SSC Film Studies

'Most films encourage the spectator to align with a character so a preferred reading of a film can be taken'

How far is this true of Full Metal Jacket?

In Full Metal Jacket rather than one main protagonist the audience can align with which occurs in most generic movies, Stanley Kubrick aligns the audience with the Marines and shows anyone who poses as an outsider as a threat, which can be seen through the character of Private Pyle.

Stanley Kubrick in my opinion creates distance between the audience and the character of Private Pyle and therefore positions us to align with the rest of the marine core instead. This is done through the abuse of Pyle being diluted through Hartman's humour, as we are manipulated to view the abuse as humorous. An example of this is in one of the beginning scenes of bootcamp in which Hartman forces Pyle to choke himself, the reason in which he is forced to do this is purely because of the look on his face, that of a vacant look. This creates humour but subliminally sends out the message that Pyle is different to the rest of the core which is strengthened throughout the whole of bootcamp.

 The abuse of Pyle becomes more frequent as the film continues and due to the camera as well as focusing on Pyle, but also focusing on the background shows the juxtaposition between a real Marine and Pyle. This forces me to only have a sympathetic viewing of Pyle, as I can only imagine what it feels like to be in his scenario of frequent abuse which ultimately gives me an A-central viewing of the film. 

The A-central viewing strengthens but this time forces the sympathy to decrease upon Pyle and empathy to be gained upon the rest of the marines. This is due to the manipulation that occurs in which we view Pyle dragging the marines down with his mistakes, in which Hartman manipulates the rest of the core and us as an audience by punishing the core for Pyle's mistakes, ultimately creating empathy towards the core.

Even though Private Pyle is represented as threat to the core it doesn't distort the fact we don't align with Joker either, just purely the marines. Even though Joker's voice over is a key factor for being a character we should align with, his voice over is purely to create a window into life as a marine as we barely adopt his point of view, if anything cinematography would suggest we would align with Hartman more than anything due to him being one of the first characters we see and most dialogue heavy characters from the first half of the movie.

Jokers actions are un-protagonist like too, as we lose any sympathy or empathy that was created throughout the movie once Joker betrays Private Pyle, the only reason he helps Pyle anyway is purely because Hartman ordered him to. As well as this the theme of the duality of man that lingers with Joker's character is in my opinion contradictory which further draws any alignment there could of been.

The opening scene of Full Metal Jacket in which there is a montage of the marine core getting their heads shaved connotes the loss of identity which reinforces the ideology that everyone is the same which strengthens my argument that we ultimately align with the core more than anyone else. This is seen through the cinematography too, as it shown through the training montage in bootcamp in which no shot's background is blurred displaying clearly characters in the background as well as the characters in the front showing them as equal. The silhouette at the end of the film promotes the ideology of everyone being equal too, as it displays uniformity as everyone is marching and chanting to the same song.