New music guidelines – Kubrick after 2001 A Space Odyssey (IV): Full Metal Jacket

After developing an ever growing lack of trust in classic Hollywood composers with his earlier films (reaching a peak with the film 2001: A Space Odyssey) and after ever more frequently and creatively using existing music, in the 1987 film Full Metal Jacket, Stanley Kubrick fully uses music as a counterpoint, commentary, irony and emotional support. Shooting a multi-layered film on Vietnamese war trauma, that is both symbolic and realistic, with the help of his wife Vivian Kubrick, Stanley Kubrick creates a complex sound dialogue of very different songs (mostly very popular and even cheerful) with which American soldiers actually lived (and went to war with). It is important to note that in the film Full Metal Jacket (the term denotes an encased bullet) the word Vietnam is mentioned surprisingly rarely so it is clear that, despite numerous references to popular culture from the period of the Vietnam war (and immediately before the war), we are talking about an anti-war film in the broadest sense, a film tackling atrocities of war in general.

Irena Paulus