2010/02/03 New York
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Mr. Kubrick

Basic training

Somewhere in December I saw a documentary by Frederick Wiseman about the Paris Opera Ballet. It was a good documentary, perhaps a tad long-winded.
It was my first introduction to the work of Wiseman.
A couple of weeks ago I went to the MoMa to see Wiseman’s documentary “Basic Training”.
“Basic training” is a documentary about a boot camp during the Vietnam war. It was the first movie of the Wiseman retrospective that the MoMa is showing this year.
After the movie there was time for q and a.
Mr. Wiseman, a well-dressed septuagenarian, said: “Somebody at Mr. Kubrick’s office called me and told me that Mr. Kubrick wanted to see ‘Basic Training.’ I sent a copy of ‘Basic Training’ to Mr. Kubrick’s office and it took me a year to recover the copy. After seeing ‘Full Metal Jacket’ I understood why.”

It’s worth seeing first “Basic Training” and then “Full Metal Jacket”.


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6 comments Last_comment
Arnon
The things that make Full Metal Jacket outstanding for me are (among other things):
R Lee Ermey as the drillsergeant and the music plus spooky scenes in the second part of the movie. Id like to see Basic Training but cant right now, is it a spoiler as you tell us where you can speak of plagiarism?
said Careca . 03/02/2010 08:35 • x
basic pen pocket
I saw 'Full Metal Jacket' being barely thirteen years of age with my god like father in Amsterdam whom I would visit twice every month in the weekends. Back 'home' - some provincial but beautiful town, I wrote 'Born to Kill' on my pen pocket. My mother totally flipped. The beginning of a lot of misery.

I still suffer from wakening in a body bag kind of dream.
said david duinker 03/02/2010 17:06 (Updated 17:07) • x
Full Metal Jacket, I especially remember the confrontation with the (female) sniper. The horror.
said Bernard f 03/02/2010 19:04 • x
Bernard f, yes!
About the music, i know surfin bird by heart, a great song, apart from that sorry for me being a googliar i looked up the music of full metal jacket, i looked for that industrial noise when they are hunting the sniper, im also lazy and couldnt find it that easy, its not even on wikipedia, but its ok, for that music part i have to see the film again, i think i cant stand that sound apart from the movie.
said Careca . 03/02/2010 19:24 • x
Basic Training
Funny, I probably had the same experience when I watched the tv series 'Heimat', a couple of months after reading the novel 'Tirza'.
said Jan Allemagne 03/02/2010 19:43 • x
Careca
I guess you're looking for 'Ruins' by Abigail Mead (aka daughter of Mr. Kubrick)
said Veerle 03/02/2010 20:23 • x
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