Thread by @ATRightMovies

FULL METAL JACKET was released 38 years ago today. A classic Vietnam War film as well as one of Stanley Kubrick’s most popular works, the behind the scenes story is typically Kubrick…

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Following The Shining, Stanley Kubrick was interested in making a war film. Looking for source material he read many novels and came across Gustav Hasford’s The Short-Timers. Kubrick called it "a unique, absolutely wonderful book" and decided to adapt it.

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Kubrick contacted author and Vietnam veteran Michael Herr. Herr wasn’t interested in revisiting his war experiences, and Kubrick spent three years persuading him. Kubrick said the discussions were "a single phone call lasting three years.”

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Kubrick wanted unknown names for his main cast and placed ads throughout the magazines in the U.S. for young aspiring actors to send in audition tapes. They received about 3000 submissions, and Kubrick personally watched most of them himself.

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The lead is Private Joker and Anthony Michael Hall was cast. It didn’t work out because Hall and Kubrick couldn’t agree on a salary for the film, so Hall left the production.

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Kubrick cast Matthew Modine. Reportedly, Val Kilmer challenged Modine to a fight in a restaurant as he thought Modine had stolen the part of Joker from him. Modine wasn’t aware of the film but as a result, sent in audition footage and won the part. Here’s Kilmer’s video.

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Kubrick wanted Bill McKinney to play Gunnery Sgt. Hartman. McKinney is most known for saying “squeal like a pig!” in Deliverance. line. However, Kubrick was so freaked out by McKinney in Deliverance that he changed his mind, as he didn’t want to be in his presence.

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Kubrick cast Tim Colceri as Hartman. Colceri spent weeks rehearsing for 6 days-a-week, twelve hours-a-day. After 10 weeks, Kubrick’s assistant, Leon Vitali, came to Colceri’s house and gave him a letter. It was from Kubrick, telling him he’d been replaced by R. Lee Ermey.

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A week later, Colceri was told he had been rehired because Ermey had been in a car crash. A few days after that, Vitali came back and said Kubrick was shutting down production to give Ermey time to recover. Colceri is in the movie though, as the door gunner below…

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R. Lee Ermey was firstly hired as consultant on the film but lobbied for the part of Hartman. He sent a video in which he yelled abuse for 15 minutes without stopping while being pelted with tennis balls and oranges. Kubrick was impressed and cast Ermey as Hartman.

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Kubrick was going to write dialogue for Hartman himself, but he was so impressed with Ermey he let him improvise during rehearsals and would then rewrite the script to incorporate Ermey’s ad-libs. It was the first time Kubrick had let an actor improvise since Peter Sellers in Dr Strangelove.

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Vincent D’Onofrio was working as a nightclub bouncer when he heard about the auditions for Full Metal Jacket. He rented a camera, hired army fatigues, and recorded his audition. Kubrick was suitably impressed.

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However, when the studio called to tell D’Onofrio he’d won the part of Pyle, D’Onofrio hung up. He thought it was one of his pals playing a prank! Luckily, they called back.

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D’Onofrio went method put on 70lbs in weight for the role of Pyle, beating the previous record of 60lbs set by Robert De Niro in Raging Bull. D’Onofrio said his new look scared off women and that people would say things to him twice as they thought he was mentally slow.

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Some bigger names were considered for other roles in the film. Denzel Washington was Kubrick’s first choice to play Eightball but he didn’t have time to read the script. And the part of Animal Mother was reportedly turned down by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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The title was changed from Gustav Hasford’s book The Short Timers. A Full Metal Jacket is ammunition that under the Geneva Convention can be used by military personnel. Michael Herr said the title is a commentary on the absurdity of making civilized rules for warfare.

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Also, Joker’s real name is JT Davis. This is a reference to Spec. James T. Davis, who was the first US casualty in Vietnam – killed in 1961.

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Kubrick and Herr worked closely but Kubrick only spoke to Hasford on the phone. He wanted to meet Hasford but Herr said “he’s a very scary man.” Kubrick and Hasford did meet and it went so badly Hasford was kept out of the writing process for the rest of the film.

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Hasford later tried legal action to get full writing credit. At one point, reportedly, Hasford and two of his friends snuck onto the set dressed in military clothes. Their motives were unknown, but they were recognised and security forcibly removed them.

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The score was written by Vivian Kubrick, Stanley’s daughter. She worked under the pseudonym Abigail Mead – from Abbott’s Mead, the mansion where the Kubrick’s once lived. In the scene below, Vivian is seen in the background holding a camera and shooting into the grave.

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Filming one of the battle sequences, an entire family of rabbits was killed by an explosion. Being a big animal lover, Kubrick was so distraught he shut down production for a day.

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Another time, when scouting locations with DP Douglas Milsome, Kubrick was driving his wife’s SUV in the countryside, and crashed into a huge ditch. Milsome said Kubrick just got out of the car and carried on talking about how it was a great location on the walk home.

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Kubrick’s perfectionism was on show. The Jelly Doughnut scene took 37 takes. He also prevented the actors playing the recruits meeting Ermey or talking to him between takes as he wanted the on-screen friction to be believable.

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The production was so long that, in that time, Modine got married, his wife got pregnant, the child was born, and then turned 1 year old all during the course of between him being cast and filming wrapping.

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Modine also did some work off screen to get into character. Joker is a writer, so Modine would bring a diary to the set and write in it every day. This diary was later published as Full Metal Jacket Diary.

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Kubrick has a cameo. In the below sequence, Cowboy radios base to request back up and speaks to Sergeant Murphy. The person voicing Murphy is Kubrick.

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When they were filming the bootcamp scenes Kubrick told DP Douglas Milsome he wanted freedom to go anywhere in the barracks, so all Milsome’s lighting equipment was outside. This created the look in the film of sunlight pouring through the windows.

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Both the US and Vietnam set scenes were filmed on location in England. Kubrick lived in England and didn’t like to fly. You can tell as the road markings are UK markings rather than US.

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A Kubrick trademark is the “Kubrick stare”. D’Onofrio said he based his performance in this scene on Lon Chaney, who played the Wolfman in the 1941 horror. He said he was pleased because, directing him, Kubrick told D’Onofrio, “I want you to be big – Lon Chaney big.”

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This sniper sequence was shot at Beckton Gasworks in London. Production designer Anton Furst had 300 palm trees flown in from Spain to and went through over 6000 photographs from the Vietnam War as research.

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The below scene seems to show Pyle disobeying an order because he doesn’t pick his cover up when Hartman says to. That’s because it wasn’t in the script for Pyle’s hat to be knocked off and first time it happened D’Onofrio picked the hat up, and Kubrick shouted at him.

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The first image we see in the film is the new recruits into the US marine corp having their heads shaved and identities stripped. This was the final scene filmed and many of the cast were not happy, as they’d just grown their hair back from the shoot.

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One of the toughest scenes to watch in the film is when the marines attack Pyle in his bunk. This kind of bullying has been reported in military academies in real life and is called a ‘Blanket Party’ after the below scene…

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Iconic writer-director Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot, The Apartment) was so impressed by the opening half of the film that he said if it had ended after the Parris Island boot camp sequence, it would’ve been the best movie he ever saw.

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Kubrick cut a graphic scene from the film. We would’ve seen the marines playing football. The camera pans out and we realise they’re not kicking a ball, they’re kicking a human head. It was deleted when the studio said there was no way they’d get away with it.

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In the final scene we see the recruits singing The Mickey Mouse Club theme. Kubrick originally wanted the Woody Woodpecker theme, but couldn’t get the rights.

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Kubrick had originally planned to end the film by cutting to flashbacks of Joker as a child, pretending he’s been shot and dying. This would have happened just before the squad was ambushed and Joker killed for real.

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Modine said he told Kubrick that Joker should live. He said Joker had to live because living with all of these experiences was worse than dying and Modine said, “that’s the real horror of war.” He said Kubrick listened and said “that’s the end of the movie.”

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To finish, some great behind the scenes shots from the set of Full Metal Jacket.

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If you liked our thread on the making of FULL METAL JACKET, please share the opening post.

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