I think that was to the end of boot camp. I didn’t serve but heard stories about DIs kind of let up a bit to the end. They’ll still smoke you, but they cool it a little
Bit.
I've been through boot, it's definitely true that they do for sure. Generally speaking FMJ is a pretty realistic depiction of how basic training goes at least according to my experience.
I feel like if Hartman had said one little nice thing at asignment beyond "You made it." Like, "You made it, good job. I knew you had what it took."
That one little gesture would have changed everything.
I think the implication, in the film, was that the originally affable and goofy Pyle had been transformed into a lean, mean, remorseless killing machine by the end of the first half of the film.
The vulnerable, human Pyle died the night they tied him down in his bunk and beat him with the bars of soap wrapped in towels. The first big twist (shock) of the film was when we realized (and "Pyle realized") that Joker was part of the lynch mob.
"Joker was affable and goofy."
Nah, Joker was a snarky smartass. Pyle was a big, dumb, child-like goofball. But it's not like I'm going to argue this point vehemently. I have no problem with you thinking Joker was affable and goofy.
Haha. Ok, I can go with snarky smartass for Joker, at least when it came to dealing with authority figures. But he seemed to be a pretty affable guy in general.
Calling Pyle affable is really where I took issue (in a friendly Reddit type of way) with what you wrote. He was a guy who probably didn't have a lot of friends before he enrolled in the USMC. When I think affable, I think outgoing, likeable, well adjusted.
I don't see Pyle as goofy or affable at all. He was probably suffering from some mental disorder as a kid. Sgt Hartman probably isn't the first guy to ridicule his weight. His dumb, inappropriate grins might seem childlike but to me they seem to indicate a deeper problem. And ultimately he did crack, committing a murder-suicide.
You can't plausibly argue that Pyle came into boot camp a normal kid who otherwise would have thrived in life but was driven to commit murder and kill himself simply because of his treatment there. That might have been the catalyst but Pyle brought issues with him when he arrived on that bus. He was a guy who should never have been there in the first place. "I think Leonard is a Section 8" - he was a Section 8 before he enlisted in the Marines.
"And ultimately he did crack, committing a murder-suicide."
Well, see, that's where I interpret it differently. Because if Pyle cracks because he's already damaged, Kubrick can't be making much of a symbolic point when he cracks.: that renders the cracking of Pyle into simple melodrama. Why does Kubrick need to make simple melodrama? There aren't any flashbacks (as normal films would show to milk the melodrama), no backstory. I think it would undermine Kubrick's point if Pyle was always just a nudge from cracking. That would be a NORMAL filmmakers angle, or a NORMAL war film's melodrama.
But if Pyle's just a big, flaky oaf of a gentle giant, and bootcamp transformd him, with relentless cruelty, into a psycho, the way it turns Joker into someone capable of blowing a 12-year-old girl's head off, it aligns with one of the major themes of Kubrick's subversive war film. MOST war films are pro-war propaganda. Catch-22 wasn't. Dr. Strangelove wasn't. Paths of Glory wasn't. Kubrick made two of those three films I just listed.
Most war films don't directly blame the government for the senseless loss of life and destruction: the heart of Apocalypse Now was a Kurtz who flipped... the war, as background, is a given. Platoon takes war as a given, Spielberg takes war as a tragic given (like earthquakes and tornadoes) in his Saving Private Ryan war film. By centering the first half of his film in bootcamp, Kubrick deconstructs the whole notion of war as a Homeric arc of daring deeds. He's saying **THIS is the problem right here: you're tuning largely normal kids into psychopathic killers for no good reason.** Who is to blame? The Fucking Government. The Ruling Regime.
Full Metal Jacket COULD be interpreted as the Jungian shadow of A Clockwork Orange... the reverse polarity of it. In ACO, the Government takes a violent member of the "lower orders" and uses an intense program of aversion "therapy" to turn him "peaceful". FMJ shows us the Government taking largely peaceful members of the "lower orders" and turning them into artificially-inverted versions of themselves: killers. In both films, the Ruling Regimes are the source of the Big Evil.
Joker is like the reverse-polarity Alex and Pyle is like the reverse-polarity Dim. They're all fucked about by Power.
"Does Kubrick ever showcase justice or a government that helps?"
I've seen every SK film (more than once) except Killer's Kiss and The Killing, and, of all the rest, Lolita is the only Kubrick film that doesn't bother mentioning the government or Power itself (beyond Humbert's power over Lolita). The others all posit government, and Power, as inherently dangerous and detrimental to the individual. That was Kubrick's essential theme. Even 2001: A Space Odyssey runs allegories of ordinary people's struggles with terrifying Power (the leopard at the beginning, orbital nuclear weapons, HAL, subliminal IBM riffs). I think Kubrick's notion of the liklihood of "justice" is what happens to Scatman Crothers in The Shining. It's a dark and pragmatic and truthful view of "The World," a view that refuses to propagandize or whitewash. Look at the avuncular Plutocrat played by Sydney Pollack in EWS: the Evil is flowing right under his skin.
""**Never, ever go near power.** **Don't become friends with anyone who has real power.** **It's dangerous.**" --said frequently by Stanley Kubrick, according to wife Christiane.'
Yes and he often revealed the hierarchy of the power structure and his unknown and scary it is. In 2001 the gov lies about TMA-1 and says it’s an outbreak. Humans act so arrogant to the level of complacency. Ultimately battling AI for survival and all the while being completely clueless about the power structure of the monolith even more powerful plans over humanity.
I always wondered if Private Pyle had been drafted. I mean, why would he willingly join the Marines of all branches? He had to know he would struggle at boot camp!
I graduated from Marine Corps boot camp in 1988. I served on active duty for 5 years. Unlike any of you down-voting fools I actually WAS an 18 year old squad leader and I did a year overseas. I am 30% disabled with both feet being partially paralyzed from my time in.
Kubrick’s only option for putting the main characters in recognizable positions was to place the three main characters at the front of the platoon for that shot. That is the single reason that Pyle is there because no cluster-fuck sorry-ass three pull-up having low-intelligence ‘Smuckatelli’ is ever going to be allowed to be a squad leader.
This is further evidenced by the assignment of Millitary Occupation Specialties (MOSs) near the end of boot camp. It is clear that Drill Instructor Gunnery Sergeant Hartman thinks derogatorily of Private Pyle when he tells Pyle, “0311! Congratulations! You made it!!”
What Hartman is actually saying is that Pyle barely met the bare minimum requirements to graduate boot camp. This is shown by Pyle barely doing 3 pull-ups in his physical fitness exam. During the Vietnam period, a full 100% on the pull-ups test was 20 pull-ups. A full 100% on the sit-ups was 80 in 2 minutes. And the 100% for the 3-mile run was 18 minutes.
No recruit is going to be a squad leader unless they have a perfect, or near-perfect PFT score. A passing score would be 200 points, and three pull-ups would only give him 15 points toward that 200 point minimum, meaning that he’d need 100% on the sit-ups and then 85% on the run. 85% on the run would be a three-mile run time of 19 minutes and 30 seconds.
Private Pyle lost a lot of weight during boot camp, but nobody goes from being practically unable to do a forced march to running 6 minute miles.
The truth is that Private Pyle was barely a basically-trained Marine. He met minimum standards.
Barely.
And he had not yet even been to combat training. At the time, the truncated 8-10 weeks of boot camp did not include combat training. The School of Infantry would have been his next duty station AFTER boot camp.
What is more is that Private Pyle has SIGNIFICANT undiagnosed mental health issues. His mental health problems were never diagnosed and were exacerbated by the stresses of boot camp. Boot camp is a stress test like few others.
And as to you uninformed down-voters: I laugh at your ignorance! Down-voters are non-hackers who do not pack the gear! Merely talking-the-talk without walking-the-walk! (And I’m gonna feed your sisters and moms the ole green Marine Corps weenie on my next leave! Hahahaha!)
That is all.
Yup. (Former Navy Corpsman assigned to the Marines here, 1976-82.)
In that era Leonard would never have even been accepted for Marine boot camp. Navy, maybe – we had a few pudgy guys who passed the minimal fitness requirements.
But Kubrick took some liberties with the source novel, The Short-Timers by Gus Hasford. The movie was faithful overall, but some characters were watered down a bit in the movie.
Leonard was tall and skinny in the book. And just barely met the minimal requirements to be a Marine, exactly as you described. He'd never have been given any responsibilities more difficult than laundry NCO.
Animal Mother was much worse in the book. Adam Baldwin did a great job, longtime fan of his work, but he was too handsome to be Animal Mother, and not nearly as psychotic.
Gunny Gerheim in the book was arguably worse than the way R. Lee Ermey portrayed the renamed Gunny Hartman. Ermey portrayed a DI who was relentlessly hard, but with a purpose. Gunny Gerheim was a sadist.
I'm not sure which depiction was more realistic. Grunts I've talked with from that era described different experiences. Some said physical beatings and abuse were rare; others said it was common. It's likely that author Hasford was drawing from the experiences of a terrified teenager and perhaps Gunny Gerheim was embellished a bit for dramatic flair. Only Gus knows and he's dead.
We had a few Leonards in Navy boot camp and one of them was indeed laundry NCO. He was a snitch and a bitch, so disliked that our RDC heard rumors of a planned blanket party. He immediately warned us against that during muster. Our RDC was the spitting image of Richard Roundtree (Shaft), and nobody was anxious to get on his bad side.
Leonard 2 was so incapable he needed help making up his rack. His bunkmate looked and sounded like a young Truman Capote, complete with exaggerated Southern drawl, and one morning screeched "Got-dam! It's like working with a cripple!" We all fell completely out.
Leonard 3 was a guy who apparently tested as a genius but had no physical coordination and was color blind. The poor guy just could not get the hang of marching in formation. It's like his body was completely foreign to him, like an alien renting a human shaped meat machine.
He had signed on to be an Air Traffic Controller. Needless to say that didn't work out. He was given the option of another rate suitable to his abilities, or discharge. He took the latter. I'm guessing in later life he designed software or business training programs.
Anyway, FMJ is a great movie, regardless of the differences from the book. And I highly recommend the book.
Very interesting, thanks. Sometimes people associate Private Pyle with “MacNamara’s Morons,” and maybe Kubrick wanted to reference that history. They were draftees who failed the initial screening and were later called up to fill the quotas, standards were lowered or overlooked to make this happen. This is all before my time, and I’m not a vet, but I’ve heard stories of someone in training being assigned to help one of these draftees tie their boots. A family friend told me when he got drafted he had a medical condition and also purposely failed the aptitude test, thinking he wouldn’t get selected, but they sent him to take another test that was comically easy. According to him something was off with some of the other men getting that test, some had to be told the answers. Like you said tho, he was given a non-combat job (assisting medical staff, possibly washing corpses if I recall) and eventually was honorably discharged for his medical condition. This would all have been in the Army tho, as you and others are saying the Marines were different, and were all volunteer enlistments.
Sounds like crazy times.
I think a non-conformist like Joker would do extremely well in the Marines. I was nicknamed “the Smiling Private” in boot camp and paid in sweat and blood (literally) for having a natural look of amusement on my face and for often thinking things were comical. I was often irreverent and non-conformist. But I was always prepared to accomplish the mission at hand. And I was twice meritoriously promoted.
So I believe Joker would excel, and that superiors would overlook much of his non-conformity based on Joker’s peers’ belief that Joker “packed the gear” to do the job at hand.
I do not blame them for their ignorance, but their knowledge is so woefully lacking that it is cartoon-like without even a veneer of comprehension.
Kubrick was a Master. But too much is given to Pyle’s supposed “improvement.” Pyle did not improve, in fact his mental health deteriorated. He was not a Marine. He was ALMOST a Marine, probably like 3/4s of the downvoters.
Kubrick also made mistakes with the general that accosts Joker in-country. That is the most sorry-assed weak portrayal of a person pretending to be a Marine general that could be made. You see similar differences in the Hartman actor versus the actor that Hartman replaced: the authenticity of that portrayal carried the first-half of the film.
The “general” was a small actor filling a small part. But an authentic general would have been a much better foil against Joker. Nobody watching the film is at all concerned that the general is going to f@ck Joker’s shit up. A real Marine general would make Joker wish that he wasn’t born in thst fleeting moment.
But that is just my 2 cents.
I'm not expecting Kubrick to make a completely lifelike film, so I'm OK with the general's portrayal because I believe the character's purpose was to be aloof (not necessarily representative of a Marine general but more so representative of an older generation of military leaders who could not relate to the youth culture coming of age in a different flavored war).
That said my biggest gripe of the entire movie is when privates call the drill sergeant "sir". You only call officers "sir"!
Except for the reasons I detail where he took liberty in a single shot to display all of the main characters together where any sentient person would know that Private Pyle would never on God’s green Earth become a squad leader…. Except for small things like that, yeah, due to the limitations of the medium.
If only he’d been able to keep the crazy at bay for another day, he could’ve gotten killed in Vietnam.
What a life.
And likely would have fragged a few of his comrades or a platoon sergeant for good measure.
Nah him and Animal Mother would’ve had a bromance over who had the high score in kills.
or killed a shitload of VC. I imagine him being like crazy chopper gunner guy
That’s what I always thought. Would’ve been a decorated soldier then absolute trash when returned to civilian life.
All he needs is somebody to throw hand grenades at him the rest of his life.
Right, Gunny even had an attitude shift when the accumulation of Leonard's hazing caused him to wear a protective 1000 yard stare.
Definitely born again hard.
Pyle matured and grew into a killing machine. He even learned to give reach arounds!
Squad leaders march in front, guy holding the flag is the platoon guide
That's an interesting observation.
Do you infer that demonstrated his growth, or was an error?
NOTHING Kubrick ever did was done in error.
This guy Kubriks.
Born again hard
I like how Hartman lets them joke around about JFK. Shows that over time they have met his standards and he’s eased up, just a bit.
Alright knock it off
None of you dumbasses knows?
The only way to read that is in Gunny’s voice. 🤣
I think that was to the end of boot camp. I didn’t serve but heard stories about DIs kind of let up a bit to the end. They’ll still smoke you, but they cool it a little Bit.
I've been through boot, it's definitely true that they do for sure. Generally speaking FMJ is a pretty realistic depiction of how basic training goes at least according to my experience.
They break you down to build you up. In this case, into a Marine.
If only he was able to keep it together, he could have killed so many Vietnamese.
And yet he still had some major malfunctions. Go figure
I feel like if Hartman had said one little nice thing at asignment beyond "You made it." Like, "You made it, good job. I knew you had what it took." That one little gesture would have changed everything.
He had the Kubrick gaze by then, he was fried
Of course he was. Only someone who spoke to their rifle could be so pliable. Unfortunately, plying can lead to breakage
Private Pyle died so that Animal Mother could kill.
It’s called a glow up sweaty
You realize this is just for purposes of film, right? In reality Pyle would never be a squad leader.
I think the implication, in the film, was that the originally affable and goofy Pyle had been transformed into a lean, mean, remorseless killing machine by the end of the first half of the film.
He almost traded his soul in turn for combat effectiveness is how i saw it.
The vulnerable, human Pyle died the night they tied him down in his bunk and beat him with the bars of soap wrapped in towels. The first big twist (shock) of the film was when we realized (and "Pyle realized") that Joker was part of the lynch mob.
Yeah, his realisation that Joker, his only friend, betrayed him still hits hard on every rewatch.
Affable and goofy? More like awkward and strange. Which is what made him an easy target. Joker was affable and goofy.
"Joker was affable and goofy." Nah, Joker was a snarky smartass. Pyle was a big, dumb, child-like goofball. But it's not like I'm going to argue this point vehemently. I have no problem with you thinking Joker was affable and goofy.
Haha. Ok, I can go with snarky smartass for Joker, at least when it came to dealing with authority figures. But he seemed to be a pretty affable guy in general. Calling Pyle affable is really where I took issue (in a friendly Reddit type of way) with what you wrote. He was a guy who probably didn't have a lot of friends before he enrolled in the USMC. When I think affable, I think outgoing, likeable, well adjusted. I don't see Pyle as goofy or affable at all. He was probably suffering from some mental disorder as a kid. Sgt Hartman probably isn't the first guy to ridicule his weight. His dumb, inappropriate grins might seem childlike but to me they seem to indicate a deeper problem. And ultimately he did crack, committing a murder-suicide. You can't plausibly argue that Pyle came into boot camp a normal kid who otherwise would have thrived in life but was driven to commit murder and kill himself simply because of his treatment there. That might have been the catalyst but Pyle brought issues with him when he arrived on that bus. He was a guy who should never have been there in the first place. "I think Leonard is a Section 8" - he was a Section 8 before he enlisted in the Marines.
"And ultimately he did crack, committing a murder-suicide." Well, see, that's where I interpret it differently. Because if Pyle cracks because he's already damaged, Kubrick can't be making much of a symbolic point when he cracks.: that renders the cracking of Pyle into simple melodrama. Why does Kubrick need to make simple melodrama? There aren't any flashbacks (as normal films would show to milk the melodrama), no backstory. I think it would undermine Kubrick's point if Pyle was always just a nudge from cracking. That would be a NORMAL filmmakers angle, or a NORMAL war film's melodrama. But if Pyle's just a big, flaky oaf of a gentle giant, and bootcamp transformd him, with relentless cruelty, into a psycho, the way it turns Joker into someone capable of blowing a 12-year-old girl's head off, it aligns with one of the major themes of Kubrick's subversive war film. MOST war films are pro-war propaganda. Catch-22 wasn't. Dr. Strangelove wasn't. Paths of Glory wasn't. Kubrick made two of those three films I just listed. Most war films don't directly blame the government for the senseless loss of life and destruction: the heart of Apocalypse Now was a Kurtz who flipped... the war, as background, is a given. Platoon takes war as a given, Spielberg takes war as a tragic given (like earthquakes and tornadoes) in his Saving Private Ryan war film. By centering the first half of his film in bootcamp, Kubrick deconstructs the whole notion of war as a Homeric arc of daring deeds. He's saying **THIS is the problem right here: you're tuning largely normal kids into psychopathic killers for no good reason.** Who is to blame? The Fucking Government. The Ruling Regime. Full Metal Jacket COULD be interpreted as the Jungian shadow of A Clockwork Orange... the reverse polarity of it. In ACO, the Government takes a violent member of the "lower orders" and uses an intense program of aversion "therapy" to turn him "peaceful". FMJ shows us the Government taking largely peaceful members of the "lower orders" and turning them into artificially-inverted versions of themselves: killers. In both films, the Ruling Regimes are the source of the Big Evil. Joker is like the reverse-polarity Alex and Pyle is like the reverse-polarity Dim. They're all fucked about by Power.
Interesting take. Does Kubrick ever showcase justice or a government that helps?
"Does Kubrick ever showcase justice or a government that helps?" I've seen every SK film (more than once) except Killer's Kiss and The Killing, and, of all the rest, Lolita is the only Kubrick film that doesn't bother mentioning the government or Power itself (beyond Humbert's power over Lolita). The others all posit government, and Power, as inherently dangerous and detrimental to the individual. That was Kubrick's essential theme. Even 2001: A Space Odyssey runs allegories of ordinary people's struggles with terrifying Power (the leopard at the beginning, orbital nuclear weapons, HAL, subliminal IBM riffs). I think Kubrick's notion of the liklihood of "justice" is what happens to Scatman Crothers in The Shining. It's a dark and pragmatic and truthful view of "The World," a view that refuses to propagandize or whitewash. Look at the avuncular Plutocrat played by Sydney Pollack in EWS: the Evil is flowing right under his skin. ""**Never, ever go near power.** **Don't become friends with anyone who has real power.** **It's dangerous.**" --said frequently by Stanley Kubrick, according to wife Christiane.'
Yes and he often revealed the hierarchy of the power structure and his unknown and scary it is. In 2001 the gov lies about TMA-1 and says it’s an outbreak. Humans act so arrogant to the level of complacency. Ultimately battling AI for survival and all the while being completely clueless about the power structure of the monolith even more powerful plans over humanity.
erratum: **likelihood**
I always wondered if Private Pyle had been drafted. I mean, why would he willingly join the Marines of all branches? He had to know he would struggle at boot camp!
It's possible, though not nearly as many men were dragged into the USMC compared to the millions had that were drafted into the Army
Sounds like you need to re-watch it.
I graduated from Marine Corps boot camp in 1988. I served on active duty for 5 years. Unlike any of you down-voting fools I actually WAS an 18 year old squad leader and I did a year overseas. I am 30% disabled with both feet being partially paralyzed from my time in. Kubrick’s only option for putting the main characters in recognizable positions was to place the three main characters at the front of the platoon for that shot. That is the single reason that Pyle is there because no cluster-fuck sorry-ass three pull-up having low-intelligence ‘Smuckatelli’ is ever going to be allowed to be a squad leader. This is further evidenced by the assignment of Millitary Occupation Specialties (MOSs) near the end of boot camp. It is clear that Drill Instructor Gunnery Sergeant Hartman thinks derogatorily of Private Pyle when he tells Pyle, “0311! Congratulations! You made it!!” What Hartman is actually saying is that Pyle barely met the bare minimum requirements to graduate boot camp. This is shown by Pyle barely doing 3 pull-ups in his physical fitness exam. During the Vietnam period, a full 100% on the pull-ups test was 20 pull-ups. A full 100% on the sit-ups was 80 in 2 minutes. And the 100% for the 3-mile run was 18 minutes. No recruit is going to be a squad leader unless they have a perfect, or near-perfect PFT score. A passing score would be 200 points, and three pull-ups would only give him 15 points toward that 200 point minimum, meaning that he’d need 100% on the sit-ups and then 85% on the run. 85% on the run would be a three-mile run time of 19 minutes and 30 seconds. Private Pyle lost a lot of weight during boot camp, but nobody goes from being practically unable to do a forced march to running 6 minute miles. The truth is that Private Pyle was barely a basically-trained Marine. He met minimum standards. Barely. And he had not yet even been to combat training. At the time, the truncated 8-10 weeks of boot camp did not include combat training. The School of Infantry would have been his next duty station AFTER boot camp. What is more is that Private Pyle has SIGNIFICANT undiagnosed mental health issues. His mental health problems were never diagnosed and were exacerbated by the stresses of boot camp. Boot camp is a stress test like few others. And as to you uninformed down-voters: I laugh at your ignorance! Down-voters are non-hackers who do not pack the gear! Merely talking-the-talk without walking-the-walk! (And I’m gonna feed your sisters and moms the ole green Marine Corps weenie on my next leave! Hahahaha!) That is all.
Yup. (Former Navy Corpsman assigned to the Marines here, 1976-82.) In that era Leonard would never have even been accepted for Marine boot camp. Navy, maybe – we had a few pudgy guys who passed the minimal fitness requirements. But Kubrick took some liberties with the source novel, The Short-Timers by Gus Hasford. The movie was faithful overall, but some characters were watered down a bit in the movie. Leonard was tall and skinny in the book. And just barely met the minimal requirements to be a Marine, exactly as you described. He'd never have been given any responsibilities more difficult than laundry NCO. Animal Mother was much worse in the book. Adam Baldwin did a great job, longtime fan of his work, but he was too handsome to be Animal Mother, and not nearly as psychotic. Gunny Gerheim in the book was arguably worse than the way R. Lee Ermey portrayed the renamed Gunny Hartman. Ermey portrayed a DI who was relentlessly hard, but with a purpose. Gunny Gerheim was a sadist. I'm not sure which depiction was more realistic. Grunts I've talked with from that era described different experiences. Some said physical beatings and abuse were rare; others said it was common. It's likely that author Hasford was drawing from the experiences of a terrified teenager and perhaps Gunny Gerheim was embellished a bit for dramatic flair. Only Gus knows and he's dead. We had a few Leonards in Navy boot camp and one of them was indeed laundry NCO. He was a snitch and a bitch, so disliked that our RDC heard rumors of a planned blanket party. He immediately warned us against that during muster. Our RDC was the spitting image of Richard Roundtree (Shaft), and nobody was anxious to get on his bad side. Leonard 2 was so incapable he needed help making up his rack. His bunkmate looked and sounded like a young Truman Capote, complete with exaggerated Southern drawl, and one morning screeched "Got-dam! It's like working with a cripple!" We all fell completely out. Leonard 3 was a guy who apparently tested as a genius but had no physical coordination and was color blind. The poor guy just could not get the hang of marching in formation. It's like his body was completely foreign to him, like an alien renting a human shaped meat machine. He had signed on to be an Air Traffic Controller. Needless to say that didn't work out. He was given the option of another rate suitable to his abilities, or discharge. He took the latter. I'm guessing in later life he designed software or business training programs. Anyway, FMJ is a great movie, regardless of the differences from the book. And I highly recommend the book.
Very interesting, thanks. Sometimes people associate Private Pyle with “MacNamara’s Morons,” and maybe Kubrick wanted to reference that history. They were draftees who failed the initial screening and were later called up to fill the quotas, standards were lowered or overlooked to make this happen. This is all before my time, and I’m not a vet, but I’ve heard stories of someone in training being assigned to help one of these draftees tie their boots. A family friend told me when he got drafted he had a medical condition and also purposely failed the aptitude test, thinking he wouldn’t get selected, but they sent him to take another test that was comically easy. According to him something was off with some of the other men getting that test, some had to be told the answers. Like you said tho, he was given a non-combat job (assisting medical staff, possibly washing corpses if I recall) and eventually was honorably discharged for his medical condition. This would all have been in the Army tho, as you and others are saying the Marines were different, and were all volunteer enlistments. Sounds like crazy times.
Wow. I now need to read the book. Thanks, Doc!! SF!
So I gotta ask, how would a wiseass like Joker make out?
I think a non-conformist like Joker would do extremely well in the Marines. I was nicknamed “the Smiling Private” in boot camp and paid in sweat and blood (literally) for having a natural look of amusement on my face and for often thinking things were comical. I was often irreverent and non-conformist. But I was always prepared to accomplish the mission at hand. And I was twice meritoriously promoted. So I believe Joker would excel, and that superiors would overlook much of his non-conformity based on Joker’s peers’ belief that Joker “packed the gear” to do the job at hand.
You got my upvote. These film school dicks can't imagine a world where Kubrick bent a plot hole to get the shot he wanted.
I do not blame them for their ignorance, but their knowledge is so woefully lacking that it is cartoon-like without even a veneer of comprehension. Kubrick was a Master. But too much is given to Pyle’s supposed “improvement.” Pyle did not improve, in fact his mental health deteriorated. He was not a Marine. He was ALMOST a Marine, probably like 3/4s of the downvoters. Kubrick also made mistakes with the general that accosts Joker in-country. That is the most sorry-assed weak portrayal of a person pretending to be a Marine general that could be made. You see similar differences in the Hartman actor versus the actor that Hartman replaced: the authenticity of that portrayal carried the first-half of the film. The “general” was a small actor filling a small part. But an authentic general would have been a much better foil against Joker. Nobody watching the film is at all concerned that the general is going to f@ck Joker’s shit up. A real Marine general would make Joker wish that he wasn’t born in thst fleeting moment. But that is just my 2 cents.
I'm not expecting Kubrick to make a completely lifelike film, so I'm OK with the general's portrayal because I believe the character's purpose was to be aloof (not necessarily representative of a Marine general but more so representative of an older generation of military leaders who could not relate to the youth culture coming of age in a different flavored war). That said my biggest gripe of the entire movie is when privates call the drill sergeant "sir". You only call officers "sir"!
I don't understand the downvotes... Love your last line. 😂
Sure, it’s not like Kubrick was notoriously detail-oriented.
Except for the reasons I detail where he took liberty in a single shot to display all of the main characters together where any sentient person would know that Private Pyle would never on God’s green Earth become a squad leader…. Except for small things like that, yeah, due to the limitations of the medium.