Full Metal Jacket Reception Theory, Central/A-Central Imagining and Alignment

Reception Theory

-Was this film provocative, throwaway or intellectually demanding?

The film is both provocative and intellectually demanding. The provocative aspects of the film consist of the horrible things the soldiers do. The soldiers are racist to each other, the helicopter gunner shoots at innocent vietnamese women and children and says 'Ain't war hell!'' ironically, the solider's pay for a prostitute and take turns having sex with her, and the final scene shows that the solider's want the young girl sniper to die slowly in agony before Joker puts her out of her misery. The content here is intended to disgust us and is showing us that just because America is in Vietnam doesn't mean they are the good guys. The film is also intellectually demanding because it deals with subject matter like war, death and dehumanisation. It also provides morally ambiguous characters as the protagonists, it is very hard to actually like any of the characters in the film except for Joker. This moral ambiguity means that it is up to the spectator to distinguish who is a good character or not. There are no character types in the film, instead it is a realistic portrayal of war where all the characters are killing machines.

-What is the preferred reading of the film?

The preferred reading of the film is for the spectator to dislike the characters in the film. Very few of them get our sympathy. Throughout the film, the protagonist and narrator, Joker is the only positive character that the audience can feel sympathy for.  The audience also feel sympathy for Private Pyle but this sympathy evaporates when he kills Hartman and himself. The audience may also associate with Cowboy, who is the leader of the platoon Joker and Rafterman join and seems to be capable of rational thought and decisions, like when he wants to retreat after the sniper kills two soldiers. By disliking the characters and their love for killing and war, the film becomes an anti-war film.


Central Imagining

In this clip, Kubrick creates a central imagined response through the use of MICRO. This clip shows the sniper shooting Doc Jay and 8 Ball.  The mis-en-scene in the clip that represents pain is the blood and the look of agony on their faces as they are shot. The editing in the clip lingers on every bullet impact they suffer, elongating their pain in slow mo. Time slows down for Doc Jay and 8 Ball because they are dying. The sound is a diagetic loud scream of pain that is becomes distorted and slowed down when they are shot. It is important that the sound is diagetic because we can see why are they screaming and it adds to the central imagining. There is only natural lighting in the clip since they are outside in the day. This emphasises that the two of them are completely open and exposed, particularly combined with the camera's use of wide shots.

In this clip, Kubrick creates a central imagined response through the use of MICRO. The use of mis-en-scene is the blue room which is because it is dark. This darkness is reflective of the content in the scene. The props in the clip are soaps in pillowcase which are used as makeshift weapons to assault Pyle. These weapons show how cruel they are and reflect their want to punish Pyle. The sound in the scene consists of diagetic muffled screams of Pyle and him sobbing in pain. This makes the audience sympathise. The use of the non-diagetic electronic score makes the scene creepy and leaves the audience in suspense in what they are going to do to Pyle. The editing utilizes a long take and symbolises how Pyles pain is extended, the audience is there to watch every hit. The lighting uses moonlight to make the room look intimidating. The moonlight illuminates Pyle's bed symbolising that he is in the spotlight and separate from the rest of them. The camera has an high angle shot which looks down upon the scene.

A-Central Imagining

This scene makes you feel sorry for Pyle because he made a mistake and

is punished by being humiliated. A lot of the audience including myself would feel

similar or the same way because a thing like this has happened in the past.

This scene shows Animal Mother confronting Joker and having 

animosity towards each other. Its quite clear that from the start

Animal Mother dislikes Joker and threatens to beat him up.

This scene could be quite reminiscent for the audience including me.

Alignment

Which two characters did you align with most? How did the director make you feel this way?

Kubrick makes you align with Pyle and Joker. For the first half of the movie, we align with Pyle and Joker, we sympathise with Pyle because he is portrayed as a character who is tormented and bullied. The first part of the film is a construct of the alienation and separation Pyle feels, the different scenes show Pyle being ostracized for the mistakes he makes, his weight, his lack of discipline and all these flaws are punished by the aggressive shouting and harassment of Sgt Hartman. The sympathetic view of the character comes from the extra-textual experiences the spectator may have experienced of bullying. The audience feel aligned to Joker because he tries to help Pyle at boot camp even though in order for him to fit in, contributes to Pyle's beating, it is shown that he is obviously reluctant to do so,

Joker is the narrator of the film and we see the second part of the film, in Vietnam through his eyes. Joker is the only member of the platoon who shows any type of compassion or sympathy for the Vietcong and the innocent people killed in the warfare. The other soldiers are just hyper masculine dehumanized monsters whose main satisfaction in the film is to kill, Joker is a figure which we can rely on because he is the character the audience can associate with the best.

Name all the characters you felt allegiance to. What extra textual features made you feel this way?

I felt allegiance to Joker because he shared a similar attitude to war like I do. Unlike the rest of the soldiers in Full Metal Jacket, Joker is not morally clouded. Instead he is a very anti war character. He mocks war by having born to kill written on his helmet and wearing a peace badge on his jacket. He has not come to Vietnam to kill people, he has come to be a reporter and report back on the horrors of the Vietnam war. Joker sets his morals out very well, he is positively  anti-war. 

Full Metal Jacket Spectatorship

Clip One

The audience reaction to the first scene which is Pyle's introduction is that they laugh at the creative and humorous insults Hartman shouts at the recruits. Pyle also finds them amusing which means he is aligned with the same state as the audience. However, when Hartman starts to choke Pyle and he stops laughing, the scene stops being funny and we start to feel sympathetic for Pyle.

The first scene uses a low angle shot when Pyle is on his knees, symbolising Hartman's power. However the first shot shows that Pyle is taller than Hartman. The use of the camera shots reverses the power in the scene. The shouted dialogue makes Hartman seem intimidating, with the framing of the shots with Hartman right next to Pyle, in his face.

In the second scene outside, Pyle gets his left and right mixed up and Hartman slaps him before humiliating him by making him straggle behind with his trousers down and his thumb in his mouth.

The first shot shows a large group of the recruits performing the exercise in unison and when Pyle messes it up, he is immediately ostracised from the rest of the group and his mistake is picked up immediately by Pyle. The shot and mis-en-scene with the large amount of recruits performing the same action makes Pyle different from the rest of them, reinforced by Hartman screaming ''You think your different?!'' This reinforces the audience reception of feeling sympathy for Pyle and despising Hartman. The setting is outside as opposed to the first scene where it was inside, which shows that the bullying of Pyle is for everyone to see, not just his recruits. Hartman is making Pyle feel alienated during the boot camp training which could invoke a reaction from a spectator who has experienced this alienation or bullying from previous experience

The last shot of Pyle being humiliated with his trousers down is another example of him being alienated by Hartman, with the shot including all the other recruits walking through the shot, and out of shot and then him, symbolising that everyone else is better than him.

Clip Two

In this clip, the audience align with Pyle again and this is reinforced by the construct of the cinematography and the camera.

In the first scene during the training, Pyle tries to climb over a log but doesnt have the strength to do it. His physical struggle is represented through the low angle hand held camera movement and the diagetic sound of Hartman barking a stream of insults at him over a non-diagetic military track in the background. Pyle then has to do some pull ups but he can't do a single one. We see down the long line of recruits doing pull ups that Pyle is the only one who can't do one. The camera singles him out as the only one who can't do one. The next sequence is Pyle climbing up a high climbing frame, the mis-en-scene here shows how high the frame is, with the camera panning up and down following Pyle climbing it. On the climbing frame he is overtaken by two other recruits showing his weakness. The military score in this sequence is ironic, suggesting that this is the real u.s military, bullying.

The second scene shows Hartman discovering that Pyle has smuggled a jelly donut into his locker. Hartman singles out Pyle by making him stand in the middle of the frame, with his fellow recruits lined side by side to him. Hartman turns the recruits on Pyle by saying that they will be punished every time Pyle makes a mistake. The camera then shows a low angle shot of Pyle eating the jelly donut, the low angle making him look taller and larger than the other recruits doing push ups emphasising Hartmans comment that Pyle is a 'fatbody.' By framing Pyle in the middle of the shot, he again becomes alienated from his other recruits.

The audience response varies in this clip, a general audience response would be to feel sorry for Pyle due to his relentless bullying and alienation from the others, but he doesn't help himself by smuggling a donut and getting the others in trouble. This may provoke a different reaction from the audience. They may get a preferred or oppositional reading from the audience.

Clip Three

The audience change their alignment in this clip, Pyle goes insane and kills Hartman, and threatens Joker, before he kills himself.

The first scene in the clip, shows Pyle's fellow recruits punishing him for smuggling the donut by smacking him with soap in their pillowcases. Their is a creepy intense score and the colour palette of the sequence is blue, reflecting sadness or a disturbing environment. The violence in Clip three is central imagining, which means we see physical abuse and Pyle's death on screen as opposed to the other clips where it was mainly a-central imagining psychological abuse. Joker, who has sympathised with Pyle finds it hard to punish him but does it anyway to fit in with the rest of the recruits. When Pyle starts to cry, an audience who are taking a preferred reading may be sympathetic or a oppositional reading may be that it is pathetic, considering he stole the jelly donut.

The last scene shows Pyle, dehumanized due to brutal and constant bullying from Hartman and the other recruits, he shouts out drill instructions and performs gun routines, mirroring how Hartman talks to him. Hartman has successfully dehumanized Pyle. The alignment the audience feels changes here from being sympathetic to negative. Pyle has inherited aspects of Hartman which the audience align with as a villain. The same score as the previous scene plays throughout, echoing that something equally distrubing is about to occur. Joker refers to the dehumanized Pyle as Leonard, his real name. In his mental state, Pyle realises his humanity and kills himself in an extremely graphic fashion. Thus ends the first part of Full Metal Jacket with both characters the audience align with dead, with only Joker alive, making the audience align with him now.

A spectator who has experiences with bullying may find that they sympathise with Pyle despite his homicidal outburst. It depends on the spectator whether they feel sympathy or not.

Central and A-Central Imagining

Central Imagining

In A Clockwork Orange, the spectator relies on the observer of the film, Alex. In this scene, Alex is nearly drowned to death by the police, who were his former gangmembers. There are strange sound disorientating sound effects each time Alex is hit by the baton, symbolising his pain. The use of the long take signifies his suffering and ordeal. The location of the scene which occurs in a damp forest surrounded by dead trees and quite far from anything shows the hopelessness of Alex's predicament. The costumes of a police officer show corruption in the dystopian world  A clockwork orange is set in. The non-diagetic music in the background is the theme of the film, strange electronic synth music, which is being drowned out by the sound of Alex's agony.

In Shaun Of The Dead, the character David is ripped apart by zombies, with screams and zombies eating him being the sound and foley we hear. We see gore effects, disgusting the spectator. Eventually, it gets so over the top and extreme, his friends rip his own legs off trying to save him. The film's genre as a horror comedy means whilst the scene may be conventionally gruesome, it is meant to be a piece of dark humour, especially when the friends are trying to save him when he is clearly already dead.

In Only God Forgives, there is a long extended fight scene where Ryan Gosling gets the shit beaten out of him. The fight is very dramatic with dramatic music and slow motion shots. The camera shows every punch and kick, the audience is supposed to be in awe at the fight scene. The characters costumes and appearences are not conventional. At first glance, you would expect Ryan Gosling's character to be able to beat up the Thai man quite easily but he doesnt even get a single hit in. This scene demonstrates the removal of Ryan Goslings character's masculinity as he is beaten up in front of his date and his mum. The thai man is hinted at to be a symbolic version of god, which is interesting considering the face towards the side of him and the red lighting in the background.




A-Central Imagining

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In Looper, The character Seth finds that his limbs are slowly being cut off. The scene

is not shockingly explicit in his limbs dissapearing but it is so surreal to the spectator

that they imagine more than they actually see. You feel sorry for the character.

In Inglorious Basterds, in the opening scene, Sgt Hans Landa orders the nazi's

to kill jewish people hiding in the floorboards of a house. Rather than showing the actual killings,

Tarantino just shows shooting the floorboards, so the spectator has to imagine the jewish people

being killed. An interesting shot is the mis-en-scene when you see Shoshanna run out into the field from the doorway. You see the silhouette of Hans Landa and the house interior contrasted against the traditionally beautiful French landscape, a metaphor for the german invasion of France. This could be symbolic as Hans Landa as a personification of pure evil as he is just pure black. The score is also very dramatic which adds to the a-central reading of the scene.

In American Werewolf in Paris, this man is chased by the werewolf, however

we do not actually see the werewolf until right at the end of the clip.

This makes the audience imagine what the man is so frightened

at seeing and keeps them in suspense. The location is a familar one to the audience which makes the 

suspense even stranger. The narrow curved hallways are used to hide what is actually chasing him. 

Spectator Theory

Preferred Reading- You can believe in the films concepts and take it as face value as reality. You can buy into the concept of the film and that this scene is just to advance the plot. You acknowledge that the scene has meaning in it but because you are engaged in the films concepts, you don't notice it immediately.

Negotiated Reading- You can disagree with certain aspects of the film, like the open/cliffhanger ending which doesn't specifically answer the question whether Cobb is awake or not. You could also question the motivation of Cobb's character in that it is too dramatic, with his wife murdering anyone who steps into his mind.

Oppositional Reading- you dislike the films concepts but can read metaphors and meanings into the film on a intellectual level. The city folding in on itself could be read as a metaphor for being trapped in the city, especially considering Cobb's dreamworld is restricted to a city when he could think of literally anywhere else to be. The people looking at Cobb as they walk past represent social anxiety and the people walking in his dream could represent red blood cells.