18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
present at the creation, December 28, 2005
This review is from: Full Metal Jacket Diary (Hardcover)
matthew modine has done us a service.
how can any of us -- unless we are jack nicholson or nicole kidman or tom cruise, etc. -- even imagine the experience of a starring performer's interactions with stanley kubrick?
modine has now accounted for his time -- challenging, demanding, demeaning, freezing, exhausted and worse -- in the laserlight. i hope modine's path will be followed by some of the others.
kubrick was a giant. one of very few film makers of the form's first century whose work is of sufficient quality to engender a serious critical literature of its own, his work is -- in fact -- artistic. while some may disagree, i think kubrick holds his own with other great artists of the 20th century.
he matters.
somehow -- and there's a major hint of genius here -- kubrick pulled this off by getting others (warner bros. / us) to pay the hefty bills his creativity required. that means he actually related to that thing called "hollywood."
and, as we all know from film 101, he collaborated with other creative people -- as well as with the businesspeople -- to do what he did.
this sets kubrick very, very far apart from most artists, who tend to work alone. it makes first-hand knowledge of his working habits and choices important for their historic value. on this plane, two decades after their collaboration, matthew modine has published his kubrick memoir.
"full metal jacket diary" walks us through modine's experiences -- highs, lows, traumas, successes, etc. -- without ponderous narrative, just as it happened to him. its subjectivity is documentarian. 'here's what i saw, and heard and felt. now you know.'
he lets us make of it what we will.
modine kept a journal. he kept notes. he took pictures. it was a phenomenal moment in his life. his wife was carrying thier first baby, and she delivered (by surgery) in the midst of production. he had a falling out with his friend, vincent d'onofrio. mainly, he was starring for kubrick.
he also was trapped. production was delayed, and then slow. very slow. it sounds to have been soul-crushingly slow.
was that on purpose? was it a grand plan of the artistic genius? modine's honest enough, and strong enough, to allow us along as such thoughts pass through his mind while he is waiting, waiting...
it is somehow good to know, and this is confirmed again by modine, that if watching a kubrick film can be a challenge, we viewers have it easy compared to the professionals who actually made it.
i hesitate to mention the roundly criticized frederic raphael here, but his memoir, "eyes wide open," complements modine's.
raphael co-wrote "eyes wide shut" with kubrick. he may or may not have capitalized on kubrick's death at the release of the film (the source of some attacks on him), but his text about eyes fits with modine's about jacket. whatever else may be said of raphael, it appears he and modine are in considerable agreement about kubrick. brilliant and very difficult, with intervals of normality that are sometimes laced with a lovable distracted quirkiness.
michael herr's memoir -- which i have not yet read -- is unquestionably a companion to modine's as well.
modine goes much further than the important and well done "life in pictures" documentary. in that, we hear briefly from many actors -- including modine -- and a picture emerges, to be sure. but the documentary is a series of highlights from recollections, not a chronological account of how working with kubrick happened to the actors, which is what modine delivers.
my minor disappointment in modine's text is its lack of a third act. he provides the run-up to getting the part and the excruciating 13 months of filming. at twenty years on from the event, i had expected an afterword locating the experience in his career, kubrick in his life, possibly his view of kubrick in film.
this expectation was somewhat set up by the opening: "he was an artist..." modine's obviously thoughtful enough as a person to have considered what it has meant to him -- personally, professionally, artistically -- even now, as he has begun a directing career of his own.
alas, no. near the end he teases that such would be giving away his hand. after 225 pages of stanley, that remark sounds a bit kubrickian. but, it's true to the title. when post-production was over, and kubrick called him about publicity for the opening, modine did not know what he knows now.
modine comes through with the book's presentation and its other half -- his stills from the filming. "full metal jacket diary" is steel-bound and numbered. i bought # five thousand and something of 20,000. it will be a collector's item. (i heard its second press run, in dec. 2005, is paper bound.)
the photos are extraordinary. from the text and the photos it appears modine was -- at 24 -- just as awestruck with his great good fortune as all of us would want him to have been.
his photos -- with their own story behind them -- have an endearingly candid 'kid-at-disneyland' composition that nicely completes the text (and evoke the film's final image).
"full metal jacket" is a significant intellectual statement. i do not think it is primarily about war. i think it is about language. it is kubrick's reply to 20th century linguistic philosophy, which was largely based at oxford, near his home. its virtuoso plays on realism, nominalism, meaning, the meaning of meaning, and the 'great dichotomy' ('born to kill'/ peace symbol) i believe state kubrick's thesis that when meaning (understanding) fails, conflict (violence) ensues.
ultimately, kubrick was a realist. violence -- be it personal or state-sponsored -- is his prop to show how horrible things can get when we don't understand each other. (pyle killing after sgt hartman screams / joker killing after vietnamese girl sniper mumbles.)
whether this interpretation works or not, kubrick's film will be read for decades. modine has advanced knowledge by retelling his experience in the great collaborative enterprise that created it.
i doubt that kubrick was a shakespeare, but the book is a bit as if a shakespearian actor's description of will's blocking and rehearsal method was just found in a church attic in southwark.
so, i appeal to ryan o'neal, jack nicholson, malcolm mcdowell and the rest of you lucky stars to do your part. nicole kidman's special contribution would be to put to rest all of the blather about kubrick having a problem with women -- or perhaps she wouldn't. at least we would know her experience.
as we now know joker's. thank you, mr modine.
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