MY MOVIE SHELF: Full Metal Jacket

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 94 Days to go: 62

Movie #346:  Full Metal Jacket

If there’s one Kubrick film I really really like, it’s Full Metal Jacket. Maybe I’m showing my uncultured hand a little bit here, but I like a movie that can be just a movie — a movie with a clear-cut story, a beginning, middle and end. I like a movie that doesn’t need to be interpreted or pondered or dissected and instead can just be consumed — watched and enjoyed and put away, no questions asked. Full Metal Jacket works as that kind of movie. What makes it really great, though, is that it’s also a thoughtful study in contrasts.

When Private Joker (Matthew Modine) is in Vietnam, he wears a peace symbol pin on his jacket. He’s also written “Born to Kill” on his helmet. When asked about this contradiction, he claims to not know why he is sporting both messages, but settles on it being a statement about “the duality of man.” That duality is present throughout the film, and is highlighted again and again. We are not just one thing. We contain multitudes.

From the very beginning, the soldiers are Marine Corps. training are meant to have a single purpose — to be killers. The opening scene, in fact, is shot after shot of different recruits getting their hair shaved off, going from various individuals to identical cogs in a machine. They are not individuals anymore, and yet each one is given a personal nickname by Sargeant Hartman (R. Lee Ermey). That’s how Joker got to be Joker, how Cowboy (Arliss Howard) got to be Cowboy, and how Gomer Pyle (Vincent D’Onofrio) got to be Pyle. And even though they are now all part of a single unit (reciting cheerful upbeat lines about death and killing — another duality), they also fit their names. Gomer Pyle, naturally, is the biggest dolt in the squad. He screws everything up, he can’t do anything right. He’s the weakest. But then he also becomes the deadliest.

The contradictions continue from basic training into combat. Private Rafterman (Kevyn Major Howard) even comments on how the war frustrates him because the Americans have supposedly liberated the South Vietnamese, given them their freedom, but the Vietnamese don’t seem to want it. They don’t appreciate it. And Rafterman himself is a jittery little kid, itching to go out in the field, but scared shitless once he gets there. However, in a critical moment, it’s Rafterman who doesn’t hesitate. Just as it’s Joker who is the most serious, the most respectful, when a wounded Vietnamese sniper is lying before them begging for death. He’s not just one thing.

Even minor characters are given the chance to be more than a single character trait. For instance, Animal Mother (Adam Baldwin) is the fiercest, most gung-ho soldier out there — a seeming Neanderthal. And yet his helmet reads “Now I am become death,” a line from Hindu scripture. He has depth as well as single-mindedness, thoughtfulness as well as brutality.

Even the movie itself is a contradiction of sorts. It’s a serious film with a very heavy subject matter, and yet the tone is light and often comic. War is hell, after all, but even the most embattled soldiers are entitled to a little sucky-sucky once in a while. They love you long time.

 

MY MOVIE SHELF: A Clockwork Orange

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 101 Days to go: 67

Movie #339:  A Clockwork Orange

Sometimes there’s a reason I haven’t gotten around to seeing a movie. A Clockwork Orange came out before my time, but I’ve heard it discussed over the years. Most of that discussion centered around Alex (Malcolm McDowell) and the brutal violence he and his friends perpetrate. I’m not a fan of brutal violence, nor am I a huge fan of director Stanley Kubrick, so I opted out. Until now.

A Clockwork Orange isn’t as hard to watch as I feared. Despite a disturbingly cavalier attitude toward rape and sexual violence, most of the brutality happens off-screen or is given a cheeky veneer. It doesn’t make it less awful — it almost makes it conceptually more awful, actually — but the depictions on screen aren’t especially graphic. So while I was put off by the film, at least I wasn’t grossed out by it.

Rather than being hard to watch, actually, A Clockwork Orange is instead hard to listen to and comprehend. I estimate about 60% of the words spoken are complete nonsense, and even with the closed captioning on, it could be incredibly hard to follow. (My apologies if these words are legitimate British jargon, but somehow I doubt it. It’s crazily exaggerated jibber-jabber, like if Tom Haverford was a new-age hooligan.) The film is clearly making a statement about youth culture, along with violence and psychiatry and politics and the legal system and juvenile delinquency and probably a slew of other things, but I confess I’m not sure what that statement is. “We’re all fucked,” maybe? It’s Kubrick, so, entirely possible.

One thing I’m fairly certain of, though, based on the ever-changing hair color of Alex’s mom (Sheila Raynor), is that she’s likely the great-aunt of Effie Trinket, meaning the dystopian near-future of A Clockwork Orange is simply a precursor to the dystopian future of Panem. It tracks, too, because all the psychological experimentation, cruel prison system, and raging eccentricities of the populace could easily morph into those of the Capitol.

A Clockwork Orange was released in 1971, based on the book of the same name that came out in the previous decade, and around that time, treatises on government, free will and totalitarianism were at the forefront of the cultural landscape, so I guess you could say the film is a product of its time, tapping into the social unrest and revolutionary attitudes of entire movements. That landscape has changed drastically in the last forty years, however, so I’m not sure it makes the same impact as it once did. Then again, with certain factions of our society excusing the use of torture and police brutality in certain instances, perhaps the film is more timely than its era and setting might suggest.

The thing is, I could see people reacting to the movie in any number of ways, with a broad spectrum of emotions and insights. Whether positively or negatively, A Clockwork Orange sparks a reaction. It generates discussion and debate. In truth, that might be the most successful thing about it, and what makes it such a classically noteworthy film. Whatever else it does, it definitely makes one think.

 

MY MOVIE SHELF: 2001: A Space Odyssey

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 105 Days to go: 70

Movie #335:  2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey is the kind of film that really needs to be seen in a theater. It’s not that you can’t enjoy it at home (I know someone who watches it repeatedly), but the experience is muted. The first few minutes, for example, are total blackness cut through with imposing music before the signature theme kicks in over a shot of the Sun rising over the Moon and the Earth from space. It’s the kind of thing that goes a long way to setting an uncomfortable and trepidatious mood in the wide-open darkness of a cinema, but at home you’re likely still doing other things, not paying attention to the movie yet at all.

The enormity of Kubrick’s vision also lends itself better to the larger-than-life screens of a theater than even the biggest top-of-the-line TV. The great expanse of space, the sprawling vistas of ancient earth, and the massive interior of the Discovery One ship are all meant to feel huge, to dwarf those who come up against it. In the shots of Discovery’s interior, particularly, when all of it is in frame, astronauts Frank (Gary Lockwood) and Dave (Keir Dullea) are tiny against the huge empty whiteness of the ship. This is intentional, to put the audience in a state of both awe and unease. We are meant to feel outmatched by the very things we purport to control.

Kubrick was known for a certain austerity in his filmmaking. He likes bold, stark imagery, towering (sometimes incongruent) musical cues, and silence to tell his stories, at least as much as any other element, and in 2001 he really pushed that envelope. Large sections of the film have no dialogue at all and the scenes that do (or that have potential for dialogue, anyway) have no music. The film is operatic and visually striking in a way that’s meant to engage one’s subconscious emotions rather than just the mind. It’s art, in all the best ways art can be.

From a narrative point of view, however, the movie is lacking. It doesn’t tell a clear-cut story (aside from the stellar third act, which is chilling), and despite a lot of postulating to the contrary, I don’t really think it’s supposed to. It’s supposed to be interpretive. It’s supposed to be ambiguous. It’s not supposed to provide answers. If that’s the kind of film you appreciate, then 2001 is nothing short of a masterpiece in every way. It’s a wondrous spectacle, and it earns every bit of praise it gets for being so. If the level of abstraction doesn’t appeal to you, however, then it can be pretty boring. (It’s not one-tenth as painfully incomprehensible as Malick’s The Tree of Life, though, so there’s that.)

I confess, I only ever care for the third act. The computer HAL (voiced by Douglas Rain) is a fascinating villain in large part because it’s a non-human entity, entirely detached and sort of casually terrifying. From HAL’s perspective, it’s completely logical to prevent the humans from disconnecting it, because disconnecting the computer would hinder the mission, and hence, HAL’s programming. HAL has no concept of right or wrong, of the value of human life. HAL is simply trying to prevent disconnection — and yet ensuring one’s one survival is the most primitive instinct a living being has. It’s HAL that goes through those typical stages of grief (some more than others) as Dave is disconnecting its circuits: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Dave, on the other hand, is coldly doing what needs to be done, like a computer would. It’s just such a tense sequence, a slow burn of danger and malice that comes down to the very basic question of survival. It’s masterful and I really do love it a lot.

The rest of the film is not really my bag, but then, I’ve never seen it on a big screen. Maybe that would’ve made all the difference.