Mise en scene in Full Metal Jacket

Rating: 4/10 (13 June 2014)

This review includes our thoughts about the Mise en Scene used in the movie, for which this movie has become famous and we will also give you our collective opinion on the movie at the end of the review.
Props and clothing: Props don't seem to have a significant role throughout the movie, and that is exactly why they are so effective. One of the props that stands out most is the rifle. Some props also have a symbolic meaning. The peace badge and the helmet with "born to kill" may seem like some joke, but they can also symbolize that the soldiers are fighting for peace.
Since the movie isn't actually shot at a training facility, all of the obstacles are props. They are, however replicas of real versions. Because none of the movie is shot on location, even the helicopter scenes are made with scale models. This is done quite nicely, since it took some research to discover this.
The clothing also plays a significant role throughout the movie. All soldiers are shaved bald and wear the same clothes. This stands in sharp contrast to the drill sergeant, who wears much neater clothes. Because all soldiers wear identical clothes, and are we are forced to look for physical differences. For example this makes private Pyle (the chubby guy), stand out even more. Later on however, during the fighting scenes in Vietnam, the soldiers are much more recognisable. This is because they have hair again and personalised their uniforms. Also, throughout the entire second half of the movie, there is very little change in uniform.
The clothing also includes some special effects. Blood bags, for example, are used to fake death, because there was no CGI when the movie was made. We can see this in an earlier scene where the drill instructor gets shot.
Background: In addition to this we will now talk about the use of background in Full Metal Jacket. In Full Metal Jacket there aren't any animated background pictures, because the film was shot in 1987. At that time they didn't have the techniques that could do this. However a lot of the movie has been shot inside of a studio. Because of this the movie directors had to use pictures as background. Watching the movie the viewer will not notice the fake background. However if you pay close attention to the background, you will notice that the backgrounds are mostly fake.
There is one scene in which private Pyle is out of bed by night in the toilet room. The whole scene is dark and a lot of dark colours are used in this scene. In this scene Pyle is talking with private Joker holding a gun. Pyle blames him of his failure. From all the noises they make, they wake up the sergeant. He then goes to the toilet room to take a look. He finds Pyle with Joker in the toilet room. He tries talking Pyle out of shooting. When he realises he fails, he starts shouting and yelling towards Pyle. Now Pyle points the gun at the sergeant and shoots him. When watching this scene you feel that the scene is unbalanced. This is because viewers only notice something when it's abnormal. With the unbalanced distribution of light and colour in the scene, the scene looks unbalanced. This already gives a hint towards what is going to happen. Which you can see, is correct, because the sergeant is shot. Nevertheless there is a balance in the objects in the scene. On each side of the room there are an even amount of toilets, symmetrical opposite each other. This is a great example of the use of composition in the movie.
Actors: Another significant use of Mise en Scene was their choice for the actors playing the recruits. It was done in such a fashion to make private Pyle stand out due to his weight because all of the other recruits are skinny/decently built, while Pyle is fat, which gives you the impression that Pyle is going to fail at becoming a good recruit.
The drill sergeant also played a major role in the movie. He dominated in the first half of the movie, because he was always there to insult the recruits and thus mainly focused the attention on two other characters; private Pyle, who always screws up and private Joker for making remarks all the time.
Furthermore, in the beginning of the movie, the recruits are being shaved, in this scene you can see that most of them have long hair. This gave us an idea of what the recruits are like, which made us have some sort of relationship with the actors. Besides this, it also gave us an idea of the time in the movie, the 70s, which was confirmed by the song playing in the background of the scene: 'goodbye sweetheart, hello Vietnam'. By having their hair shaved off, it shows that they are ready to start their new lives as recruits.
Our opinion We will now give our opinion, with regard to the movie. We don't like the movie regardless of its humorist parts. This is because the movie actually never begins. It feels like you are watching a 2 hour intro. So when watching the movie you are expecting, scene after scene, the movie to actually start, which we think is very irritating. Further when watching the movie you don't exactly get to know who the main character is. In the first half of the film the film lets you think that private Pyle is the main character. But after he kills himself, it becomes clear that the main character is actually private joker. This is confusing for the viewer. Even tough Full Metal Jacket is considered as a classic war movie. It's just like the bible, just because it's considered a classic, doesn't mean its any good.