#2,881. Full Metal Jacket (1987) - The Films of Stanley Kubrick

 

The opening moments of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, which play over Johnny Wright’s ballad “Hello Vietnam”, feature his central characters on their first day of basic training. They have joined - or were drafted into - the United States Marine Corps. Most, if not all of them, will be heading to Vietnam once their training is over. Yet the first thing they experience, on that very first day on Parris Island, is a barber’s chair. Every incoming recruit has their head shaved.

I have always heard this particular ritual was symbolic, a way to put each and every man, regardless of race or background, on an even playing field. They are no longer individuals, and before long they won’t even have a name anymore. Just a nickname, assigned to them by their bombastic drill instructor, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, played to perfection by R. Lee Ermey (in part because, as a former Marine drill instructor in real life, he was essentially playing himself).

Among the raw recruits Hartman must mold into finely-tuned soldiers are Joker (Matthew Modine), Cowboy (Arliss Howard), Snowball (Peter Edmund), and the dim-witted Private Pyle (Vincent D’Onofrio, in what is undoubtedly one of the greatest screen debuts in cinematic history).

Hartman is merciless in his approach to their training, especially where Pvt. Pyle is concerned. Overweight and a little slow, Hartman works on Pyle, insulting him at every turn, and humiliating him when he cannot complete the obstacle course. When Pyle continues to foul up, Hartman changes tactics by punishing the entire platoon. If he cannot motivate Pyle, then maybe incurring the wrath of his fellow recruits will do the trick (in one of the film’s most disturbing scenes, the squad does take its anger out on Pyle after lights out).

Pyle eventually falls into place, and becomes like everyone else. But his psyche has been shattered. Hartman’s goal at the outset was to break every man down and build them up again, into a team, proud members of the United States Marine Corps. The tale of Pvt. Pyle is what happens when a broken man cannot be rebuilt, and his story stands as the first act of Kubrick’s masterwork, a film as much about the mentality of war as it is about war itself.

Now that the recruits have been prepared for life in the Marine Corps, it is off to war. Most are assigned to infantry units in Vietnam, but Pvt. Joker, who occasionally acts as the film’s narrator, fancies himself a writer, and joins the staff of Stars and Stripes. He is assigned a photographer, Rafterman (Kevyn Major Howard), and writes stories that reflect favorably on the U.S. war effort.

That changes, however, after the Tet Offensive, when the Viet Cong breaks a peace treaty during the country’s New Years’ festivities and hands the Americans a handful of crippling defeats. With things looking bleak for the U.S., Joker and Rafterman are re-assigned to field duty, to tag along with a platoon of Marine grunts and report on their progress.

By chance, Joker is sent to the unit of his old buddy Cowboy, who, along with fellow Marines Eightball (Dorian Harewood), Animal Mother (Adam Baldwin), and Lt. Touchdown (Ed O’Ross), are sent to a deserted village to verify reports that the enemy has retreated, only to find themselves facing off against a very skilled sniper.

So, that’s the story that makes up Full Metal Jacket, but it doesn’t scratch the surface of what Kubrick and his team accomplish with this movie.

The second half of the film, which centers on the war itself, is skillfully shot, with fluid handheld shots that follow the Marines as they carry out their orders, moving from one life-threatening situation to the next. These scenes are punctuated by the film’s haunting score (created by Vivian Kubrick, under the alias Abigail Mead), which keeps the audience on edge, always at the ready for something to happen.

The cast is equally superb, with Matthew Modine leading the way as the complex Joker; he wears a peace symbol on his uniform, but has “Born to Kill” written on his helmet. Because we spend more time with him than any other character, Modine's Joker is essentially the lead. But every individual gets a moment in the sun, and is given a chance to strut their stuff. And they all make the most of the opportunity (especially D’Onofrio and Adam Baldwin, who more than earns his character's nickname "Animal Mother").

The sets are well-realized, the action scenes are impeccably staged, and the inherent drama of the basic training sequences builds the tension to an almost unbearable level.

But then, when it comes to Kubrick, we know the physical aspects of a film will be flawless. He was a perfectionist, doing as many as 30-40 takes of a scene, until he, and his cast and crew, got it right. To call Full Metal Jacket a stunning technical achievement is not newsworthy. Kubrick would have never released it were it not so.

What it comes down to, then, is the film’s central theme, and how Kubrick and his team convey it: the effect of not only war, but the preparation for war on the individual, as seen through the eyes of men whose individuality has been stripped away. Kubrick could have easily made some grand statement here, damning the loss of one’s identity, or the impact that uncertain death can have on a man’s psyche. There are traces of both here, but more than anything, it is about the attitude of the soldier, who knows he could die at any minute yet performs his duties without question.

There is no cowardice to be found in Full Metal Jacket, no hesitation in carrying out orders, regardless of how dangerous they might be, or their ultimate consequences. Kubrick’s fascination, as I see it, was with the mindset of soldiers in the midst of war, who, surrounded by enemy combatants attempting to kill them, somehow throws caution to the wind to serve their country. Gunnery Sergeant Hartman’s job was to turn men into killing machines, and Kubrick shows us time and again during the Vietnam sequences that he and his fellow drill instructors managed to do exactly that.

I saw Full Metal Jacket during its initial run in 1987 with my father, who is himself a Vietnam veteran. He had been critical of some Vietnam-themed films in the past, saying he found Apocalypse Now “weird”, and Platoon a little too over-the-top. During the initial scenes of Full Metal jacket, I sat there and wondered what his reaction to this movie was going to be.

As the story played out, though, I realized that Kubrick had pulled me into his film completely, to the point that, when the end credits did finally roll, my father’s opinion was no longer my primary concern. I knew I had just seen a masterpiece, and that was all that mattered.
Rating: 10 out of 10

#2,880. Barry Lyndon (1975) - The Films of Stanley Kubrick

 

“Define Kubrick? Ummm… gives new meaning to the word meticulous”.

The above quote has been attributed to Jack Nicholson, the star of Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film The Shining. But Nicholson could have just as easily been referring to the great director’s 1975 opus Barry Lyndon.

Time and again, Kubrick frames his shots in Barry Lyndon like they were a work of art, as if his audience was walking through a vast gallery of history’s finest paintings. He starts in extreme close-up, with the one image that would undoubtedly catch our eye were it framed and hanging on a wall: his lead character chopping wood, or a British regiment on parade. Then, his camera slowly pulls back, revealing the spectacle, the grandeur of the surrounding landscape.

His framing of each and every scene in Barry Lyndon is measured. It is deliberate. It is… meticulous.

Based on the 1844 book The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray, Barry Lyndon relates, in two distinct sections, the rise and fall of notorious opportunist Redmond Barry (Ryan O’Neal), a common Irishman who, in the 1700’s, would rise to the rank of an English aristocrat.

Following a duel with British army captain John Quin (Leonard Rossiter), the fiancé of his cousin and first love Nora (Gay Hamilton), a young Redmond Barry flees to Dublin, where he joins the army of King George. When his close friend Grogan (Godfrey Quigley) is killed in a skirmish during the Seven Years War, Redmond deserts his post, only to be apprehended by Captain Potzdorf (Hardy Krüger) of the Prussian military.

Thus begins a series of events that, over time, will see Redmond Barry hook up with notorious gambler the Chevalier du Baribari (Patrick Magee), and marry Lady Lyndon (Marisa Berenson), widow of Sir Charles Reginald Lyndon (Frank Middlemass).

Having achieved an air of respectability, Redmond Barry behaves like a brute, cheating on his new wife while at the same time spending her entire fortune. This causes a rift between Redmond and his stepson Lord Bullington (played as an adult by Leon Vitali), one that grows larger, and more venomous, with each passing year.

Barry Lyndon is, without question, a beautiful motion picture. There are scenes as gorgeous as any ever captured on film. This polished presentation has been attacked by the movie’s detractors, who claim the film is all style and no substance, with little or no story. But I cannot agree. There was never a moment in the movie where I wasn’t engaged by the tale of lead character Redmond Barry, whose antics fall more in line with those of an anti-hero than a hero.

Barry aligns himself with the Chevalier du Baribari, who, in reality, is an Irishman much like himself, posing as a European aristocrat. Aided by Barry, the Chevalier cheats at cards and other games of chance to gain the upper hand on his wealthy opponents. Barry’s motivations become even more suspect later in the film, after he marries Lady Lyndon. At this point in the movie, Barry isn’t even an anti-hero; he is a straight-up villain, ignoring his wife and mistreating Lord Bullington, her son from her previous marriage. And yet we, the audience, are still somehow drawn to Barry. We find ourselves siding with him against his stepson, who, though in the right, is never as magnetic a personality as his unscrupulous stepdad.

It is difficult to pinpoint a single moment in Barry Lyndon when Redmond Barry is entirely likable. Even in the early scenes with his cousin Nora, Barry comes across as course and naïve. But we are engaged by his exploits all the same.

While it is unjust to categorize Barry Lyndon as a totally stylistic affair, it is, admittedly, Kubrick’s visuals that draw you in, the gorgeous shots littered throughout the film that make it a masterpiece. Kubrick may, indeed, have been a perfectionist, but he put that particular skillset to good use throughout this movie.

Barry Lyndon is a measured, deliberate, meticulous tour de force.
Rating: 10 out of 10

#2,879. Killer's Kiss (1955) - The Films of Stanley Kubrick

 

A famous filmmaker at the start of their career can be… shall we say… interesting?

Sitting down to watch Stanley Kubrick’s Killer’s Kiss, his second feature (his first, Fear and Desire, was withdrawn by Kubrick himself, who wasn’t happy with the final result), had me wondering if I might see early shades of the master director’s noted style peeking around the corners of this 1955 film noir. Would there be traces of the “Kubrick Touch” that, in later years, would transform Paths of Glory, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and others into bona-fide cinematic classics?

Well, one thing about Killer’s Kiss was certainly true to form for the great director; the answers to these questions aren’t nearly as cut-and-dry as I was hoping!

Washed-up boxer Davey Gordon (Jamie Smith) lives in a rundown apartment in New York City. Across the alley from him resides Gloria Price (Irene Kane), a taxi dancer whose boss, Mr. Rapullo (Frank Silvera), won’t leave her alone (he claims to have fallen madly in love with Gloria). One night, after hearing Gloria scream for help, Davey runs to the rescue, kicking off a whirlwind romance between the two.

But when Davey and Gloria decide to leave town together, they find out pretty quickly that crossing the jealous Rapullo can be hazardous to their health!

By the time he made Killer’s Kiss, Stanley Kubrick had already established himself as one of New York’s most prominent photographers, with his pictures appearing in Look Magazine as early as 1945. By the late ‘40s, Kubrick had become enamored with motion pictures, which would be his profession - as well as his obsession - for the remainder of his life. Yet in Killer’s Kiss, his photographic sensibilities seem to be at the forefront; there are entire scenes set on the streets of New York, where Kubrick - known in later years as a very controlling, meticulous director - simply shot whatever caught his eye, from a pair of performers marching down 42nd Street to the display windows of nearby shops and the trash-lined streets.

To see the man who set a world record by making Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall redo a single scene in The Shining 148 times simply “winging it” in Killer’s Kiss was something of a culture shock. But with his keen eye, what Kubrick did capture on film - in stark, stunning black and white - was something quite extraordinary (especially memorable is a late chase scene, in which Davey is running through desolate back alleys to avoid Rapullo and his cronies).

That’s not to say there aren’t hints of Kubrick the filmmaker to be found throughout Killer’s Kiss; an early scene, where Davey walks through his apartment, impatiently waiting for a phone call (eventually revealing Gloria’s apartment in the background), felt controlled and carefully staged, and the fight sequence, in which Davey faces off against the champion, was shot with a hand-held camera, making the bout as tense as it is exciting.

The performances are decent though not extraordinary (save Silvera, who makes for a fine villain), and plot-wise, Killer’s Kiss is nothing special; aside from a few intriguing flashbacks in which Gloria discusses her father and Ballerina sister (played by Kubrick’s wife Ruth Sobotka) and a thrilling climax set in a mannequin factory, the story that makes up Killer’s Kiss is film noir at its most routine.

But for fans of its director, the chance to see him sharpening his skills while at the same time allowing his photogenic eye to wander make this a movie you won’t want to miss!
Rating: 8 out of 10

#879. Spartacus (1960) - The Films of Stanley Kubrick

Directed By: Stanley Kubrick

Starring: Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons



Tag line: "They trained him to kill for their pleasure. . .but they trained him a little too well. . ."

Trivia: Sir Peter Ustinov joked about his daughter, born at the beginning of production, being in kindergarten by the time the film was finished. When asked what her father did for a living she would answer, "Spartacus"







A thrilling historical epic, 1960's Spartacus also tells the very personal tale of a slave who dreamed of freedom, then took on the world’s mightiest empire in order to attain it.

Shortly after he is condemned to death for attacking a guard, the Roman slave Spartacus (Kirk Douglas) is purchased by Batiatus (Peter Ustinov, who would win an Academy Award for his performance), owner of a training facility for gladiators. Over the course of the next several months, Spartacus is instructed in the fine art of killing for profit, yet also finds himself falling in love with Varinia (Jean Simmons), a house slave. 

After being forced to take part in a brutal fight to the death, Spartacus persuades his fellow gladiators to rise up against their cruel masters, and before long, he has not only taken control of Batiatus's’ school, but the surrounding villages as well, building an army of slaves that he himself has set free. 

While most of Italy panics at the prospect of a slave uprising, Roman Senator Gracchus (Charles Laughton) uses this rebellion to advance the career of his young apprentice, Julius Caesar (John Gavin), and to destroy the reputation of his chief adversary, Crassus (Laurence Olivier), a military leader and one of the most powerful men in Rome. 

With the ruling class at each others' throats, Spartacus takes advantage of the extra time allotted him and marches his troops towards the sea, where he hopes to hire a fleet of ships that will carry him and his ragtag army as far away from Rome as possible.

Directed by Stanley Kubrick (who took over when Anthony Mann was fired a week into production), Spartacus is both a sprawling epic and a stirring drama, its moments of spectacle interspersed with an intimate tale of a people fighting to be free. The film’s various battle scenes, some of which boast thousands of extras, are spectacular; the final confrontation between Spartacus’ slave army and Crassus’ troops is as exciting as it gets. But the quieter sequences are just as effective, like the touching relationship between Spartacus and Varinia, and the battle of wills that sees Crassus and Gracchus butting heads on the floor of the Roman Senate.

Spartacus does, indeed, tell a grand story, yet never loses sight of the deeply personal ones that drive it.

#478. Paths of Glory (1957) - The Films of Stanley Kubrick

Directed By: Stanley Kubrick

Starring: Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou



Tag line: "Never has the screen thrust so deeply into the guts of war!"

Trivia:  The film was shot near Munich, Germany, and most of the men playing French soldiers were actually off-duty officers from the Munich Police Department

Paths of Glory is the best anti-war film ever made. By exploring the sharp contrast between the men who plan the battles and those asked to die in them, director Stanley Kubrick drives home the point that, while war may be hell for some, it's merely an inconvenience for others. 

France, 1916. French General Paul Mireau (George MacReady) has just received orders from his superior, General Broulard (Adolphe Menjou), to advance on a heavily fortified German position known as the Ant Hill. Though his men are battle-weary, Gen Mireau accepts the mission, and assigns his second in command, Col. Dax (Kirk Douglas), to lead the charge. 

The ensuing battle is a disaster.  What's more, many troops remain in their trenches, unable to join the fracas due to intense enemy fire. In a fit of anger, Mireau calls the soldiers who stayed behind "cowards", and issues an order by which three men, chosen at random, will represent the entire battalion before a military tribunal. These three will then stand trial on charges of mutiny and cowardice, the penalty for which is death by firing squad. 

Col. Dax is appalled by the very notion of shooting his own men, and volunteers to act as counsel for the defense. With the odds against him, Col. Dax fights diligently for acquittal, understanding full well the lives of three innocent soldiers hang in the balance. 

In General Paul Mireau, Paths of Glory has given us one of the most loathsome characters in the long history of war films. Mireau’s thirst for personal glory is obvious; he accepts the impossible mission only after Brousard all but promises him a promotion for doing so. He's also out of touch with his troops, having spent the majority of the war miles from the front lines. As his men struggle to survive the daily bombardments that shake their mud-lined trenches, Mireau is holed up in a French villa, complete with imported rugs and the finest wines. 

This disparity is clearly defined in the scene where, on the eve of the doomed battle, Mireau makes a tour of the trenches. Marching straight ahead, like a peacock proudly displaying his feathers, his forward progress is temporarily broken when he addresses a weary soldier (Fred Bell) suffering from shell shock. In a move that would have made General Patton proud, Mireau slaps the soldier and orders him sent away in disgrace. 

Contrasting this sequence is the actual battle, when the camera focuses on Col. Dax as he personally leads the charge on the Ant Hill. We follow Dax across the battlefield in much the same way we followed the General on his “tour”. However, unlike Mireau, Dax must climb over the bodies of his men to maintain his forward progress. 

Throughout Paths of Glory, Kubrick paints an unflattering picture of military leaders, who position their soldiers on the field of battle as if they were pawns on a chess board, knowing full well that, to achieve final victory, the majority of their "pieces" will have to be sacrificed. To Gen. Mireau's dismay, his troops weren't the mindless pawns he hoped them to be, and, though prepared to die for their country, were not quite ready to lay down their lives for the king.