FULL METAL JACKET "The hidden hand"

“THE HIDDEN HAND”

An in-depth analysis of
Stanley Kubrick’s

FULL METAL JACKET

14) The illusive self

The crossover of narrative elements between the recruit training and tour of duty sections of FMJ are also present at the character level. Perhaps the most interesting of these comparisons is that of Private Pyle and Animal Mother. Facially they are very similar and both have large physical frames, one flabby and one muscular. The playful and non-aggressive Pyle is, personality wise, the polar opposite of the kill-crazy Animal Mother. Pyle is shown time and time again slowing down his platoon mates on the assault courses, but in Vietnam Animal takes the lead in battle - even when his immediate superior, Cowboy, gives the order to withdraw. Two shots that communicate this duality are the slow motion shot of Pyle charging and falling in mud, while joker and the team try to pick him up and drag him, and the steadicam shot of Animal charging towards his injured buddies, with his machine gun firing away from one arm.

After Pyle takes a blanket party beating from the platoon he symbolically dies inside and becomes the kind of heartless psychopath that Animal is. Remember that Pyle’s creepy grin in the toilets was described in the script as “the terrible grin of the skull”. In comparison Animal has a phrase scrawled on his helmet that reads: “I am become death”. In addition to creating a death and rebirth link between Pyle and Animal, this phrase was also spoken by the scientist Oppenheimer after detonation of the very first atomic bomb.

We also identified in a previous chapter that Pyle’s beating and suicide were basically dream sequences and hence metaphoric of the brainwashing process. So if Pyle didn’t die in the flesh then this would explain his metaphoric presence in Vietnam. His brainwashing was so complete that by the time he enters the battlefield he is unrecognizable – a fuzzy reflection of his former self.

One particular comment by Hartman very strongly supports the theme of Pyle’s rebirth into a battlefield psychopath: “Private Pyle, you are definitely born again hard”. At this very point the platoon marching in the background turn and walk in a different direction. To my knowledge this does not happen in any of the other recruit training scenes. A less conclusive connection is that in the toilets Hartman calls Joker and Pyle “animals”: “What are you animals doing in my head?” – perhaps a reference to Animal Mother.

Other characters in FMJ also appear to mirror each other in a sort of dual psyche. The black soldier Eightball is possibly the mirror version of Private Snowball – their names seem to emphasize the colours black and white, which links up with the racism themes of the film.

It’s also possible that certain characters are divided multiply in the tour of duty scenes. For example, the psychotic brainwashed Pyle is mirrored by Animal, yet the child-like Pyle before the blanket party may be mirrored in Joker’s buddy Rafterman, who has a baby-faced look. Joker was assigned by Hartman to take care of Pyle and show him the ropes. He was also assigned to by the chief editor to do the same with Rafterman.

Joker and Cowboy also seem to represents parts of each other.

They are the only two recruits who wear glasses.

They talk to each other in a vertically mirrored shot, while cleaning “the head”.

They also mirror each other when they are marching on either side of Hartman in the barracks while singing: "This is my rifle, this is my gun ...". One has his rifle on his right shoulder, while the other has his rifle on his left. Aren't the platoon always supposed to march in unison with their rifles on the same shoulder?

A slightly less symmetrical mirroring of these two characters is when they are reunited in the temple, where Joker meets the Lusthogs. In this scene a side shot moves toward Cowboy and Joker, like in the toilet mopping scene. It then cuts to a total reverse angle from the other side, which flips each character from one side of the screen to the other.

They also share the same bunk until Hartman puts Joker with Pyle.

The death of Cowboy seems to be the turning point at which the film visually turns into Joker’s private hell. As if Cowboy’s death was somehow his own.

The strafing shot of Cowboy creeping along the streets of Hue with pillars passing in from of the camera (just before the sniper encounter) is mirrored by a shot of Joker creeping through the hellish version of the barracks in search of the sniper.

When marching to the Mickey Mouse song, Joker narrates: “I am alive and in one piece … and short”. The phrase “I’m short” is also written on the back of Cowboy’s helmet. Joker also switched places with a shorter recruit between shots in the first recruit training scene, while spouting: “Is that you John Wayne? Is this me?” Hartman: “Who said that?”

Details of the script offer more evidence of Joker and Cowboy as a dual natured single character. When Joker is reunited with Cowboy he narrates: “In the gray Marine issue glasses, Comboy does not look like a killer, but like a reporter for a high school newspaper, which he was less than a year ago”. Remember that Joker also told Hartman that he wrote for his high school newspaper.

Many lines of Hartman’s dialogue in the script were kept in the film, but addressed to entirely different characters. And in the film the training recruits were numbered Platoon 3092, while in the script it is the Lusthogs who are numbered 3092.

There are many more connections that hint of dual identity either between individuals or between the recruits and Lusthogs as a whole.

Joker to Cowboy: "Why go back? Here, there - same, same."

Joker to Cowboy: "I don't think Leonard can hack it". and Cowboy on his death bed: "I can hack it".

The Vietnamese man who steals Rafterman's camera could be mirrored in the pimp character seen with the second prostitute. He may even be mirrored in the dead NVA soldier sat with Crazy Earl. The pimp also has a name label on his shirt - Xuan Lam. Xuan Lam was a high ranking officer of the South Vietnamese ARVN forces and was strongly criticized for carrying out an innefficient campaign against the NVA. Notice also that he arrives on a motorbike. The camera thief escapes on a motorbike.

The circular doors in the temple where we first meet the Lusthogs may be mirrored by the hexagonal doors of the sniper temple. Perhaps this is implying a hidden narrative connection between the two scenes. The circular doors could also represent the camera lens of Rafterman, through which we see the Lusthog's fantasy world. One shot of Animal reveals that in the background there are two hexagonal doors, one visible through the other. This was also seen with the circular doors in the earlier temple.

Pyle killed himself while sitting on a toilet in the "head" and Animal tells Rafterman: "Flush out your head gear new guy".

The almost identical deaths of Cowboy and Hartman may be hinting that the psychological conflict in the toilets was actually between Pyle, Joker and Cowboy - with Cowboy being metaphorically stood in for by Hartman. Why is Hartman seen wearing his hat if has just lept out of bed?

Eightball told his two dead buddy's: "Go easy bro's", which may have been mirrored in Joker's line to Leonard in the toilet: "Go easy Leonard".

The death's of Touchdown and Crazy Earl probably bare relation to each other. Both are killed by some sort of booby trap while in command and both are given mouth to mouth resuscitation but die anyway.

Note: The presence of a magician rabbit toy as the instrument of Earl's death is undoubtedly a symbolic choice of Kubrick's. There's no sensible reason why Earl should pick up the toy in the first place. The only other magic references I could find in FMJ were Hartman's announcement: "There will be a magic show at 09:30" or the references to the magic bullet theory of John F Kennedy's assassination (see next chapter).

I know many of these interchanging character and split personality concepts are vague, but there is enough evidence in FMJ to verify their existence as part of the story’s symbolic structure. It may be that this lack of conclusive evidence as to which characters represent which is in itself a message that the brainwashed soldier lacks a defined sense of self. Their individuality has been mostly erased. Carl Jung’s the shadow shows itself as both the illusive enemy and the illusive self.