SOURCE: “Born to Kill: S. Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket as Historical Representation of America's Experience in Vietnam,” in Film & History, Vol. XX, No. 3, September, 1990, pp. 62-70.

In the following essay, Schweitzer asserts that Full Metal Jacket's “ability to convey a nuanced historical argument through an artistic medium—in effect, to address simultaneously the audience's hearts and minds—is unique and deserves attention.”

The scholarly debate over the Vietnam War is, of course, political. “The Left” and “The Right” argue over the “lessons” of Vietnam in the belief that past is prologue. The stakes of the debate are high. To the victor goes the ideological ascendancy and the ability to shape the future by controlling the perception of the past. Beliefs about the war are held so deeply, however, that there is reason to think that neither side may be able to defeat its fiercely ideological opponent.¹ As...