FULL METAL JACKET "The hidden hand"

“THE HIDDEN HAND”

An in-depth analysis of
Stanley Kubrick’s

FULL METAL JACKET

15) Where’s the sniper?

Earlier I described a set detail that changed between shots during Cowboy’s death - a hanging window frame which moved from a vertical cinema screen like position high up on a wall to a vertical door position on the ground, providing subtle verification that the burning building structure on the horizon was a burning monolith.

Theres is another changing set detail on the same building as the moving window frame, and it is also linked to the films subliminal themes. As the Lusthogs approach a corner to view the sniper’s position, they unknowingly gather near a hole in the building structure. The sniper then shoots Cowboy through the hole. This piece of the story is straight forward and easy to understand, but … go back and watch again as the soldiers creep up to the corner. Look through the gap in the wall – the hole is not there! The rear wall is bricked up, yet it disappears in a following shot, thus allowing the sniper to shoot Cowboy.

I’m not the first to notice this. It has been identified on other film buff sites as an apparent “continuity error”, but look at the wall again from the snipers viewpoint. When she targets Eightball the wall is intact and when she targets Doc Jay the hole has suddenly appeared. So throughout the whole scene the wall disappears, reappears then disappears again.

Now watch as the squad move on from Cowboy’s corpse. They approach another corner before throwing some smoke grenades to block the sniper’s view. This same corner features a damaged section of wall. Animal brings this second hole to the attention of Joker and to we the audience: “Watch that fucking hole”. In all probability Kubrick is letting us know that the disappearing wall was deliberate.

So what was he communicating with this set change? Well, I don’t have a conclusive answer, but I can suggest a few possibilities.

It could be part of the hell on Earth themes described in chapter 13 – a demonic sniper who can see and fire through walls. Another possibility is that, like the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey (see review), the entire sniper battle could be a dream sequence, and so this is a clue that the physical laws of reality don’t apply. And another possibility is that Kubrick is playing with our perception of bullet directions in order to encode a hidden narrative.

There are some interesting comparisons between the various slow motion bullet impacts in FMJ. When Hartman is shot, the bullet enters his chest from the front, but despite being shot from almost point blank range it lodges in his body. There is no blood or bullet impact in the walls behind him. A splash of blood also emerges in slow motion from his chest, which is the direction the bullet came from.

These bullet impact details are mismatched in the sniper battle. All of the shots appear to rip completely through the soldiers bodies and emerge from the other side, despite the greater distance from which the gunfire came. The blood splashes look almost identical to the one from Hartman’s chest, even though the bullets were supposedly from behind. And another curious detail is that several of Eightball and Doc Jay's wounds have exit points, but no entry points. So where are the bullets really coming from?

Also look at the sniper being shot by Rafterman. The bullets seem to fly through her from behind. As Rafterman approaches her body notice that there is a a large hole in the wall behind where she was shot. The bullet impacts look more like she had been shot through this hole.

The fact that all of these bizarre bullet impacts occur in slow motion seems to be an exaggeration of their finer details, as if Kubrick wants us to see the errors.

Now I’m aware that depicting realistic bullet impacts on film is a difficult task, but there are more details of FMJ that curiously fit with what i've described.

Consider Cowboy’s interview statement: “I’m not too keen on some of these fellas that are supposedly on our side. I keep meetin’ em coming the other way … Yeah”. Notice that as Cowboy says: “Coming the other way”, he gestures toward the very location where a sniper bullet supposedly emerges from his chest. Is this a subtle message that he was shot not by the sniper, but from a different direction? And more importantly, shot by who?

This brings us to another two “continuity errors” in the sniper battle that have been cited on various film websites. As Cowboy, Joker and the other men make their way across the open space to meet up with Animal and hunt the sniper, the camera scrolls by a supposed “crew member” in the foreground. This person is out of focus, but is obviously a white male wearing combat fatigues, which a crew member wouldn’t be wearing. It also makes little sense that a crew member would have their head raised so prominently in front of the camera during a take.

And here is the other “continuity error”. When Cowboy is told by Animal that there is: “only one sniper, nothing else”, he orders No-doze, Stutton, Donlon and Rock to go with him. Joker and Rafterman also volunteer to tag along. Including Cowboy this is a total of seven men, but Kubrick then shows us with a wide shot that only six men run across toward the buildings. At the end of this shot a total of seven soldiers, including Animal, stop near a wall ... there should now be eight. The angle cuts to a close up as they stand and move toward the next building. Count again. Now we see eight men in the team. It's unlikely that the glaring continuity errors in the number of Lusthogs would occur at the same time as a fatigued "crew member" managed to so prominently pass over the cameras field of vision. No. I believe this to be part of FMJs visual code.

And here's another strange factor regarding the number of soldiers. After Cowboy's death only five of the remaining Lusthogs pursue the sniper. Notice that after she is shot just five marines gather around her, but pay attention after the smkoe grenadeas are thrown by Animal and Joker. All five of these men run into an alley next to the MY TOAN building. they are all on screen, yet one of them turns around and gestures directly in front of the camera with his hand as if telling another soldier to hurry up. Who is this soldier? Was the gesture made directly to we the audience in order to pull us further into the narrative or is their an invisible soldier among the action?

Now try combining the assorted details described so far in this chapter – an illusive sniper, disappearing walls, mismatching bullet impacts, a soldier hiding in the rubble and a soldier that disappears and reappears among the Lusthogs. Unless this is incredible co-incidence it appears that Kubrick is offering a subliminal narrative in which Cowboy is shot from the front and not from behind. But what would be the point of this?

Let's go back to the spree killer theme, in which we already explored the Charles Whitman references. Hartman also mentioned Lee Harvey Oswald, who supposedly shot President Kennedy in the back of the head from a high rise window in 1963. Compelling rumours have persisted in the decades since that Kennedy was shot not by Oswald, but by a different sniper who fired from the grassy knoll, which was to the side of Kennedy’s limo. Of course, if this were true then a high level conspiracy within the US establishment and intelligence agencies becomes very likely. This conspiracy rumour has been so persistent that Oliver Stone (who co-incidentally wrote and directed Platoon) directed a major Hollywood film on the subject.

In FMJ the positions of the mysterious foreground figure, the sniper and Cowboy as he is shot, are very similar to those of President Kennedy, Oswald’s alleged position in the book depository window and the alleged sniper in the grassy knoll.

The conspiracy accusations also frequently cite that when Kennedy was shot in the head the burst of blood and jerking of his head “back and to the side” proves that the fatal shot could not possibly have come from Oswald in the book depository, which was directly behind Kennedy.

This ties in with the disjointed logic of the bullet impacts and exit wounds in FMJ. The magic dematerializing wall, through which Cowboy is supposedly shot, may also be a reference to the “magic bullet” theory of Kennedy’s murder. Notice also that on Joker's helmet a circular target has been drawn on the side (viewable as Cowboy is dying).

Animal's question: "Where's the sniper?" was directed at a character called Doc Jay. This could be Kubrick referencing the mysterious John F. Kennedy autopsy that should have established the direction of bullet impact once and for all.

The concept of a side on bullet impact in the head is also found on the marketing poster. A helmet against a white background combines Joker's "born to kill" slogan and peace button with the strap of bullets found on the back of Animal Mother's helmet. This links to the concept of characters representing portions of each other's psyche.

Equally interesting is that in the centre on the helmet is a splash of red paint among the camouflage greens. It's position is identical to the target on Jokers helmet. But look a little closer. The bullets nearest to the red blotch appear to be covered in blood. The red patch is a symbolic bullet hole. This may be part of the Kennedy assasination theme or perhaps it's a metaphor that the FMJ film is a psychological attacking the military mindset.

The poster may also be some sort of mockery of the poster for Oliver Stone's Platoon. Both feature a helmet with a peace button and a slogan, but the Platoon helmet is upside down.

An additional connection with the Kennedy assassination is that Cowboy is from Texas, which is also where Kennedy was killed. There is also a confederate flag on the side of Cowboy's helmet with an unidentified face is in the middle of it. I'm not sure what this is intended to mean. Perhaps it is simply communicating that the target on the side of Joker's helmet is in fact related to Kennedy's assassination in the South state of Texas.

Earlier Snowballtold Hartman that Oswald was “pretty far” and that he shot Kennedy from “that book suppository building”. As well as giving us a good laugh, this could be Kubrick’s tongue in cheek comment that the Warren Commission’s theory of Oswald as the lone gunman is “full of shit” so to speak. As a possible reference to the book depository, in the script the Lusthogs even hunt through a library to find the sniper, with Joker for some reason picking up a Jules Verne book along the way.

Although this Kennedy conspiracy theme is a sketchy interpretation of FMJ’s symbology, it is certainly difficult to ignore because it does present a logical pattern for some very strange details of the sniper battle. This also wouldn’t be the first time Kubrick had encoded conspiracy accusation messages into his films. In fact they seem to be a regular occurrence.