I've seen Full Metal Jacket several times over the years. I don't know about the combat in the second half, I have no personal experience to use to form an opinion, but the boot camp scenes are as realistic as anything I ever seen. Lee Ermey as GySgt Hartmann is what every Drill Instructor on the field in 1977 wanted to be.
Here a classic scene, where Hartmann is doing a hygiene inspection, and finds his problem child, known only as Gomer Pyle, with an unlocked footlocker and some contraband.
I was on a forum discussing the movie recently and I pointed out that the doughnut was unrealistic. Primarily because, in three months on Parris Island, I never had dessert of any type. No cake, pie, cookies, and definitely no jelly doughnuts. Secondarily, the doughnut is pristine. It's not squished, it has a good shape, and it still is covered with powdered sugar. If Pyle had somehow landed the doughnut from who knows where, he still had to get the doughnut to the barracks and into his footlocker. It would not have been carefully carried in a box, it would have been tucked inside his uniform.
I got called out for taking the movie too seriously by one person, supported by others, and in the ensuing discussion I realized what Stanley Kubrick and Lee Ermey had done, right in front of us, and I had never heard it mentioned or thought of it before.
The only explanation for the doughnut in Pyle's footlocker is that Gunny Hartmann put it there. He would have had a list of combinations for all the recruit locks. He bought the doughnut, put it in the locker, and left the lock open so he could "discover" it, and then punish the rest of the platoon while having Pyle eat the doughnut. This leads to the blanket party scene where the platoon extracts revenge on Pyle.
And Pyle knows. He didn't put it there. None of them had seen a doughnut since they got on the bus. The injustice is what fuels his anger. It is the end of his attempts to conform, to grow into a Marine like the rest of the platoon.
15 comments:
No.
Pyle put the doughnut there
Overthinking it.
Impossible. No recruit on Parris Island ever saw a doughnut.
I was in boot camp over Easter. We had some Jewish folks, and the Navy did not have a way for them to celebrate Passover. So, they were able to spend the weekend with civilians in town. They smuggled some candy back. We ate the candy and our fear of being found out was so strong, we flushed the wrappers; rather than putting them in the trash. lol
You know no recruit ever saw a doughnut on P.I.
Kubrick didn't.
You're still overthinking it.
The doughnut scene was just lazy screenwriting, and bad shorthand to make a point, nothing more nor less. That's the discovery.
Hollywood only does that 24/7/365.
(Lou Gossett did it even worse, when he won an Oscar for them making it look like he single-handedly ran a Navy OCS platoon in Officer And A Gentleman. As. If.)
Pyle's failure is that he's Pyle.
I knew many Pyles.
I had them in my recruit platoon.
No one had to plant evidence; they were mega-fuck-ups on auto-pilot, 24/7/365, from Day One. Some hid it longer than others. Some didn't even try.
We had "Sniper", caught sighting in his M-16 on the 1st MAF's helo as it landed on the parade deck.
The "Filter Kings", caught smoking a half-smoked cigarette butt they'd found. (The scene where Profile is running around the entire formation coming back from the range in Heartbreak Ridge? Oh yeah, that happened in real life. Many times. Just ask the Filter Kings.)
And two outright Thieves who should've been shit-canned from the Marine Corps on the spot in boot camp, and later were court-martialed and shit-canned from the FMF, for stealing ordnance in MOS School right after.
Leavenworth Correctional is tough to explain on a resume.
The Corps oft-times fucks up by trying to salvage the unsalvageable, when it should just do them a mercy and kick them out as "unsuitable for military service" for life, the first time it becomes bog obvious.
Not everyone left MCRD in dress blues.
Some leave it in Levis.
Even two days before graduation.
Deservedly.
The D.I.s were simply the illusion of perfection, because they only had to put the show on for their shift.
It is the most elaborate staged performance in a military full of them.
The Blue Angels have nothing on Marine Corps boot camp for creating an illusion.
Doesn't matter for recruits, because they're expected to make illusion reality. Or else.
The problem comes when over-eager recruiters are desperate for audience participation, and screen in kids they should've screened out, and knew they should've screened out.
Anybody can do documentaries on Marine boot camp, or Buds Class 234. It's not hard.
The one I want to see, that would tear the mask off, would be to do a documentary on BUDS Class 234 Instructors, Behind The Scenes. Or ditto for Ranger School or SFAS Cadre.
Then the penny would drop.
The military would crap its pants to stop that reality show getting out.
Saw one of the sister platoons D.I.s in the base PX about a year after boot. After a momentary flashback, the truth dawned.
He was just another motor T sergeant, buying T-shirts and socks.
No, we had fuck-ups in the real world. You didn't need to help them, they would find a way. Both in boot camp and later. Sometimes hilarious. I have great stories.
I think it's hard, with Kubrick and Ermey gone, to know if they thought it through. I like the idea, though. I never saw a DI go after a recruit like Hartmann did Pyle. And there are no cases of recruits killing a DI. It has a shock effect that sets up the transition to the Vietnam part of the movie.
It's meant to.
And btw, in the scene, Pyle spontaneously confesses the he took the doughnut himself, and put it there.
So no imaginary and dastardly Hartman subterfuge is true, nor needed.
And it was only Pyle who left the footlocker unlocked, which triggered the whole scene.
Saw that kind of impromptu footlocker inspection more than once.
"Never went after a recruit"??
Talk to VN-era (65-70 era) recruits.
Older brother: Singing the Marine Corps Hymn with a steel mop bucket on his head, while two D.I.s randomly whapped the outside with mop handles.
For some recruit-level screw-up.
Not a mark on him. Point driven well home.
Back in that time period, there may not have been cases of recruits killing DIs, but there were cases of DIs killing recruits by physical abuse. Especially back in the days of the Draft when if you were drafted you generally got sent to the Army or the Marines. I have never seen "Full Metal Jacket" but believe it was set in that era. I have problems with respecting the Marine Corp for doing that rather than showing the recruits the door.
I don't care about the listed argument, just being a bit more pedantic or OCD or wtf ever, since it seems everyone here is a veteran of some service, my question is; did you have a combo lock in boot camp? My keyed master lock from boot camp (June '92) is right in front of me, haven't owned much longer then that (1903 Springfield from my dad that his dad gave him, Colt Single Six same grandfather gave me... can't think of much else). I think the reason I still have that lock is you can't take the key out without it being locked, so I've always had to lock it to something and it's always been something harder to forget about.
‘Full Metal Jacket’ was based (loosely) on a short story called, ‘The Short Timers’. The guy that wrote it was supposedly a Marine himself if I recall correctly. It’s been 25 years since I read it…but I think the guys had as much fun tormenting Pyle as much as the DI did and they all felt a measure of guilt for picking on Pyle and making him flip out… but I’m pretty sure that the story had Pyle hoarding junk food too. Kubrick may not be the source of the discrepancy.
Hrrrrrrrrmmmm. Time passes, and things change, even in the military. Could it be that during the Viet Nam era hoarding junk food was possible? Most of you lot were in during the 80’s, right? Could shifting cultural norms explain it? Nowadays, Pyle would be a general, run around in high heels, and Lee Ermy would have been in the stockade for forgetting to use pronouns! 😂👍
I am in both camps, ASM. It’s fun to deconstruct stories to divine the intent and motivations of the author…but there’s a time to just suspend the disbelief and roll with the story.
There you go, Glen! Thanks. One of my favorite all time movies. Lee Ermey cracks me up every time.
Son been in army 6 yrs now and made it thru SF training. But in basic OMG the stories he could tell about the fuckups who signed up “just because”. Army booted them out. No time to spend on them when others more willing to train and learn
I took basic so long ago that I don't remember any locks on my footlocker. A hasp yes, lock no. None of us had any money to amount to anything after all $68 didn't go far in those days either. And $5 for the 1st Sgt charity fund, $17 for a savings bond, $20 for haircuts, $10 for ciggies (yes, everybody smoked then), not much left for beer or anything else. No damned donuts though.
I was in the army from 83-86. "Never went after a recruit" harharhar... Pull the other one, it jingles!
Yeah, DIs have an open license to torment recruits. Yes they will single out the weak and focus everyone on that poor slob. And yes, there are recruits that aren't military material. Period. Cut them loose IMMEDIATELY or they will infect the rest of the recruits with whatever characteristic makes them unfit for military service. Basic training is the third step in the filtering process. The recruiter is the first filter, the physical exam is the second filter. AIT is the last chance to filter out the time and money wasters before they infect someone at there permanent station.
cool idea. one of those 'if I can't get you one way, I'll get you another.'
Our lockers had combo locks in the Coast Guard boot camp, but they had a master key access as well.
'Didn't matter where the donut came from. The company was in deep do-do regardless. Our CC planted contraband and "gear adrift" all the time!!! Many, many hours on the grinder because of those... MANY...
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