Combat Rock - The Making Of Full Metal Jacket
A GI-turned-revered writer, an in-country journalist-cum-acclaimed author and the world's most meticulous film director - just three reasons why FMJ stands head-and-shoulders above most 'Nam movies.
A version of this article appeared in Uncut.
I take a step into Animal Mother’s path. Animal Mother raises his weapon. He holds the M-60 waist-high. His eyes are red. He growls deep in his throat - ‘This ain’t no Hollywood movie, Joker. Stand down or I will cut you in half.! I look into Animal Mother’s eyes. I look into the eyes of a killer. He means it. I know that he means it. I turn my back on him..
- Gustav Hasford, The Short-Timers
Few people were better qualified that Gustav Hasford to know what made a good Vietnam War movie. A non-nonsense veteran who joined the Marines in 1967 straight from school and went on to serve 300+ days in country, Hasford saw straight through the bullshit of most big-screen representations of the police action.
“The Deer Hunter is a dishonest film and I pretty much loathed it. Apocalypse Now was a good attempt and it was an honest attempt, but it was made by a civilian and it’s not convincing.”
It wasn’t just Hasford’s war record that qualified him to attack the way popular culture portrayed the war. Starting to write an account of his days in the DMZ while still serving, he completed the novel The Short-Timers in 1976. An astonishing read although now sadly out of print, the novel follows a band of Marine recruits - the cynical Joker, the fat and ineffectual Gomer Pile, cornhusker Cowboy, the black ‘n’ bald Eight Ball - from combat training at the hands of the terrifying Sergeant Hartman to their arrival in Vietnam on the eve of the Tet Offensive.
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