IVIV re Full Metal Jacket

[Doug Millison]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Metal_Jacket
[…] Stanley Kubrick contacted Michael Herr, author of the Vietnam War  
memoir Dispatches, in the spring of 1980 to discuss working on a film  
about the Holocaust but eventually discarded that in favor of a film  
about the Vietnam War.[1] They met in England and the director told  
him that he wanted to do a war film but he had yet to find a story to  
adapt.[2] Kubrick discovered Gustav Hasford's novel The Short-Timers  
while reading the Virginia Kirkus Review[3] and Herr received it in  
bound galleys and thought that it was a masterpiece.[2] In 1982,  
Kubrick read the novel twice and afterwards thought that it "was a  
unique, absolutely wonderful book" and decided, along with Herr,[1]  
that it would be the basis for his next film.[3] According to the  
filmmaker, he was drawn to the book's dialogue that was "almost poetic  
in its carved-out, stark quality."[3] In 1983, he began researching  
for this film, watching past footage and documentaries, reading  
Vietnamese newspapers on microfilm from the Library of Congress, and  
studied hundreds of photographs from the era.[4] Initially, Herr was  
not interested in revisiting his Vietnam War experiences and Kubrick  
spent three years persuading him in what the author describes as "a  
single phone call lasting three years, with interruptions."[1]

In 1985, Kubrick contacted Hasford to work on the screenplay with him  
and Herr,[2] often talking to Hasford on the phone three to four times  
a week for hours at a time.[5] Kubrick had already written a detailed  
treatment.[2] The two men got together at Kubrick's home every day,  
breaking down the treatment into scenes. From that, Herr wrote the  
first draft.[2] The filmmaker was worried that the title of the book  
would be misread by audiences as referring to people who only did half  
a day's work and changed it to Full Metal Jacket after discovering the  
phrase while going through a gun catalogue.[2] After the first draft  
was completed, Kubrick would phone in his orders and Hasford and Herr  
would mail in their submissions.[6] Kubrick would read and then edit  
them with the process starting over. Neither Hasford nor Herr knew how  
much they contributed to the screenplay and this led to a dispute over  
the final credits.[6] Hasford remembers, "We were like guys on an  
assembly line in the car factory. I was putting on one widget and  
Michael was putting on another widget and Stanley was the only one who  
knew that this was going to end up being a car."[6] Herr says that the  
director was not interested in making an anti-war film but that "he  
wanted to show what war is like."[1]

At some point, Kubrick wanted to meet Hasford in person but Herr  
advised against this, describing The Short-Timers author as a "scary  
man."[1] Kubrick insisted and they all met at Kubrick's house in  
England for dinner. It did not go well and Hasford was subsequently  
shut out of the production.[1] …

…During filming, Hasford contemplated legal action over the writing  
credit. Originally the film-makers intended Hasford to receive an  
"additional dialogue" credit, but he wanted full credit.[6] The writer  
took two friends and snuck onto the set dressed as extras only to be  
mistaken by a crew member for Herr…


On Dec 16, 2009, at 3:01 PM, Joe Allonby wrote:

> I believe that we have discussed in the past certain scenes in the
> movie were lifted from Robert Roth's "Sand in the Wind" in addition to
> "Short-Timers.
>
> On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 9:06 AM, Doug Millison <dougmillison at comcast.net 
> > wrote:
>> Full Metal Jacket is available for streaming at Netflix.com which is
>> offering a free trial.  I watched it again yesterday evening.  The  
>> source,
>> The Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford, is  a Vietnam novel I often  
>> recommend.
>>  http://corky.net/scripts/FullMetalJacket.html The way the movie  
>> jams mashes
>> music silliness together with the awful war scene reminded me of IV's
>> general tone, and I find Pynchon's take on the end of the '60s as  
>> dark and
>> even more frantic.
>>
>> […]
>> HARTMAN
>>  I'll bet you're the kind of guy that would fuck a person in the  
>> ass and not
>> even have the goddam common courtesy to give him a reach-around!  
>> I'll be
>> watching you!
>>
>>  Sergeant HARTMAN walks down the line to another recruit, a tall,  
>> overweight
>> boy.
>>
>>  HARTMAN
>>  Did your parents have any children that lived?
>>
>> […]