# Question about 'Full Metal Jacket'
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-full-metal-jacket/653448
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [March 20, 2013, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-full-metal-jacket/653448 "2013-03-20T14:37:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2013, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-full-metal-jacket/653448/21 "2013-03-21T21:31:28Z")
> [@NitroPress](#):
>
> And, of course, he was famously hired as a coach for the original actor, but it became his first role instead.
He was in a few movies before FMJ
[R. Lee Ermey - IMDb](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000388/)
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2013, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-full-metal-jacket/653448/22 "2013-03-21T21:32:02Z")
> [@UncleRojelio](#):
>
> One of the few people ever allowed to improvise lines in a Stanley Kubrick movie.
I don’t believe he actually improvised. IIRC he sat with Kubrick at his house with a tape recorder. Kubrick would tell him what was happening in the scene and ask Ermey what he would say in that situation. Ermey would go off on tape. Kubrick then took that dialogue, edited it and put it in the script. I don’t think he improvised on the spot while filming but he basically wrote his own dialogue.
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2013, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-full-metal-jacket/653448/23 "2013-03-21T21:56:23Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#):
>
> He was in a few movies before FMJ
You’re right. I believe FMJ is his first role of any particular length or significance. He was hired as coach and advisor for the role before displacing the original actor, though.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2013, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-full-metal-jacket/653448/24 "2013-03-21T23:15:05Z")
See Post #9. As Lee Ermey, he played basically the same role as he did in FMJ.
\ ***SSgt. Loyce:** Jesus, how the hell do they expect me to train fuckin’ marines when they won’t even send me human god-damn beings to start with? \*
\ ***SSgt. Loyce:** Move it up until the private in front of you smiles. \*
_ **Pvt. Vinnie Fazio:** What’s oh-three-hundred?
**SSgt. Loyce:** Oh-three-hundred… basic infantryman.
**Pvt. Vinnie Fazio:** Does that mean Vietnam?
**SSgt. Loyce:** Goddamn right it means Vietnam, numb nuts. Goddamnit, oh-three-hundred is basic infantryman. Oh-three-hundred is the United States Marine Corps!_
Same guy, _nine years_ before FMJ.
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### Author:  [@SSG\_Schwartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SSG_Schwartz)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2013, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-full-metal-jacket/653448/25 "2013-03-22T03:33:51Z")
> [@Nom\_de\_Plume](#):
>
> SFC Schwartz, congratulations on the promotion.
Thank-you. Thank-you for noticing.
SFC Schwartz
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### Author:  [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2013, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-full-metal-jacket/653448/26 "2013-03-22T14:40:55Z")
I have another question about the film. (hope the thread isn’t totally dead)
The crisis/climax of the film is dealing with a sniper in Hue.
Now presumably, the sniper had switched her Ak-47 to single shot, but would that weapon be good for sniping? I mean, the sniper is really good. Purposely wounding guys to try and draw out others.
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### Author:  [@phungi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phungi)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2013, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-full-metal-jacket/653448/27 "2013-03-22T15:05:51Z")
> [@Zebra](#):
>
> I have another question about the film. (hope the thread isn’t totally dead)
> The crisis/climax of the film is dealing with a sniper in Hue.
> Now presumably, the sniper had switched her Ak-47 to single shot, but would that weapon be good for sniping? I mean, the sniper is really good. Purposely wounding guys to try and draw out others.
I am no expert on war, guns, or ammunition, but if I recall the movie correctly, they were “pinned down” by someone, who turned out to be a female VC with a rifle… I assumed she was just a “regular VC” who was shooting from a relatively close-to-medium distance, and not a long-range sniper with a scope.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2013, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-full-metal-jacket/653448/28 "2013-03-22T15:19:44Z")
Correct. That wasn’t “professional” sniping, just someone with a good perch and nerves of steel.
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2013, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-full-metal-jacket/653448/29 "2013-03-22T15:34:14Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> Same guy, _nine years_ before FMJ.
You could have put a period after “guy” in that… 🙂
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2013, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-full-metal-jacket/653448/30 "2013-03-22T15:42:40Z")
Yeah, not a lot of range exhibited there.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2013, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-full-metal-jacket/653448/31 "2013-03-22T20:25:52Z")
He got cheated out of a Best Supporting Actor nomination for _Saving Silverman_, I tells ya.
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2013, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-full-metal-jacket/653448/32 "2013-03-22T20:30:24Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#):
>
> He got cheated out of a Best Supporting Actor nomination for _Saving Silverman_, I tells ya.
Or _The Siege of Firebase Gloria_.
> [@](#):
>
> [Sgt. Hafner carries two severed American heads] Anyone know who these belong to? This is Corporal Miller. He’s dead. Hell, the whole gun crew’s dead. And to add insult to injury, Charlie took the fifty-fucking caliber machine gun with him. I don’t have any respect for Corporal Miller anymore, because he allowed his troops to relax. They let their guard down for five fucking minutes, and Charlie took advantage of it. Look at 'em, Goddammit! Pay attention. Stay alert! Stay alive! It’s as simple as that!
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### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-full-metal-jacket/653448/33 "2013-03-23T04:44:09Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#):
>
> There was only one actor in that movie, and only one movie in that actor.
That’s a silly statement. Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, Vincent D’Onofrio and R. Lee Ermey all had long, successful(ish) acting careers.
Even Arliss Howard (Cowboy) is still making movies.
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### Author:  [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-full-metal-jacket/653448/34 "2013-03-23T05:16:18Z")
Ermey was very good and very memorable in that movie. His histrionics stole the spotlight from much better actors doing more subtle characters. Vincent D’Onofrio gave a better performance in that film. It was the same sort of thing Alec Baldwin did to his betters in Glengarry Glen Ross. Emery and Baldwin may be the ones you imitate at the water cooler for the boss delivery on the really great lines, but there were really damn good actors in those movies. D’Onofrio got boring in LO Criminal Intent, but that was a problem with the character and the choices they made with the character early on that limited him too much, not the actor. D’Onofrio is wonderfully talented.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-full-metal-jacket/653448/35 "2013-03-23T05:28:22Z")
Check out _Blood of Heroes_. D’Onofrio is kind of a fuckup in that one, too.
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### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-full-metal-jacket/653448/36 "2013-03-23T16:32:41Z")
> [@msmith537](#):
>
> That’s a silly statement. Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, Vincent D’Onofrio and R. Lee Ermey all had long, successful(ish) acting careers.
>
> Even Arliss Howard (Cowboy) is still making movies.
Then let me expand a sill statement into a silly debate!
“There was only one actor in that movie”
Right then and there, and in his next few endeavors, it was obvious that Vincent D’Onofrio was a naturally talented and technically skilled actor. It was his misfortune to be born when special effects and male models supplanted solid actors, and so he was doomed to years on \*\*“Law and Order Nudnick Unit.” \*\*It’s not his or Matthew Modine’s or Arliss Howard’s fault that when anyone remembers **FMJ** , the remember R. Lee Ermey.
So who’s fault is it that when you remember a movie, you remember the character actor, not the lead(s)? In old Hollywood, character actors were balanced out by leading men and ladies, but now we see that leads themselves are a form of flat character actor, so that isn’t applicable. And DI’s are by design “over the top.” It would have been impossible to ask R. Lee Ermey to dial it back, and a compromise to his convictions as a veteran as well as an actor. But it created a dilemma for the movie:
Should the “boot camp” section of a movie be more intense than the “combat” section? Hard to say, and it depends on the movie’s intended message. In **All’s Quiet on the Western Front** , the message was that basic training was part of the phony home front war glorification, and was sneered at by the combat veterans. Was that the intended message of **FMJ**? Yes, I believe it was; but did Stanley Kubrick’s cynicism prevent him from saying that the human race is capable of better things than killing each other? (OK, it _is_ pretty maudlin to show a soldier being shot while reaching for a butterfly, but the alternative isn’t **FMJ** message that Americans deserve to die because we supposedly think machine gunning farmers is just another form of sport like surfing)
On the other hand, in real life, may combat vets return to thank their drill sergeants, and to tell that that they’d never survived if he hadn’t been as over the top as he’d been. I have seen a photo of a GI taken during the Battle of the Bulge: he’s filthy, exhausted, and bug-eyed battle-happy. But: his Garand M1 is pluperfect clean and maintained, and possibly whay he was still alive. So while I tend to believe that _nothing_ can guarantee survival in combat; that anybody can get it at any time; there is a thin edge of advantage that can be slammed into the average person that may offer a small but significant advantage.
But that’s real life. Moviemakers have more control over events than generals. This is why John Ford didn’t case Marjorie Main in **The Grapes of Wrath** as Ma Joad, and let her Ma Kettle-up the movie. If he wanted to make a movie about the Great Depression, as enamored of caricature as Ford was, that would have blown the message. If Stanley Kubrick wanted to make a movie about the Vietnam War, why do we remember the second half as, pretty much \*“Go Tell the Spartans that it’s Apocalypse Now on Hamburger Hill,” \*while the first half of the movie is a timeless gem?
My personal opinion is that Stanley Kubrick didn’t have a great Vietnam War movie in him. He did have a great WWI movie in him: **Paths of Glory**. It ended with a group of demoralized soldiers in the same, large room as a helpless woman from the other side. Just like **FMJ**. In **Paths of Glory** they don’t gang rape her but instead all sing “The Faithful Hussar,” and march off to their deaths. Not a dry eye in the house. In **FMJ** they shoot her (albeit she had shot some of them), and march off (quite possibly to their deaths) singing the theme to the Mickey Mouse Club. Why didn’t Stanley Kubrick allow American kids the same humanity that he’d granted Frenchmen? I don’t know.
(You want to see a good, humanity-based movie about Marines? Look at Nick Broomfield’s Battle for Haditha)
_“There was only one movie in that actor”_
We all love our R. Lee. Like thousands of others, I’ve shaken his hand and thanked him. He’s our favorite kooky gun-nut uncle. And he fit into **Se7en** and **Mississippi Burning** like a glove (and didn’t raise his voice in either part). But honestly, what do you foresee being carved on his gravestone?
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### Author:  [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2013, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-full-metal-jacket/653448/37 "2013-03-25T15:59:17Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#):
>
> But honestly, what do you foresee being carved on his gravestone?
I played a Texas (by god) Ranger in _Man of the House_?
😃
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### Author:  [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2013, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-full-metal-jacket/653448/38 "2013-03-25T16:18:19Z")
> [@Slithy Tove](#):
>
> And DI’s are by design “over the top.” It would have been impossible to ask R. Lee Ermey to dial it back, and a compromise to his convictions as a veteran as well as an actor.
Heh.
Compare him to “Sgt. Hulka”, of _Stripes_. [IMDB link](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083131)
The “boot camp” portion of _Stripes_ was not all that convincing.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2013, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-full-metal-jacket/653448/39 "2013-03-25T19:19:06Z")
> [@mlees](#):
>
> The “boot camp” portion of _Stripes_ was not all that convincing.
You mean “Doo Wah Diddy” _isn’t_ a marching song? :eek:
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### Author:  [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2013, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-full-metal-jacket/653448/40 "2013-03-25T21:18:07Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> You mean “Doo Wah Diddy” _isn’t_ a marching song? :eek:
That’s a fact… Jack!
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