, in his last and tragic scene, points Animal Mother in the direction of the sniper. With Animal Mother going for the sniper, Kubrick has created an equal playing field between the Marines and the sniper. The tension of Animal Mother versus the sniper, a showdown between two weapons of human destruction, needed to move the story line to the next segment. Animal Mother, who was first introduced as a character who needed to be controlled, but then, during an interview scene after clearing Hue City, shows himself through dialogue to be more than a killing machine through articulate and intelligent responses to questions asked of him by a “real world,” journalist; is a character that appeals to the feminine and masculine spectator. This segment of the film helps to satisfy the “[…] the fascination already at work within the individual subject and the social formations that have molded [him] (Psychoanalysis 2),” the spectator. Animal Mother takes charge, calling to the others that the way is clear, reassuring them that there is only one person posing a threat to their squad, a sole sniper. The Marines led by Cowboy, move forward taking cover while Cowboy in his role as squadron leader assesses their situation and formulates his thoughts for directing the next course of action. Then, the sniper takes Cowboy out. At this point, Kubrick only lets us see the sniper’s view as the sniper takes aim on the advancing Marines. We know, too, that the sniper is good shot, capable picking a place on the advancing Marine’s body to immobilize, not kill for purposes of luring others into the line of sight. It is only after Animal advances, posing an equal threat to the sniper that the sniper aims to kill. In the scene where Cowboy has just been shot, Joker cradles Cowboy, once again demonstrating a nurturing side to his character. Cowboy dies in Joker’s arms and Joker expresses his grief in the only way a Marine can, to kill the sniper. Joker follows Animal Mother’s lead and, backed up by the gunfire of the Marines who stay under cover, Joker and Animal Mother move to advance towards the sniper. After an exchange of gunfire, during which the Marines fire everything they have at the sniper, it is the declaration of Animal Mother calling out that he has killed the sniper that brings the other Marines from their cover. The Marines rush to inspect the dead sniper, but are left momentarily stunned when they realize that the sniper is a woman. The threat of castration has re-emerged, making good the threat, having killed three of the Marines. The sniper is severely wounded, but not enough so that she immediately dies. It could, should they leave her there to die, take hours of suffering before she dies. Animal Mother opts to leave her to the rats, no longer seeing her as a threat, and, now, an image to satisfy in a sadistic way his mental pleasure in knowing that she will suffer. Joker, however, wants to end the sniper’s suffering in what at first seems a sympathetic way. No one will volunteer to do it, and Animal Mother tells Joker that if he wants it done, then he will have to be the one to do it. No one seems willing to confront the threat of castration by way of eliminating the sniper having discovered the sniper to be a woman. As the sniper woman lays suffering, her gaze directs the spectator’s gaze to Joker, who is standing over her with an unreadable expression. She pleads for an end to her suffering, “Shoot me,” she implores Joker, and the spectator senses, somewhat unsure at first, that it is only Joker among the group that is capable of killing her. The expectation lingers that it will be Animal Mother, cold and cruel, who will do the deed. Kubrick surprises us when suddenly the spectator realizes by way of the visual expression on Joker’s face, the protagonist with who they have identified throughout the movie, is the cold and cruel killer. Joker ends the sniper woman’s suffering, but we have the sense it was not an act of mercy, but an act of revenge for the ultimate castration of Cowboy and for the woman sniper having imposed her self into the landscape and space of war when that environment represented the domain of men. Joker meted out the ultimate punishment for the sniper’s invasion of the man’s domain, where every effort had been made to eradicate the image of the bleeding wound. As the Marines leave the city with a setting sun in the background casting a glow on burning and smoking buildings, they begin a cadence of Mickey Mouse. The adolescent image of Mickey Mouse imposed upon the burning world of Marines in battle is strange and difficult to relate to until Joker begins his narration, which helps re-establish an order to the movie. Images, Joker narrates, of Mary Jane Rotten Crotch and an erect nipple fill their thoughts as they move to a place where they will find rest and take solace in their camaraderie. They have survived the day’s threat of castration, and will rest and move forward, perhaps with a renewed awareness or fear of castration that conceals itself in the blown up and burning buildings of the battlefield. With Full Metal Jacket, Kubrick has defied the traditional notion of the battlefield as solely a man’s domain, an environment where man can escape the image of his fear of castration. Kubrick allowed a woman to transcend her image of the bleeding wound, although ultimately she lays suffering as the bleeding wound. Woman has no place in the patriarchal society, and should she attempt to breach that divide which separates the “psychological and phylogenetic (Psychoanalysis 3),” aspects of the male and female images, then woman will suffer and die. If she does so breach the divide, then it creates an equal playing field where man will not retreat from her, but will become her executioner, surpassing even the extreme of sadism which might normally prevail on the battlefield. In Full Metal Jacket, Kubrick went to great lengths during a prolonged boot camp segment that established the absence of the threat of castration. To such an extent as that threat existed in the character of Leonard, it followed that Leonard was eliminated, since the threat cannot prevail on the battlefield. There is no role for a woman in battle, except in a sadistic and base sense that helps the man relieve the tension of his anxiety in order to be prepared for that which he will encounter in the enemy. Mulvey, Laura. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. http://www.jahsonic.com/ VPNC.HTML. 20 December 2005. Mulvey, Laura. Psychoanalysis. http://www.jahsonic.com/VPNC.HTML. 20 December 2005. Warner Brothers. Full Metal Jacket. 1987. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Read More