The movie Full Metal Jacket, directed by Stanley Kubrick, is a chronicle of Marines as they are trained to become efficient killers during their time at boot camp and then on to wage war in the jungles and streets of Viet Nam. Essentially told through the point of view of Private “Joker,” who doubles as both platoon member and reporter, the movie is an intense adaptation of author Gustav Hasford’s The Short-timers, an account of his own experiences while marshalling through the hardships of Marine basic training and then onto the battleground in Southeast Asia. While not an accurate retelling of Hasford’s work, Kubrick’s movie is an intense experience that is essentially told in two parts. The first has to do with the experiences of Marine platoon members at the hands of a sadistic Drill Sergeant bound and determined to turn each into killers. The second part of the movie relates to the experience of the platoon as it makes its way through the rubble of a city until being confronted by a Viet Cong sniper. Both parts are quite intense, yet the movie in sum differs in many respects from the book.
First and foremost is the affect that the Marine Drill Sergeant, Hartman, had on the lowly private Leonard “Gomer Pyle” Lawrence, a nickname given to Lawrence by his drill instructor essentially for purposes of ridiculing him (Full Metal Jacket). Hartman’s relationship with every platoon member in the movie is psychologically sadistic, but he reserves the worst for Lawrence, whom the Sergeant constantly belittles and humiliates. However, Hasford’s account of Hartman, named Gerheim in the book, is that he was physically abusive. In fact, the book as told through the point of view of Joker, informs that the Sergeant severely beat him on the first day of week five (Hasford 5) But, it is during the final days of boot camp that Hartman ramps up his taunts and harangues of Lawrence, who eventually breaks down and kills Hartman and himself (Full Metal Jacket). The difference here between the movie and the book is quite pivotal. While the essential motivation of Sergeant Hartman/Gerheim in both movie and book was to turn each Marine recruit into a killer. The movie undermines this by cutting Hartman off in mid-sentence as Lawrence shoots him. In the book, Hasford’s official account has it that Gerheim expresses to Lawrence seconds before death, and knowing full well that he was about to die, that he was proud of the fact that Lawrence had turned into the killer Gerheim knew he could become (Hasford 12).
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The scene described above is one of the most riveting in the entire movie. However, there are various differences existing between Kubrick’s effort and that of Hasford. The primary reason given by Hasford for Gerheim referring to Lawrence as “Gomer Pyle” is because in the book he is described as being a tall, skinny redneck (Hasford). However, in the movie Hartman refers to Lawrence as Gomer Pyle because he berates Lawrence as being stupid (Full Metal Jacket). The part of the movie when the platoon finally kills the sniper is actually a compilation of two encounters reported by Hasford. The official version told by Hasford begins with the platoon seeking out a sniper with the assistance of a tank. While the second encounter occurs while troop members are being picked off, but eventually relent and kill the sniper, who happens to be female (Hasford). In this second encounter told through the movie, the sniper is killed amongst the rubble of a ruined building. But, Hasford’s version has it that the sniper is killed on a roof.
There are many such discrepancies between the movie version and the official account told by Hasford. The Full Metal Jacket screenplay was co-written by Kubrick and Hasford, so their meetings must have been an intense exchange of deciding what goes on, versus what stays out. Full Metal Jacket remains a classic retelling of the Vietnam War experience, but Hasford’s accounting of his days reporting the war presents a vastly more intense world that no human should ever be exposed to.
- Full Metal Jacket. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Matthew Modine and R. Lee Ermey. Warner Home Video, 2007. DVD.
- Hasford, Gustav. The Short-timers. New York: Harper & Row, 1979. Print.
