Does ‘Full Metal Jacket’ encourage the spectator to align with its characters?

Does ‘Full Metal Jacket’ encourage the spectator to align with its characters?

Alignment, in terms of Film, is the process of identification with something or someone. Filmmakers for a long time have held the ability to manipulate audience’s emotions by forcing them to align with main characters and see their point of view (while also taking on their ideologies). Techniques such as the P.O.V shot, the Close-Up and Narration have previously been used to achieve this.

For example, in the film ‘Platoon’, audiences are forced to identify with the main character of Taylor throughout specifically at the end of the film. When Taylor is being escorted out of the war via helicopter, we as the audience are accompanied by his narration and his point of view. Since we have no alternative framework or another point of view, we have no choice but to accept Taylor’s point of view. His point of view of dead bodies tells gives us no other choice but to see war as this barbaric event. The non-diegetic music is also slow and melodramatic, provoking a saddened response from audiences.

However, in ‘Full Metal Jacket’, Kubrick purposely keeps the audience at a distance emotionally from his characters, forcing them to not be able to identify with them. ‘Full Metal Jacket’ does not suppose a single meaning for the film, rather it relies on the individual experience of each spectator to create meaning. Kubrick also purposely delves into a recurring theme of the ‘Duality of Man’, forcing no single motivation for war; whereas in the aforementioned ‘Platoon’, Taylor gives his motivations for war, and forces the audience to sympathise and identify with his actions.

In the very opening of ‘Full Metal Jacket’, we are introduced the troop, whom as which we as the audience will be following throughout Boot Camp. All the characters are shot using the same camera angle while they’re getting their heads shaved. They are also all have the same screen time. The fact that the characters are being made to all look uniform, provides the sense that they all have a loss of individuality, as Hartmann describes them, they are all “equally worthless”. From this, the audience have no instinct to connect with any one character, so they are forced to follow the group. And from this, it’s clear that Kubrick is forcing the audience to identify with the military ideology.

Another scene that reinforces the point of Kubrick not allowing any identification is when Joker is in Vietnam and him and his troop look over a dead comrade. In this scene, the camera again shows all the characters through the same camera angle, and stays with them for the same amount of screen time each. There is minimal emotion in the characters voices as they talk about the dead comrade, and the audience are shown multiple P.O.V shots. This reinforces the point that there is no one point of view, and Kubrick forces the audience to use their own experiences to identify with the film. Since the film, this scene in particular, is very rarely provocative in any way, the audience have to use their own experiences and take either a preferred, negotiated or oppositional approach.