Trivia: Movie - Full Metal Jacket - 1987
Trivia
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Kubrick's daughter Vivian — who appears uncredited as a news-camera operator at the mass grave—shadowed the filming of Full Metal Jacket and shot eighteen hours of behind-the-scenes footage for a potential "making-of" documentary similar to her earlier film documentary on Kubrick's The Shining; however, in this case, her work did not come to fruition. Snippets of her work can be seen in the 2008 documentary Stanley Kubrick's Boxes.
The term "full metal jacket" refers to the type of small arms ammunition used in warfare, as heard in Private Pyle's famous line spoken on the toilet, "7.62 millimeter, full... metal... jacket." Full metal jacket ammunition has a copper coating covering the lead core of its projectile.
Originally, Kubrick had a plastic replica jungle flown in from California but once he looked at it was reported to have said, "I don't like it. Get rid of it."
Cowboy's death scene shows a building in the background that resembles the famous alien monolith in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick described the resemblance as an "extraordinary accident."
To achieve an authentic war setting look, Kubrick had buildings blown up and the film's art director used a wrecking ball to knock specific holes in certain buildings over the course of two months.
