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September 16, 2006
FMJ
This is the best depiction of boot camp ever filmed, from the first half of Stanley Kubrick's flawed Vietnam film Full Metal Jacket.
It's hilarious -- to veterans, at least -- and unbelievably profane to anyone who never served in the military, where entire conversations can be had using only various conjugations of an Anglo-Saxon word dealing with the act most essential to the continuation of the human race.
The drill instructor is played by R. Lee Ermey, who was hired by Kubrick to serve as a consultant. Unsatisfied with the performance of the actor hired to play the D.I., Kubrick asked Ermey for some input on how a real drill instructor would curse. Ermey, a Marine who had been a drill instructor, launched into an unbelievable curse-filled rant, never repeating himself over the course of several minutes, and a star was born.
According to IMDB:
Much, if not all, of R. Lee Ermey's dialogue during the Parris Island sequence was improvised. While filming the opening scene, where he disciplines Pvt. Cowboy, he says Cowboy is the type of guy who would have sex with another guy "and not even have the goddamned common courtesy to give him a reach-around". Stanley Kubrick immediately yelled cut and went over to Ermey and asked, "What the hell is a reach-around?" Ermey politely explained what it meant. Kubrick laughed and re-shot the scene, telling Ermey to keep the line.
The entire bootcamp portion of the film is often very, very funny, capturing the essence of the transformation of a bunch of American individuals into a cohesive military unit, while being laugh-out-loud funny right up until the end of training.
The film then moves to Vietnam for its second, deeply flawed and ultimately unsatisfying second half.
But all that notwithstanding, I've seen the film many times over the last twenty years, usually not watching the Vietnam portion. It never fails to dredge up my own memories of bootcamp, and always makes me laugh at how miserable I was at the time, and how amusing much of it is in retrospect.
And Ermey is something to behold, a primal force of nature, the Ur-D.I. Wanna turn mama's boys into Marines? Watch how it was done in the pre-P.C. Corps.
Posted by Mike Lief at September 16, 2006 12:18 AM
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Comments
You're right -- the first half of FMJ is an absolute classic.
Posted by: Bubblehead at September 18, 2006 11:06 PM
I never get tired of Ermey's rants.
"Oh that's right, Private Pyle, don't make any fucking effort to get to the top of the fucking obstacle. If God would have wanted you up there he would have miracled your ass up there by now, wouldn't he?"
Posted by: Mike Lief at September 21, 2006 07:18 PM