Full Metal Jacket (1987)

Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writers: Gustav Hasford
Stanley Kubrick
Stars: Matthew Modine
R. Lee Ermey
Vincent D’Onofrio



Duration:00:42:15-00:43:15(1 min)

Mise-en-scene:
This scene was set in the bathroom,three important actors
in the film involved in this scene.
It set in the night time when everyone else are sleeping,
the squad leader Joker founds Pyle was in the bathroom
alone with his M14 rifle which must not allowed. Put the
rifle here is not just for a set so that Pyle can use it later to
shoot the sergeant, it is also because the rifle is the only
thing he likes, the only thing that he’s good at, he shows
some actions like “left and right shoulder”, “lock and load”,
“order”.
He was so clam when sergeant came to him ,he gives
a strange smile which may lead audience to think that
something must be happen because his rifle was loaded
with full of bullets.

Colours:
The colour of the environment in this sequence are based
on grey with some light colour from outside of the window.
It creates a kind of cold and hopelessness feel to actively
affect audience.

Dialogue:
00:42:18
When Joker reminds Pyle if the sergeant find he’s loading
a gun they will in the world of shit,and then Pyle says“i am
in the world of shit”, he said it slowly but strongly.
Through this to reflects how bad he felt his life in the
marines,he keeps making mistakes and get everybody in
troubles, he can’t handle anymore like that.
So when he says “i am in the world of shit”, audience
could possibly know for what reasons he wants to kill both
himeself and thesergeant .

Sound:
The whole sequence use a heavy sound,and we can hear the
water dropped into sink,it is good to use them,simple but it
creates a feel of strange ,and make audience more focus on
actors’ action, to guess what’s might going to happen.
The dropped water sound could also symolize a slowly
dying life.At the time Pyle kills the sergeant,the dropped
water sound was stopped for a while,that symbolize one life
is over,and after that the sound went back on.
The volume of the sound increased when Pyle breath
before he kills the sergeant,and when the bullet came out
from the rifle,sound has also been increased, but other
sounds were disappeared at that moment,this gives a feel of
painful, a feel of death.
And before Pyle kills himself, the sound increased
again,audience can affect by all this well set up sound.It
gives them more feel to watch the film.


Editing

Editing Style:
This sequence completed by few long-take.
This is the tranditional way to show what’s happening in
the sequence.

Camera angle:
After Pyle kills the sergerant, camera shots from a
low-angle it creates a huge effect,sergerant is a man that
everyone afriad of,but he killed him,it seems unbelievable.
And then when he killed himself,the camera shots from
a high-angle,this gives a small effect that he’s dead.
The film use not much camera angle in this sequence,but
they all for reasons.

Depth of field:
Everything in the sequence are clearly been
setup,foreground and background are both in audience’s
focus, camera at the same height for most of the time so
that there is a balance between the foreground and the
background,we can see the theme of the sequence and
actors’ movement on every single shot.
When the sergeant is dead, the camera doesn’t goes
to take a extreme-close-up shot of his face, instead of
that,what audience can see is a shot involved all the
three actors, the sergeant lying on the floor,Joker’s got
shocked,and the camera shots from behind of Pyle,the
background and the sound still same as before the
sergerant dies. qiuet environment but make audience more
focus on Pyle to see what he is going to do next,it gives
them a opporunity to guess.

Deconstruction meanning :
This sequence is the turnning point of the film,it is also
been well set up,the theme of this sequence creates the way
for Plye to kill both himself and the sergerant,and most
importantly for this sequence is that although Pyle and the
sergerant are dead,but the audience will not forget them in
the second part of the film.