The ending of Full Metal Jacket is very similar to the ending of A Clockwork Orange and other Kubrick s films. The light we are so eager to see and constantly search for may be well out of our reach, and we, human beings, are fierce creatures. We do not mind living in the world of shit, as long as we are living. Thus, despite our belief in the evolution of human mind and soul, Kubrick suggests that we are still at the fundamental level motivated by our basic drives. And Kubrick s mastery of camera and color amplify our perception of these very unpleasant, innate characteristics from which we will never be free. More disturbingly, Kubrick points out that not only we are unable to get rid of those negative traits but also we do not want to get rid of them. We love ultra-violence, on the screen and in real life, too much to give it up, and when someone like Kubrick comes along and puts it in the right light, we idolize it and consider it art.
From the beginning, he has struggled to control both his work and his world, as if the uncertainties of the human condition would rip him to pieces if he relinquished his hold for even so much as a second. But it is precisely this inexhaustible drive to orchestrate even the smallest details of his life and his art that has made Stanley Kubrick the most provocative and brilliant of today s American directors. (Newsweek)
Works Cited
Banks, Gordon. Kubrick s Psychopaths. 23 April 1999
Coyle, Wallace. A Guide to References and Resources. 1980
Zimmerman, Paul D. Kubrick s Brilliant Vision. 3 January 1972 Newsweek
Siano, Brian. Regarding Full Metal Jacket. 21 April 1999
Woks Consulted
A Clockwork Orange. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Warner Brothers, 1971.
Full Metal Jacket. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Warner Brothers, 1987