"A story." "A man fires a rifle for many years... and he goes to war." "And afterward, he turns the rifle in at the armory... and he believes he's finished with the rifle." "But no matter what else he might do with his hands... love a woman, build a house... change his son's diaper... his hands remember the rifle." "You are no longer black, or brown, or yellow or red!" "You are now green!" "You are light green or dark green!" "Do you understand?" "Sir, yes, sir!" "Swofford!" "Sir, yes, sir!" "You the maggot whose father served in Vietnam?" "Sir, yes, sir!" "Outstanding!" "Did he have the balls to die there?" "Sir, no, sir!" "Too fucking bad!" "He ever talk about it?" "Sir, only once, sir!" "Good!" "Then he wasn't lying!" "Are you eyeballing me with those baby blues?" "Are you?" "Sir, no, sir!" "Are you in love with me, Swofford?" "Sir, no, sir!" "You don't think I look good in my uniform, Swofford?" "Sir, the drill sergeant looks fabulous in his uniform, sir!" "So you're gay, then, and you love me, huh?" "Sir, I'm not gay, sir!" "Do you have a girlfriend, Swofford?" "Sir, yes, sir!" "Guess again, motherfucker!" "Jody's banging her right now!" "Get on your face and give me 25... for every time she gets fucked this month." "Down on your face!" "It was shortly after meeting Drill Instructor Fitch... that I realized that joining the Marine Corps... might have been a bad decision." "What in the fuck is this?" "Sir, it's a recruit's drawing of a footlocker, sir!" "Jesus, Joseph and doggie-style Mary!" "That is a pile of dog shit." "Sir, the recruit's never been good at drawing, sir!" "Why the fuck are you my scribe, then?" "Isn't my scribe supposed to know how to draw?" "Sir, the recruit doesn't know!" "The recruit thought the scribe was supposed to write, sir!" "Of course the recruit doesn't know!" "The recruit doesn't know because I haven't told him!" "All right, cum-for-brains... show me exactly where your Skivvies and running shoes go." "Sir, the recruit can't think... while the drill instructor is hitting him on his head, sir!" "You can't think while I'm giving you a few love taps?" "How the fuck are you going to fire your rifle... when grenades are going off in your face?" "What the fuck are you even doing here?" "Sir, I got lost on the way to college, sir!" "So, now my hands were dick skinners." "A flashlight was a moonbeam." "A pen was an ink stick." "My mouth was a cum receptacle." "A bed was a rack." "A wall was a bulkhead." "A shirt was a blouse." "A tie was still a tie, and a belt a belt." "But many other things would never be the same." "Swofford." "What kind of fucking name is that?" "It's English." "My great-grandfather came over here in the 19th century." "Whatever." "I'm putting you in Golf Company." "It's full of retards and fuck ups." "Maybe you can elevate the sons of bitches a little." "Or maybe not." "Next." "Jarhead:" "Noun." "Slang for "Marine."" "Origin:" "From the resemblance to a jar... of the regulation high-and-tight haircut." "The Marine's head, by implication, therefore... also a jar." "An empty vessel." "Hey!" "May I help you?" "Yeah, I was assigned to Second Platoon." "Second Platoon?" "Yeah." "What's going on, boss?" "Nothing much, man." "Welcome to Second Platoon." "Thanks, man." "Hey, boys!" "Fresh fucking meat!" "What kind of meat?" "We don't want you!" "Boo, motherfucker!" "Get some!" "Oh, fuck." "Yeah, we switched out the hot brand." "Little fuck-fuck trick we play on the new guys." "Nice." "You want a brand, you gotta earn it." "Welcome to the Suck." "Still got that stomach flu, Swofford?" "I can't seem to shake it." "That's all right." "Not everyone's cut out for the Marines." "But for me, there was nowhere else." "That was the truth." "After all, I was made in a war." "Here's Mr. And Mrs. Swofford on RR from Vietnam." "Honolulu Hilton, 1969." "I can't watch... and neither can you." "And here are some other things I can't show you." "Visiting my sister." "Making muffins with Mom." "Breakfast conversations with Dad." "But here are some things you can see." "Taking a dump." "Thinking about going to college." "Studying after school with my girlfriend." "Oh, my God, I love you." "I love you, too." "Giving away my favorite USMC T-shirt." "I'll write you every day." "Hey!" "Swofford?" "Swofford?" "Yo." "What the fuck?" "You're sick?" "No, I just had a stomach thing, sir." "Staff Sergeant Sykes." "I'm with Surveillance and Target Acquisition." "STA." "I heard it took six guys to pull that little branding trick on you." "Your file says that you ain't too fucking dumb, either." "So you better get un-sick most motherfucking ricky-tick... because there's a chance that you could be a scout sniper." "What the fuck is this?" ""The Stranger by Camus."" "That's some heavy dope right there, Marine." ""Mary however..."" ""That's when we ran up to the office..."" "Indoc class starts on Monday." "I suggest you have your ass there." "Is that an order, Staff Sergeant?" "It's a fucking opportunity." "It's a fucking honor." "It's the best fucking job in the Marine Corps." "Sounds good, Staff Sergeant." "Sounds good, Staff Sergeant!" "Sounds good." "Could I have my..." "You know what?" "I got a better idea." "You play any instruments?" "I played the trumpet in third grade, Staff Sergeant." "Played the trumpet in third grade?" "Good." "You still play?" "A little, for small holiday concerts and festivals." "Good." "You ain't gotta be Chuck Mangione." "All I need is a bugler." "Somebody to play Taps, Reveille, Battle March... that type of shit, raise the morale." "Does that interest you?" "Oh, yeah." "Good!" "Parade field, 0600." "All right, thank you, Staff Sergeant!" "My pleasure." "Can I get my book?" "There's 60 of you." "I only need eight." "That means 52 of you will perish." "Do the math." "There's no possible way that all of you can make it." "If you think you're worth some shit..." "Staff Sergeant Sykes!" "Private Swofford reporting for bugle tryout!" "Indoc!" "Atten-hut!" "I don't give out too many special treats... but this morning, we have a very special treat." "Private Swofford here is going to play Reveille for us." "Okay, Swofford, play Reveille." "I don't have a bugle, Staff Sergeant." "You don't have a what?" "I don't have a bugle." "Oh, no." "No, no." "Damn, damn." "You better play with your mouth." "What?" "I said, play it with your goddamn mouth." "Fuck." "I love that tone." "Sounds good to me." "My morale is lifted." "You know any Stevie Wonder?" "You know You Are The Sunshine Of My Life?" "Yes, Staff Sergeant." "Good, that's a classic." "Will you shut the fuck up?" "There is no bugle program." "You sizzle-dick motherfucker." "Who do you think you are, some kind of Kenny G or some shit?" "No, Staff Sergeant." "Good." "Now to the rest of you, do you have what it takes... to be the meanest, the cruelest, the most savage... unforgiving motherfuckers in God's cruel kingdom?" "Yes, Staff Sergeant!" "Will you be able to one day say, "Yea, though I walk..." ""through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil..." ""because I am the baddest motherfucker in the goddamn valley"?" "Yes, Staff Sergeant!" "We shall fucking see!" "You still here?" "Yes, Staff Sergeant!" "Yes, what?" "Yes, I am still here, Staff Sergeant." "So fucking be it." "Fall in!" "One mile!" "One mile!" "Ain't shit!" "Ain't shit!" "Two miles!" "Two miles!" "Your mission is to kill me." "My mission is to kill you first, and I'm good." "Them paintball bullets, they hurt?" "Oh, shit!" "Fuck, I can't see!" "Back to the grunts, dick face!" "In order to engage your target... you must see your target, but your target must not see you." "Shevitz." "You laugh, you die." "Scratch your nose, you die." "You shift your weight to take a piss, you will die." "You want to shit, you better shit in your pants." "Still kind of cute, huh, Swoff?" "No, sir." "This suit will hide you." "You will become a tree." "A rock." "You are mud, sand, and dust." "Still funny?" "No, sir." "In order to fire accurately... you must be able to judge distance and wind direction." "How far are those trees?" "500 yards." "No." "600." "300." "300." "How did you figure that?" "Three football fields." "Three football fields, that's right." "You take what you know and then you multiply." "Please don't use your dicks." "They're too small, and I can't count that high." "I don't wanna hear, "400,000 inches."" "Now, wind." "You use what you have." "Use a flag, use a plume of smoke, a little bit of dust." "Spit on your finger and hold that bitch up." "These are formulas that you can use... but in the end, you have to trust your gut." "Details, gentlemen." "Details is gonna be the difference between you killing your target... and your target killing you." "We've all been taught that, "Thou shalt not kill."" "But hear this:" "Fuck that shit!" "Now, consider your target." "If you are lucky, in that window will one day emerge... the figure of the enemy." "The JFK shot." "The pink mist." "Fire, fire, fire." "Hit." "Fire, fire, fire." "The sounds that you are hearing are live rounds." "You will get the fear out of you." "Keep moving." "If you pick your head up, you will get fucked up!" "Let's find out if we have any bitch in you!" "You guys crawl like old people fuck!" "Keep moving!" "Get the fear out of you." "Keep moving!" "Do not bunch up!" "Keep moving!" "I can't!" "Keep your head down!" "Come on, man!" "Move!" "Keep it moving." "Just fucking move!" "Come on!" "No!" "Keep moving!" "Don't bunch up!" "You can do it!" "You can fucking do it!" "Keep moving!" "Come on!" "I can't!" "Keep moving!" "Don't bunch up!" "I can't!" "No!" "Cease-fire!" "Cease-fire!" "Corpsman!" "Shit!" "Shit." "I told you to keep your fucking head down!" "If you listened to me... you would still be fucking alive right now!" "Stupid fuck!" "God help me." "You are now scout snipers." "Now, I know you've heard this but I'm going to tell it to you again:" "Snipers do not work alone." "You work as a team." "Spotter, shooter." "Spotter, shooter." "Spotter, shooter." "Spotter, shooter." "You may now open your case, pull out your M40A1 rifles." "Once you've done that, you will repeat after me." "This is my rifle." "This is my rifle." "There are many like it, but this one is mine." "There are many like it, but this one is mine." "Without my rifle, I am nothing." "Without my rifle, I am nothing." "Without me, my rifle is nothing." "Without me, my rifle is nothing." "The grunt dies for 15,000 poorly placed rounds." "Fucking right." "The sniper dies... for that one perfect shot." "Hit." "Fire, fire, fire." "I was hooked." "Hit." "Fire, fire, fire." "Hit." "Fire, fire, fire." "Hit." "I wanted the pink mist." "Good evening." "Iraq invaded and took over... its tiny neighbor, Kuwait, today." "That set off worldwide protests and drew sanctions... from the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union." "The government of dictator Saddam Hussein... claimed it went in at the invitation of revolutionaries... who had overthrown the Kuwaiti government." "We have appealed to all our friends around the world... including the United States... to come to our aid and assistance." "We're going to fucking war." "Shoot that motherfucker." "Come on, start running, motherfucker." "Fuck." "Shoot that motherfucker!" "Die!" "Run, Charlie!" "Now hear this." "Now hear this." "All personnel from 2-7... are to report immediately to your company area." "Get some, Marines." "Get some!" "Me, I had a choice... either join the Marines or go to jail." "And you know what the shit of it is?" "Yeah, if you'd gone to jail..." "Don't spoil the joke, asshole." "If I'd have went to jail, I'd be getting out today." "Would you like some nuts?" "No, thanks." "Yes, are they warm nuts?" "No, I believe they're room temperature." "Well, maybe later you can come and warm up my nuts." "You know, I don't really like the little ones." "Okay, is that all?" "Yeah." "Would you like some nuts?" "You poor bastard." "I bet your recruiter promised you a whole wide world of pussy, huh?" "You fucking A." "Cocksucker knew the price of every whore from Olangapo to Stockholm." "And here we are, headed to the desert." "No pussy in 1,000 miles." "Fucked by the green wienie again." "What would you be doing if you were a civilian?" "Staying up late, jacking off... playing Metroid, trying to get to that ninth level?" "You know what happens when you get there?" "Nothing." "You just start all over again." "How long you think we'll be there?" "Two weeks?" "Less, man." "We'll be back so fast... we'll still be shitting out those nuts." "Good luck, now." "Goodbye, now." "Good luck, now." "Goodbye, now." "Want to keep me company for two weeks?" "Goodbye, now." "You don't know what you're missing." "Yeah, yeah." "Damn!" "Attention on deck!" "Take your seats." "Good afternoon, Marines." "Good afternoon, sir!" "Jesus, did you just land in a war zone or a funeral parlor?" "Good afternoon, Marines!" "Good afternoon, sir!" "I just felt my dick move." "For those of you who don't know me..." "I'm Lieutenant Colonel Kazinski, your battalion commander." "We are now a part of Operation Desert Shield." "Now, just north of us..." "Saddam Hussein's got one million Iraqi soldiers." "And some of those boys have been fighting... since you were nine or ten years old." "They are tough." "They will stop at nothing." "They've used nerve gas against the Iranians and the Kurds." "Now, here's a picture." "I know what you're thinking." "You're thinking, "Let's kick ass and take names..." ""and end this shit the day before yesterday."" "Yeah!" "But the bureaucrats have a lot of jawboning to do." "So for now, these Iraqis who have raped and pillaged... poor little Kuwait are not yet in our gun sights." "Our current mission is to protect the oil fields... of our good friends in the Kingdom of Saud... until further notice." "And gentlemen, I'm talking a lot of oil." "A lot of oil." "So you will hydrate, you will train... you will adjust to this desert, and you'll hydrate some more." "And you will be ready." "You will maintain a constant state of suspicious alertness... and one day soon..." "Saddam Hussein is gonna regret pulling this sorry shit." "Ooh-rah!" "We're gonna kick some Iraqi ass!" "What did you say?" "We're gonna kick some Iraqi ass, sir!" "Oh, hell, son." "What, you gonna win the Medal of Honor all by yourself?" "What's the rest of my battalion gonna do?" "Kick some Iraqi ass!" "You know, I think it's time for me to retire." "I can't hear a fucking thing!" "Kick some Iraqi ass!" "Oh, boys, I just got a hard-on!" "Man, this defensive position shit sucks, huh?" "We need to get out of this shit hole soon." "I need to shoot something!" "You're gonna get all you want soon enough." "First to fucking fight!" "Yeah." "For what?" "I've been around these old white fuckers all my life." "They got their fat hands in Arab oil." "The motherfuckers drink it like it's beer." "That's why we're here, to protect their profits." "You're full of shit." "He's full of shit." "Who do you think gave Saddam all his fucking weapons?" "We did!" "Fuck politics, all right?" "We're here." "All the rest is bullshit." "Yeah." "Everyone else is unpacking, man." "I'm taking a break." "What you got?" "Photos." "She's hot." "Yours?" "Yes, man." "You better shoot yourself in the foot... and get a ticket home... because Jodies are gonna be all over her!" "Look at her!" "Ain't she an animal!" "They won't leave her alone!" "That's nice for a white chick, man." "Thank you, man." "Nice?" "Come on." "I'd drink a gallon of her pee just to see where it came from." "All right, all right, all right." "This is hardcore right here." "This is close to porn." "Let me see that one." "Let me see." "She's got a baby fist down here." "Dream on, brothers, dream on." "I'm storing that for later, man." "I'm storing it for later." "Hey, y'all horny fucks wanna see a beautiful woman?" "Yeah!" "Let's see it." "Let's see it." "Give it up!" "Check this out." "Yeah, boy!" "Give it up, give it up." "No, no, no." "Oh, no!" "Please don't love me!" "Now, tell them how many tortillas she had before that picture." "Hey, she's pregnant, man." "That's why she's so beautiful, man." "This is what it's all about right here, man." "Hey, fuck you guys!" "Married guys." "I'm telling you, married guys lose brain cells by the billions." "If the Corps wanted you to have a wife... they would have issued you one." "Yeah, they would have issued you one." "Yeah!" "No family photos, Swofford?" "Hey, can I see your pictures?" "Yeah, sure, man." "Thanks." "Fergus, right?" "Yeah." "She have her own clothes?" "Well, ain't this cozy as fuck?" "You guys get settled in?" "Yes, Staff Sergeant!" "Well, if you're not too busy..." "Gas!" "Gas!" "Gas!" "Right now!" "I'm talking about gas!" "Let's go!" "Let's move it!" "Come on, guys, what the fuck are you doing?" "Let's go!" "Get it on!" "Right now your dicks are falling off!" "Your skin is bubble wrap!" "Let's go!" "Move it!" "You sorry motherfuckers, I told you, "Don't get lazy."" "Didn't I tell you not to get lazy?" "Let's go!" "Let's go." "What are you doing?" "That's your fucking sleeping bag, you moron!" "Let's go!" "It's been 30 seconds." "What the fuck are you doing?" "Get it on!" "You stay ready, you ain't got to get ready!" "You nasty motherfuckers are so lazy!" "I told you to stay on point!" "That's 45 seconds!" "What you doing?" "What you doing?" "You better get your motherfucking ass in gear!" "You gonna be the first motherfucker I kick up in the ass." "Get it on!" "I'm trying!" "They packed mine wrong!" "Retarded motherfuckers, let's go!" "Put it on!" "Let's go!" "Stop!" "Stop it right now!" "Luke." "Come over to the dark side, Luke." "55 seconds." "You're all dead." "And since you're all dead..." "I guess you wouldn't mind taking a little run in these suits." "Let's go!" "Swofford, if you don't pick it up..." "I'm gonna shoot you in your fucking foot!" "Move it!" "The price of crude oil has nearly doubled." "President Bush sends in more troops." "Us, six times a day, we gather for formation." "Drink it down, all of it." "And we hydrate." "Now, hold them up." "We patrol the empty desert." "Get down!" "And we dehydrate." "We throw hand grenades... into nowhere." "We navigate imaginary minefields." "We fire at nothing." "And we hydrate some more." "You will hydrate till I get full." "There you go." "Hold it down." "Now, hold them up." "And we look north, towards the border... and we wait for them." "This is our labor." "We wait." "I got one!" "A white one!" "Master race." "Check her out." "It's beautiful." "Chango's reign of terror is over!" "Over!" "Come on!" "It's over, you fucking pussy, Chango." "Chango, come on." "Hey, come on, Chango." "Come on, Chango!" "Now you're gonna see a fight, kid!" "Come on!" "Come on!" "Come on, whitey!" "Come on." "Come on." "Come on!" "Come on!" "Pay me my money, motherfuckers!" "All right!" "I told you, I told you!" "Go, Chango!" "Chango!" "Chango!" "Chango!" "Fucking asshole." "Suggested techniques for the Marine to use... in the avoidance of boredom and loneliness:" "Masturbation... rereading of letters from unfaithful wives and girlfriends... cleaning your rifle... further masturbation... rewiring Walkmen... arguing about religion and meaning of life... discussing in detail every woman the Marine has ever fucked... debating differences, such as Cuban versus Mexican..." "Harleys versus Hondas... left- versus right-handed masturbation... further cleaning of rifle... studying of Filipino mail-order bride catalog... further masturbation... planning of Marine's first meal on return home... imagining what the Marine's girlfriend... and her man Jody are doing in the hay... or in the alley... or in a hotel bed." "Is she up there yet?" "What?" "Get the fuck off me, man." "Don't worry, she will be." "She'll be right there." "She's gonna look beautiful up there." "Yeah." "Thank you." "I wonder what she's doing right now." "No way to know." "Now, here are the rules." "When you talk to these reporters, you do not get specific." "Tell them that there's no better shooters in the world... than Marine snipers." "Tell them that you're happy to be here." "You're proud of the mission." "All right?" "And you can't wait to mash the fuck out of these Iraqis." "Anything other than that comes out of your mouth..." "I get fucked up." "And if I get fucked up, I'm gonna fuck you up." "Take your shirts off." "Show your muscles." "You've been working out." "This is censorship." "This is what?" "Censorship." "You're telling us what we can and can't say to the press." "That's un-American." "Yeah, what about freedom of speech?" "The Constitution?" "No, you signed a contract." "You don't have any rights." "You got any complaints, you complain to Saddam Insane... and you see if he gives a fuck." "Why, that's exactly what Saddam Hussein does." "You're treating us the same way." "You are a Marine." "There's no such thing as speech that is free." "You must pay for everything that you say." "We're rolling." "Sound, speed." "You're a Marine here in Saudi Arabia." "Are you glad to be here?" "Oh, yes, ma'am, I'm glad to be here." "My uncle and my father served in Vietnam... so I'm proud to serve my country here." "I have supreme confidence in all my leaders... you know, from my team leader to my President." "I'm very proud to serve my country, yeah." "So, who's waiting for you back home?" "Can I give a message to my brother?" "Sure." "Tim, hey." "He's gonna get this?" "Uh-huh." "Tim!" "What's up?" "I got your letter, man, and you are a maniac." "You're crazy." "He'll understand that." "You're a Marine here in Saudi Arabia." "How do you hope the Kuwaitis will greet you?" "How do you feel about the Iraqis?" "They're the enemy." "Do you have nightmares about them?" "How do you..." "I love it out here." "This is what I want." "'Cause I count for something." "Back home..." "I'd be working some nowhere job." "Nobody would even know I was alive." ""We burn the fat off our souls."" "Hemingway, he said that." "Who's waiting for you back home?" "Well, you know, I have a girlfriend waiting for me." "Anything you'd like to say to her?" "Yeah, sure." "Yeah." "Hi, Kristina." "Here we are." "Are you scared?" "Yes, ma'am, I'm very happy to be here." "I love my country." "I miss my parents." "Hey, Mom, hey, Dad." "They're treating me all right here." "It was an opportunity for me to defend America... the country which has given freedom to me and to my family." "And it is an honor to fight for that freedom." "To defend my country... and to serve my country... and to learn skills to eventually go into law enforcement." "Are you scared?" "Look..." "I'm 20 years old... and I was dumb enough to sign a contract." "I can hear their fucking bombs already." "I can hear their bombs." "And I'm fucking scared, yeah." "Don't tell my Staff Sergeant, though, all right?" "So in case of a chemical attack... what provisions do your men have for that?" "This is what we call the NBC suits." "That's nuclear-biological - chemical protective suits." "We also have a mask." "This is the M17 A1 mask... which is fitted with a drinking tube... so these guys can drink from their canteens... without taking off their masks." "Oh, really?" "Want to try it?" "No, thanks, but can I hold it?" "Yeah, sure." "It's heavy." "Yeah, it is." "But you know, we need these in order to protect us." "They fight with all this in all this heat?" "Yes, they do." "They fight with it and..." "As a matter of fact, let me give you a small demonstration of that." "Kruger, get rid of the ball." "Get rid of the ball." "Kruger!" "Get rid of the fucking ball." "Ball." "Fuck." "Give me the ball." "All right, listen up, guys, today is your lucky day." "These reporters want to see how your NBC suits work." "All right, so we're gonna continue this little football game... in full chemical gear." "That's right." "Come on, let's go." "It's 112 degrees." "Then I guess you won't be needing your parkas, will you?" "Let's play!" "I'm gonna hurt you, Swoff." "I'm gonna hurt you so bad." "Do you like pain?" "Hut!" "Swoff!" "Where's the fucking ball?" "Swofford, what is that?" "Swofford, I guess you call that using your head, huh?" "Using his head." "Hut." "Hut!" "Cortez!" "Fuck you!" "Fuck you, bitch!" "Who got me?" "Who got me?" "No, no, I want him." "You want the Mexican leprechaun?" "Well, let's take him." "Yeah, I'll take the fucking midget." "I'm the midget?" "Let's go, you squishy-faced retard." "Don't you ever call me a squishy-face." "Squishy-face." "Let's go, baby, squishy-face!" "Let's go, squishy-face." "Motherfucker!" "All right, that's it!" "That's halftime!" "Put the masks back on." "Bring the water." "We're gonna further this demonstration." "Men, these M17 A1 drinking tubes... are designed to work perfectly with your canteen and your mask." "Take the narrow part of the tube... with your fingers extended and joined... and place it into the appropriate receptacle... on the canteen lid." "The lid on my canteen's fucked." "Watch your mouth." "I got another one for you right there." "My hydration tube is busted, Staff Sergeant." "We're gonna die of dehydration." "We're not gonna die." "Just cool it." "Staff Sergeant, my drinking tube fell off... at the gas chamber at Pendleton." "It's been four months..." "I understand that, and I want everybody to understand this!" "Fucking piece of shit!" "And I want you to play fucking ball!" "Oh, that's a peach, baby!" "Go!" "Kruger of Arabia!" "Kruger, field fuck." "Field fuck?" "Field fuck!" "It's just good old American..." "Shit." "Stop it." "Stop it, you assholes." "Stop it!" "Put your clothes on!" "Come on, bring the camera." "You're gonna put your clothes on and quit acting like monkeys." "You stupid motherfuckers." "Put your clothes on, assholes!" "Come on." "Let's go check out the artillery and everything." "Field what?" "He said "field fun."" "That's one of the exercises that we run here in the field." "The armory." "Why don't we have a look at that?" "Yeah, let's..." "Come back soon, now, you hear?" "I don't hear you laughing now." "I can't hear you." "That's better." "Sounds jovial." "Platoon!" "Atten-hut!" "Lance Corporal Swofford!" "Yes, Staff Sergeant!" "On top of the world, huh?" "Yes, Staff Sergeant!" "Well, I have more important things to do... like play with my balls." "But guess what, you guys are scheduled... for a little two-day vacation back in the rear... so I suggest you get your shit together." "You can start by taking all that down." "Fuck!" "Yeah, whatever." "Come on, Swoff, pack up." "Your mommy again, Fergie." "What are you listening to?" "My mom's Christmas tape." "You're a retard." "Fergus, you and your mom got fire watch tonight." "2200 to 0200." "Man, that's two straight weeks." "Why does it have to be me?" "'Cause you're so boot." "You are boot." "Oh, yeah." "That's the third fucking time, man." "What's that?" "I just want it to say "no preference."" "Is that so fucking hard?" "What difference does it make?" "God knows you're "no preference."" "At least they got the blood type right." "I mean, which would you rather get?" "The wrong prayer or the wrong blood?" "One lonely pink letter from Sacramento." "Kristina." "I wonder what she's up to?" "Now, I dare you..." "Go jerk off outside." "Oh, my God." "What?" "Oh, my God, man, I have a son!" "I got a fucking son, man!" "I got a little boy!" "Let's see." "Look at that cute kid." "You better check the mailman, bro." "This baby's a gringo, man." "No way." "That's definitely Montezuma Jr." "I don't care, as long as he's not a Cuban with a little dick." "Cortez, can I see him?" "Here you go, Pinko." "He's beautiful, man." "I'll put my little boy up." "Doesn't look good." "Kristina has a new friend, man." "She got a new friend?" "He's the night manager at her hotel, and she says he's a good listener." "Man!" "This is getting worse." "He's fucked, man." "Oh, I told you." "I told you." "She's one of those girls with a military fetish." "Yeah, and she's getting off when she tells the Jody... that her boyfriend's a jarhead." "Yeah, man, fuck." "All right, fuck off." "I can see it." "I can see it now." "She works in a hotel." "She goes into a vacant room, right?" "Grabs onto the pole and goes, "Jody!" "Jody!" "Six-foot-four!"" "Hey, hey, hey." "Go pull the legs off a spider." "Okay, Corporal." "Hey, Swoff." "That's right." "Cheer up, man." "We heading back to the rear." "We'll get some AC... shit in a flush toilet, you can use the phone." "I'm gonna call her." "You fucking A." "Even if she is fucking someone else." "Root beer shower!" "No more monkey ass!" "Root beer shower!" "What?" "Where are you going?" "To work." "Where you going?" "Hey, look, it's a cock, but smaller." "Fuck!" "Fuck!" "Hello?" "Kris, it's me." "Hello?" "Hello." "Oh, my God, Tony." "How are you?" "I'm good." "How are you?" "Missing you." "I'm all right." "I'm missing you, too." "I saw your mom." "We went to visit your sister." "How is she?" "Your mom?" "No, Rini." "She's doing better." "She's doing really good." "So this guy..." "Did you get the pictures?" "Yeah, I got them." "They're great." "Did you see the one of you and me?" "The guy at the hotel..." "Who?" "How well do you know him, Kris?" "Who, Carl?" "He's just a friend." "How well do you know him?" "Tony, he's just a friend." "Hello?" "Yeah, I'm here." "Hello?" "Kris?" "Tony?" "I'm here." "Tony!" "Kris?" "God." "Kris?" "You were making some pretty weird sounds, man." "Dettman's wife sent him Deer Hunter." "Let's go watch it." "Put it on!" "Shut up, Fowler, you fucking shit bird!" "Shut the fuck up." "You shut up already." "Yeah!" "Get your boot off my fucking chair, you fucking boot." "Rude motherfucker, Swoff." "What the fuck?" "That's my wife." "That's my fucking wife!" "Oh, fuck." "That's my wife." "That's Clancey." "That's my fucking neighbor." "I lent him my fucking car." "That's my wife." "That's my fucking wife!" "You fucking bitch!" "No!" "You slut!" "No!" "Fuck!" "You don't need to see this shit." "Oh, fuck, baby." "You don't need to see this." "Swoff, come on." "Take him outside." "Come on, Dettman." "Come on." "Fuck!" "I wanna go home!" "I wanna go home." "Who's fucking around now, Brian?" "Fucking faggot, man!" "Let's watch it again!" "That's enough!" "That's enough!" "No, no, no!" "Why?" "That's his fucking wife!" "No fun!" "What are you doing?" "I'm waiting for you to leave so I can watch it again." "Why do you want to watch it again?" "I want to watch it again." "Why?" "I want to see what it's like... to watch somebody else fuck your girlfriend." "Come on." "Get your shit." "Come on." "We're going back." "For most problems... the Marine is issued a solution." "If ill, go to sickbay." "If wounded, call corpsman." "If dead, report to graves registration." "If losing his mind, however... no standard solution exists." "No... standard... solution... exists." "What's up, buddy?" "Merry Christmas." "Yeah." "I hear you got some good shit." "Fly, rumor, on winged feet." "Here... read this." "What is it?" "It's a love letter for the Major." "I write all of his letters." ""Dear sweet Gloria, I wish I was up in you now..." ""with a finger in your ass." ""Love you, Captain Skinboat."" "I studied classics at Dartmouth." "It's a good school." "$40, five gallons." "Hey, Swoff." "Which way do I mount this?" "What does it say?" ""Front toward enemy." Oh, yeah." "Got to be a clue." "Thanks." "Sorry." "Fergus, you take my watch tonight, I'll pay you back." "Not again." "It's Christmas Eve." "I'll send you out a fucking tree." "Oh, great, a tree." "Merry Christmas." "* I'll take you frame by frame it *" "* To have y'all jumpin' shall we sing it *" "* O is for Other, P is for People scratching' temple *" "* The last P, well, that's not that simple *" "* You down with OPP **" "* The first two letters are the same *" "* The last is something different *" "* It's the longest, loveliest, leanest I call it the leanest *" "* It's another five letter word **" "Fucking killers!" "Shit!" "Shit!" "Shit." "Oh, shit!" "What the fuck?" "Come on!" "Now!" "Let's get some!" "Fuck!" "Fuck!" "Fuck!" "Fuck!" "Fuck!" "What the fuck is that?" "It's time to do it all!" "It's time for me to..." "Sorry, guys." "I'm really sorry." "It was my sausages." "Fucker's fucked now." "So do you have all of that unauthorized beverage out of your system?" "Whose watch was that, Swofford?" "It was mine." "It was yours." "But since you don't know how to handle responsibility... we are demoting you." "You are now a private." "You think you're the only one that's bored around here?" "And it will begin..." "I don't want you covering my ass." "So guess what's next?" "Instructions for the effective burning of shitters." "The Marine will need the following:" "One metal fence post, one pair of welder's gloves... five gallons of diesel fuel, and one box of matches." "Hold it right there, Marine." "So you are the fucking idiot who tried to burn down my camp." "Yes, sir." "Stick that back in there." "It's already full of diesel fuel, sir." "I don't care if it's full of Chanel No. 5." "I'm not going to the other side of this camp for my morning glory." "Stick that fucker back in there." "I'm waiting." "I left you a little gift in there." "Not too hard, not too soft." "Perfect." "Thank you, sir." "Happy holidays, Private." "Done." "Done." "Again." "Again." "Done." "Done." "How many is that, Cortez?" "Twenty-six in a row." "What would you say if I told you I was gonna kill you... for fucking me over like that?" "I already told you, it was an accident." "An accident." "Right." "Like when this trigger slips." "Of course, your nice little mom and dad are where?" "Cottonwood Falls." "Cottonwood Falls." "They'll be sad." "They won't have their little boy to send fucking cookies to." "I'll say it was an accidental discharge." "I might even spend some time in the brig... but I'll end this fucking waiting." "And I'll know what it's like to kill a man." "What are you doing?" "I'm in the firing position known as the sitting position." "After the prone position, it is the platform most likely... to enable a Marine to effectively kill his target." "His target being a human, generally an enemy... but sometimes a friend or friendly." "We call this friendly fire, or friendly fucking... or getting friendly fucked." "Come on, Swoff, it was your watch." "It was Christmas Eve, and I was just sitting there thinking about home." "That's it." "What do you think, Cortez?" "You think I'll accidentally kill your homeboy from boot camp?" "Sure you'll kill him." "Accidents happen." "You don't see shit, right?" "I don't see shit." "This ain't even my tent." "As a matter of fact, I ain't even here, Swoff." "What are you doing, man?" "The M16A2 service rifle is a lightweight... air-cooled, gas-operated, magazine-fed shoulder weapon." "It fires a 5.56 mm ball projectile... muzzle velocity 2,800 feet per second." "This is my rifle." "Repeat after me." "Repeat after me." "Repeat after me!" "This is my rifle." "There you go." "That's right." "Say the fucking words!" "There are many like it." "There are many like it." "But this one is mine." "Without my rifle, I am nothing." "Say it, you fucking idiot!" "No." "This is my rifle!" "There are many like it, but this one is mine!" "Without my rifle, I am nothing." "This is..." "No, come on!" "Shut the fuck up." "Shut the fuck up." "Shut the fuck up and repeat after me!" "Without me, I'm..." "This is my rifle." "There are many like it!" "Without me, my rifle is nothing!" "Fucking say it!" "Repeat after me!" "Repeat after me!" "Without my rifle, I am nothing!" "I am nothing!" "I am nothing." "Shut the fuck up." "I'm nothing." "Shut the fuck up." "Shut the fuck up." "Get up." "Fuck, shoot me, then." "Fucking shoot me!" "Shoot me in the fucking face!" "I don't want to." "Do you fucking see how hard it is?" "You shoot me in the fucking face, you fucking faggot!" "No, I don't want to." "Friendly fucking fire!" "Shoot me, you fucking pussy!" "No." "Fuck!" "Fuck." "Fuck." "Fuck." "Fuck." "So you had a round in the chamber?" "You were locked and loaded?" "I messed up, man." "Look at him." "He's fucking shaking." "Fergus, get up here." "I messed up, man." "Okay." "Look at him." "You fucking do that again, and I will shoot you myself." "All right?" "Well?" "I'm sorry, man." "What was that?" "It might be an echo." "No, it's not." "I hear it, too." "Call it in." "See if there are friendlies in the area." "Lima 2 Charlie." "Lima 2 Charlie." "This fucking shit is fucked, man." "Army has satellites, and we have this fucking shit." "Better off sending smoke signals, man." "All right, guys, spread it out." "Troy." "Troy." "Who are they, man?" "I don't know." "They got RPGs under their robes, man." "If they've got anthrax in there, we're gonna fucking melt." "Form a line!" "Okay." "What do we do now?" "Looks like they wanna talk." "Yeah?" "How you gonna do that?" "That's his left hand." "Shoot him!" "Easy, easy, easy." "Hold your fire." "Swoff, what are you doing?" "Swoff!" "Guys, cover him." "Fucking crazy motherfucker." "What's up, man?" "What?" "What is he doing?" "Calm down." "What the fuck is he doing?" "Don't fucking touch the rifle!" "Back up!" "Back the fuck up!" "No fire." "No fire!" "What did he say?" "Someone shot their camels." "What?" "Someone shot their camels, man." "Eight men for five camels." "Swoff spoke Arabic." "Sounded like a duck fucking or something, but he spoke Arabic." "Oh, yeah, yeah." "But at least we finally saw something." "You guys should see what the.40 does... to the head of a fucking camel, though." "What does the.40 do to the head of a camel, Fowler?" "It turns the head inside out in about three fucking knots." "The head shot's like a motherfucker, too." "It's easy shots, slow..." "Boom!" "Oh, shit!" "Wow!" "Here they are!" "My lady love!" "Show's starting, boys!" "Hey, teach me some of that Arabic." "What's "Come suck my dick"?" "...ducks fucking..." "Drop the zero, get with the hero." "I like you." "Sit down, Fowler." "That's the one." "You saw." "She'll never forget me, man." "It's not funny, man." "That bitch wanted me." "Did you see that?" "You truly are an asshole." "Come on, man." "You just haven't got to kill anything yet." "That's your problem, man." "Don't fucking touch me." "You'll get to kill something sometime." "Your day will come, man." "Your day will come." "Listen up!" "I'm about to read to you what Mr. Saddam Hussein... has just said to the Iraqi people." "And you better not consider this a bunch of bullshit." ""The mother of all battles is upon us." ""The sacrifices the Iraqi people will make..." ""are equal to the importance of the victory." ""Kuwait is the branch that must be returned to the tree." ""The blood of the infidels will flow like a river." ""Jihad is the way of all Arab people."" "We are now Operation Desert Storm." "And we're the fucking righteous hammer of God." "And that hammer is coming down." "It's real now." "We're going to the border." "Ooh-rah!" "Let's go!" "Let's move it!" "Let's punch in this clock." "We got work to do." "Let's go." "Let's move." "Come on!" "Let's go!" "Move." "Listen up." "When we cross this berm tomorrow... we expect as many as 30,000 casualties the first day." "There will be gas." "It will be fucking nasty." "These atropine-oxime injectors go along with your PB pill packs." "In the event that you're attacked by nerve agents such as soman... these agents will produce casualties immediately... if you do not deploy these countermeasures fucking ricky-tick." "Why in the fuck, if we've already taken a set of PB pills... and just now been issued the fucking injector?" "Shut the fuck up." "I'm sick of your shit." "All right, all right, man." "Calm down." "Look, they don't want chemically dead fighters on CNN." "Just sign it, Kruger." "What the fuck is this?" "It's a waiver." "It says these pills aren't proven." "It says you won't sue if you get fucked up." "Okay, yeah, sure, fine." "I'll take the fucking pills, and a year later... my asshole will turn inside out and start fucking talking to me." "It's all a bitch." "These pills ain't worth a shit." "Kruger, you country motherfuck!" "In 1987, Saddam Insane used chemical weapons... against the Kurds, and he killed thousands like fucking that." "The ones that lived, their kids came out fucked up." "Eight toes to one foot, no anal opening... retarded, blind." "Such fucked up little motherfuckers... they should have just killed them all anyway." "You want that, don't take the pills." "You don't want that, sign the fucking waivers... and take the fucking pills!" "All of you, get your pills in your hand." "Get them out." "Get them so I can see them." "Now take the pill and put it on your tongue." "Swallow the pill." "Now let me see your tongues." "Now, doesn't that feel better?" "Don't we all feel better?" "Yes, Staff Sergeant!" "Good." "Now, dig your sleeping holes." "Dig your holes with the hands God gave you." "Fucking zoomies." "They're gonna win the war all by themselves?" "They'll be sleeping in their own beds tonight, too." "So what, man?" "We're scout fucking snipers." "When the shit hits the fan, we lead the fucking way." "Ooh-rah!" "Ooh-rah." "Sure, look around." "You hear those planes." "This war is gonna move too fast for us." "All right, we can shoot 1,000 yards." "To go that far in Vietnam, that would take a week." "In World War I, a year." "Here, it's gonna take about 10 fucking seconds." "By the time we have our rifles dialed... the war is going to be a mile down the road." "Wake up!" "Jesus!" "What the fuck is going on?" "Get out of my sleeping hole." "We're about to go in the shit, and you're fucking with their heads." "Get out of my sleeping hole." "Lucky day!" "Listen up!" "We've got our orders." "We leave tomorrow, 0900." "Swofford, you got to sign your waiver again." "I can't read your fucking handwriting." "Yes, Staff Sergeant." "Done." "I don't give a fuck, Swofford, I could read it the first time." "Your boy, Troy got turned down for re-enlistment." "What?" "You're fucking with me." "Hey, watch your mouth." "I don't need your fucking attitude." "But that's all he..." "That's all he wants, is to be in the Suck." "I know that, but the Suck doesn't want him." "He had a criminal record." "He lied about it." "And he lied about it on his application." "So when we get back home, he's out." "He's out." "The reason I'm telling you is so you can keep him from fucking up." "You think you can manage that?" "Can you manage that?" "What?" "So you weren't even gonna tell me?" "What?" "Why don't you just shut the fuck up and mind your own business?" "What the fuck is this, man?" "Bet it smells good, man." "She sent it back, man." "Sent it back like you send back a ring." "What did she write?" ""I'll always love you, Kristina."" "What's the fucking problem, then?" "Nothing stays the same, Swoff." "Not our girlfriends, not our families, not anyone." "Time doesn't stop back in the real world... 'cause we're about to go in the shit." "We're Marines." "Nobody gives a rat's ass." "No, we're jarheads." "Yeah, what the fuck do you know?" "I know you're a fucking jarhead, and that's all I need to know." "Jar-fucking-head." "Hey, jarhead, what's the Marine Corps birthday?" "Marine Corps birthday?" "November 10th, 1775." "Older than the USA." "Fucking A." "Birthplace?" "Tun Tavern, Philadelphia." "That's the city of brotherly love." "A. Tarawa?" "Bloodiest battle of World War II." "Dan Daly?" "Killed 37 Chinese by hand during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900." "The greatest weapon on earth?" "The Marine and his rifle!" "You wanna win your fucking war?" "You tell it to the Marines!" "Get the brand!" "Get the brand!" "Now!" "Now!" "Now!" "Get him down!" "He's yours." "You earned it, man." "We turned the inside of our tent... into a circus." "'Cause inside of our circus, we cannot be injured." "Inside of our circus, we cannot be touched." "But we are insane... to believe this." "Incoming!" "Corpsman!" "Get the fuck in here!" "Get the fuck in here!" "Get the fuck down here!" "Incoming!" "My combat action... has commenced." "Corpsman!" "Corpsman!" "Are you all right?" "What the fuck, man?" "I pissed myself." "Got to find the fucking FO." "What?" "The forward observers, they got us dialed in." "We gotta find the fuck..." "Get down!" "Fuck!" "Swofford, you get on the binos." "You get your binos and you find him." "Troy, get on that radio." "Radio's dead." "Go to the com truck!" "Look up!" "And get some batteries!" "Where is it?" "It's over there!" "Jesus!" "It ain't getting no closer." "Get the fuck going!" "Fuck!" "Corpsman!" "Corpsman!" "Do not fucking die!" "Do not fucking die!" "Do not fucking die!" "Do not fucking die!" "This fucking hole isn't deep enough!" "What are you talking about?" "We need batteries for the 77." "Fuck!" "Man, we are fucking dying!" "I need a fucking battery for the 77." "Why are you fucking arguing with me?" "What are you doing?" "Those are dead batteries!" "Shut up!" "What took you so long?" "Fuck you." "Here are the coordinates, call that fucker in." "I just ran through incoming to get a dead fucking battery." "Welcome to the Suck." "Fuck!" "Damn, you was too fucking slow!" "They're already retreating!" "Sykes says we're going after them!" "We're gonna get some!" "That was A10s." "Warthogs, baby." "Those things are fucking tank killers." "That shit's a fucking monster." "Yeah, no shit, Fowler." "* Off they go into the wide blue yonder **" "Let's go, zoomies!" "Let's drop that righteous hand of God!" "Fowler, get back in formation." "They're about to drop those bombs!" "Fowler, stay in position." "They're gonna drop the hand of God all over the Iraqis!" "Fowler, stay in your formation." "Yeah!" "Fowler, get..." "Are they supposed to come back?" "Get in formation!" "Incoming!" "Quebec 4 Delta, this is Echo 5 Charlie." "Request medevac, priority." "Marines down, in grid 671584." "We'll mark with smoke, over." "What are they doing?" "Supposed to be flying." "Fucking assholes." "You call those Humvees up, and we keep moving." "They fucking thought we were Iraqis?" "Keep moving." "Come on." "Keep moving." "They could be over this next berm." "Now listen up, let's stay focused." "We're heading north." "Let's move out." "Keep your eyes open." "What are you doing?" "They were trying to get away." "Fuck it, man." "Come on." "Fergus, here." "Thanks." "Staff Sergeant, I gotta take a shit." "Stay in voice range." "Spaghetti marinara." "One fucking hell of a day, huh?" "You all right?" "Yeah." "What's over there?" "Nothing." "Holy shit!" "What?" "Oil wells." "They lit up the oil wells." "It's raining oil." "It's raining oil, fellas." "You ever see that movie Giant?" "You've seen the movie Giant." "James Dean, man." ""My well came in, Bick." ""I'm rich, Bick." "Richer than you."" "Come on, shut your trap." "That shit's poison." "Come on." "The earth is bleeding." "Well, you'd better get used to it, 'cause we're gonna be living in it." "Dig those holes, boys." "Shit." "Shit's stinging my eyes." "My eyes is burning!" "Shit!" "Oh, fuck!" "Fuck, it's in my eye, I can't see." "Oh, shit, it's burning!" "It's burning!" "Swoff, get me some water." "Fuck, it's burning!" "Calm down." "It's okay." "What are you doing?" "Don't rub your eyes." "Don't rub your eyes." "Shit, it's burning!" "Hey, just close your eyes." "Swoff, I need that towel." "All right, there you go." "You want me to wipe your ass now?" "Shit!" "Put them back on." "You're okay, man." "Put them back on." "You'll be fine, perfect." "Thanks, man." "Hey, listen up!" "The wind's changed." "We're moving out this shit." "Let's move!" "I came here to fight." "I've just got to get out of this fucking oil." "Let's go, man." "Let's go." "That's Vietnam music, man." "Can't we get our own fucking music?" "Hey, Krug... what's Fowler doing digging way over there?" "He ain't digging." "Fowler, what are you doing?" "Fowler!" "What are you digging over there?" "Nothing." "Our orders are to dig over here." "Mind your own fucking business." "Hey, Fowler, H2O?" "Hey, Fergie, come here." "I gotta show you something." "This is my new best buddy, man." "Who's under there?" "Just my friend." "Ta-da." "Jesus Christ, Fowler." "Ahab the Arab, huh?" "Oh, Jesus." "Get that out of here." "Fuck, Fowler." "$5 to get your picture taken with it, guys." "Check out what I put in his mouth." "What's the matter, Swoffy?" "Swoff doesn't like Ahab." "You don't like Ahab?" "This is war, man." "This is war." "You can't handle it?" "What are you, a fag?" "If you fucking touch me, I will beat your fucking head in." "I swear to God." "Hey." "Get it out of here." "The whole goddamn desert is shitting dead ragheads." "Have we done anything?" "Have we done anything but walk around in the sand?" "I didn't kill him." "He's dead." "Move." "Fuck you." "There's tons of crispy critters around here, man." "I'll get as many as I want." "You won't get this one." "Yeah, but I'll get as many as I want, man!" "'Cause I don't even fucking want that one!" "I don't." "Fowler... stay sharp." "It's all right." "You're gonna be all right." "It's all right." "Whoa." "You're covered in this fucking oil." "The Army may pull this type of shit, but the Marines don't." "When we get back, Fowler will be passing out shit-paper." "I could be working with my brother right now." "He's got a dry-wall business in Compton." "Does the inside of office buildings." "You know, the metal studs." "I could be his partner." "Said he'd give me that brand new Dodge Ram Charger." "You know, the 318 Magnum?" "The beast?" "All indoor work, too." "Lots of AC." "I could sleep with my wife every night." "Fuck her, maybe." "Take my kids to school every morning." "And I'd run his crews, too." "Probably increase productivity 40 to 50%." "Make $100,000 a year." "Do you know why I don't?" "Because I love this job." "I thank God for every fucking day that He gives me in the Corps." "Ooh-rah." "I mean, who else gets a chance to see shit like this?" "You know what I'm saying?" "Yes, Staff Sergeant." "Do you?" "Listen up." "Colonel says he wants my best snipers." "God help me, it's you two." "We've had beaucoup surrenders, whole fucking units... but the Republican Guard is still out there... and they are most definitely hardcore." "So you keep your shit together." "Go over there." "Yes, Staff Sergeant." "Thank you, Staff Sergeant." "What?" "Thank you." "Don't thank me, just don't fucking die." "Let's go." "Fucking A." "Get a kill, you fucking pussies." "Sykes thinks you boys are good." "Yes, sir." "Well, if it comes from him it's not bullshit." "I got the kind of mission... scout snipers would pop their grandmother to get." "We got 750 Republican Guards dug in around a control tower... at airfield Al Jabar." "Grid 703003." "The recon reports two high-ranking officers in the tower." "All my air is tied up farther north till 1800." "So if you could take out those officers... maybe the cannon fodder will white flag it... and save me having to take the whole battalion... hey, diddle diddle, right up the middle." "Aye-aye, sir." "This is not Rambo time." "Before you take a shot, you must get clearance, understood?" "Yes, sir." "Outstanding." "Some of my officers think that scout snipers are prima donnas." "They think STA stands for Sun Tan Association." "Are they right?" "No, sir." "Then fucking show me." "Clear." "Oh, shit!" "There's no one in the tower, man." "The sun's going down." "Shit!" "Wait." "Thank you, Jesus." "Romeo, Golf, Charlie." "Romeo, Golf, Charlie." "This is Lima 2 Sierra." "Over." "Officers in control tower." "Over." "That's what they look like, huh?" "Range?" "900 yards." "Wind is?" "Five to seven, west to east." "Romeo, Golf, Charlie." "Romeo, Golf, Charlie." "Requesting permission to take the shot." "Over." "Set." "We have the shot." "Over." "Affirmative." "Out." "Permission to fire." "Fire." "Fire." "Fire." "What the fuck frequency are you on?" "Oh, fuck." "We got air." "I'm calling it in." "We have permission to take the shot." "Tough break, you were just gonna shoot one guy." "Watch this, it'll blow your fucking minds." "Bad knees." "College football." "Requesting permission to take the shot, sir." "Request denied." "You never know how many chances you're gonna get to do this." "Wait, wait, wait." "Sir, just let us take this one shot right before the air comes in." "Those aren't my orders, Marine." "Hitman 45..." "No, wait, wait, wait." "Hitman 45..." "Wait, wait, wait." "Wait, sir, we won't tell anybody." "We don't need to tell anybody." "What difference does it make?" "We have a perfect shot." "Just let us take it." "Negative." "We have permission from the Colonel, sir." "Hitman 45." "Hitman 45." "This is Corporal..." "God damn it, he's dead anyway!" "Just let us fucking do it!" "You are way out of line, Corporal." "Troy." "What difference does it make?" "Give him back the handset." "If it doesn't make a fucking difference... why the fuck do you have to do it?" "Because we have the goddamn shot!" "That's why we're here!" "Give me the fucking handset!" "Fucking fuck!" "Fucking stop!" "Stop it!" "That's my kill!" "Fuck!" "That is my kill!" "That is my kill!" "You fucking desk jockey!" "He's a fucking prick." "You don't know what we go through, hell!" "It isn't done!" "Let go of me." "Just fucking let go of me." "I was trying..." "I was trying to explain..." "Fuck!" "Oh, man." "You STA boys are some weird motherfuckers." "Hitman 45." "Hitman 45." "This is Bravo 4 Lima." "Over." "Are we ever gonna get to kill anyone?" "Fuck if I know." "When are they gonna kick you out?" "Two weeks after we get back." "I already have my separation papers." "You got any ideas?" "I'll sell some crack." "Sling some dope." "Yeah, all you want is in." "All I want is out." "Welcome to the Suck." "Where's our pickup?" "Shit." "Fucking Scuds, man." "Motherfuck, it's gotten the battalion." "We don't know that." "They could be friendly." "You ever hear friendly fire like that?" "Fuck." "Jesus, you hear that?" "What is that?" "Screaming." "Republican Guards, man, over this berm." "Ready?" "Are you ready?" "Let's fucking get those motherfuckers." "I'll cover you." "Go!" "Go!" "Go!" "Shit." "You motherfuckers were still out there?" "Sarge?" "You didn't get the memo, did you?" "Having a little party." "You're a little overdressed." "This shit is over, motherfucker." "You didn't die." "Have a cigar." "It won't kill you." "Party on!" "Hey, motherfuckers, did you get a fucking kill?" "Did you get a fucking kill, man?" "No." "Oh, shit." "We're fucking..." "This fucked up rodeo is over!" "We're going home!" "Get your jungle camies, boys." "I'm burning all these." "We don't need them anymore." "We killed Saddam, man!" "He's fucking history!" "Yeah, he's fucking history!" "We never have to come back to this shit hole ever again!" "I never shot my rifle." "You do it now." "Four days." "Four hours." "One minute." "That was my war." "You want some beer?" "Look here, I got a beer." "The party's started now." "Semper Fi, Marines!" "Semper Fi, Marines!" "Ooh-rah!" "You did it." "You did it clean." "You made us proud." "Semper Fi." "Semper fucking Fi." "Welcome home, Marine." "Welcome home." "Welcome home, son." "Welcome home, Staff Sergeant." "You mind if I sit down in your bus?" "Every war is different." "Ooh-rah." "Every war is the same." "Give me one shot..." "Hey, where you going?" "Yeah?" "Fergus?" "Hey, man." "Hey, man, how you doing?" "Nice haircut." "Good, thanks." "Come on in." "I got some bad news, man." "A story." "A man fires a rifle for many years... and he goes to war." "And afterwards he comes home... and he sees that whatever else he might do with his life... build a house... love a woman... change his son's diaper... he will always remain... a jarhead." "And all the jarheads... killing and dying... they will always... be me." "We are still... in the desert." "* All my life it was my dream *" "* All my life it was my dream *" "* To be a bad motherfuckin' US Marine *" "Hello, my name is Sam Mendes, and you have made the fateful decision... to press the Director's Commentary button on your DVD... and now I'm going to bore you stupid with observations about this movie... over the next hour and 53 minutes." "A story." "We had various ways of starting this movie... and I think maybe in some of the deleted scenes you're going to see this." "We had a scene, upfront of the movie, featuring Sam Rockwell... that fine actor, playing a kind of composite figure... of Swoff's uncle and a recruiter." "I felt we needed something to introduce a comic tone at the beginning of the film... and something that was telling us... that Swoff's father and uncle had fought in Vietnam." "But, at the end of the day, it felt like it was from a different movie." "It felt like the beginning of almost a Coen brothers movie... and I think you'll feel that when you see it in the deleted scenes." "And on the last day of principal photography..." "I did a voiceover session with Jake Gyllenhaal... and we recorded sections from the book that weren't in the script." "And one of those was this quote about the Marine and his rifle... and that became the beginning of the film." "Then we jump right into boot camp here, which you see with Scott MacDonald." "And this piece of dialogue that you're watching right now... is entirely an improvisation." "We did about 20, 25 set-ups on the first day." "This was the first day of the shoot." "And we had an hour left at the end of the day... and I said, "Let's go back to that shot and just improvise. "" "And because we had rehearsed for four weeks... and Scott MacDonald had channelled the drill instructor... he was able to just go off like this." "We had a drill instructor on set." "And we had a lot of Marine advisors on this movie." "He was very good at preparing Scott... to play a series of mind-fuck games in which there is no correct answer... which seems to me the great art of the drill instructor." "And that's how this dialogue arrived." "It was shortly after meeting Drill Instructor Fitch... that I realised that joining the Marine Corps... might have been a bad decision." "The book, by Tony Swofford, features boot camp very briefly." "There are lots of sections in the book which is very impressionistic... which we dropped from the screenplay." "And we decided very early on to go to this boot camp." "And, of course for me, it was very difficult to get out of my mind... the memories of Full Metal Jacket... which is Kubrick's masterpiece about boot camp, at least in part." "And whatever you do to this white room with the yellow lines... it's very difficult to get that out of your mind." "But we went for something a little bit more hand-held, a little looser... and, at the end of the day, boot camp is boot camp... and there's nothing you can do to change the way it looks." "Kubrick didn't invent it, it was invented by the Marines." "And when you go in there to those barracks it looks exactly the same." "One of the reasons why we took out that section... with Sam Rockwell at the beginning is boot camp turned out to be quite funny... in and of itself, which it wasn't necessarily in the script." "And then we jump with Swoff... into the bus on the way to the barracks at Camp Pendleton... in 1989." "This is the only time we use a caption that has a specific date on it." "A bed was a rack." "A wall was a bulkhead." "I felt very much like I wanted to be very accurate with the period." "But at the same time, I didn't want to keep reminding people that it was in the past... because there are many things that are... direct parallels with the present day... and that doesn't mean just about the war... but about the way in which Marines are trained... and the places in which they are trained." "This, as is the case with many scenes in the movie... was a much longer scene when he steps off the bus." "We originally had Jamie Foxx's first appearance in this scene... with his face painted with green paint, looking rather scary... and it was the first moment they had eye-to-eye contact." "But, in the end, it became part of a sequence... that was a very swift introduction of Swoff into the world of the Marines." "And just another feature of the speed at which... people are supposed to acclimatise to it... and the, frankly, disinterest they have in the notion of the individual... within this incredible and selfless institution." "You know, there's a reason why everyone looks the same... has the same haircut, and there are very few insignias on uniforms." "And that is because in the psychology of the Marine Corps... everyone is serving something bigger than themselves." "And this is Swoff arriving in the barracks... which is a scene very vividly described in the book... in which they pretend to brand him... and humiliate him on his first day." "And there was something very deliberate about the way I shot this." "I wanted them collected at the end of the barracks... doing something that was slightly mysterious and quite bizarre... like a bunch of animals." "And Swoff walking into this very particular and very charged atmosphere." "And then to introduce Troy, Peter Sarsgaard's character." "The character who is going to be his friend and his mentor... throughout the movie, in this very offhand way." "Almost thrown away." "And introduce him as really quite an unpleasant and violent figure... who, in this case, binds his hands with duct tape... and, in fact, begins the fight straight out of the gate." "Kind of seems to give the order for it to happen." "Hey, boys!" "Fresh fucking meat!" "What kind of meat?" "We don't want you!" "I wanted to establish that sense of status... and that sense of slight distance... that he was the person who started it but wasn't in the middle of it." "Because I felt that, that was going to be important later on... to give him that status." "You know, these guys were pretty amazing." "These are stunt guys." "And I can honestly say, that in this scene, Jake got the shit beaten out of him... over and over again." "He was pretty bruised for the next two weeks." "Cuts on his head and, you know, bruises on his arms and legs... and, you know, I was worried he...." "We cracked a rib at one point." "But Jake was very concerned throughout to push himself to the limit." "And he was willing to go there... and I think without that, the performance wouldn't be half as good as I feel it is." "Oh, fuck." "This was a scene I re-shot... three days after I shot it, which is rare." "And it's rare to re-shoot something so fast... but it was a much longer scene and I felt... when I watched it back in dailies, that Troy talked far too much in the scene... and that lost his mystery." "And was also trying too hard to be Swoff's friend." "Little fuck-fuck trick we play on the new guys." "Nice." "You want a brand, you gotta earn it." "I wanted their friendship to be unexpected and for it to creep up on us." "And I wanted him to remain a mysterious and distant character." "I originally had three scenes here... all showing how little Swoff suddenly wanted to be in the Marine Corps... and how big a mistake he felt he'd made." "And it all came down to this one scene with the nurse, in the end." "...that stomach flu, Swofford?" "I can't seem to shake it." "That's all right." "Not everyone's cut out for the Marines." "But for me, there was nowhere else." "That was the truth." "After all, I was made in a war." "And then we cut into these flashbacks which are all shot on Super 16... just to give it the feel of a home movie, of a series of recollections." "Quite stylised, obviously, but I wanted this kind of...." "This incredibly swift travelogue through his past life." "And I wanted to get the feeling of it as a memory, without being that specific." "And that's why we shot it on Super 16, like a home movie." "It was originally intended for earlier in the film." "But in the end, Walter Murch, the editor, and I... decided it would be better off going in the toilet, kind of as a reverie... out of which he is woken up in a second by Staff Sergeant Sykes..." "Jamie Foxx's character, who is his future." "And everything that will happen from now on... comes from this one conversation." "And from now on his life will change... and he will have a focus, which is STA... and that's the Surveillance and Target Acquisition." "Which is this elite sniper platoon that Jamie Foxx's character heads up." "What the fuck?" "You're sick?" "And inside that flashback, you'll find a lot of information about Swoff's life... that goes by very, very quickly... but that beds down, I hope, quite quickly, too... about the fact, that frankly, there was nowhere else for him to go." "He didn't feel at home when he was at home." "You can see the dog tags around his father's neck at breakfast... you see the girlfriend he's leaving behind, you see that he's given her... his most treasured possession, which is his USMC T-shirt." "And all of those things are buried very quickly... as well as the fact that he's reading Camus... and that he wants to go to college, or was thinking about going to college." "A fact that's picked up here... when Sykes, Jamie's character, picks up that copy of The Stranger... and treats it as if it's some strange Sanskrit text... that only the chosen few can understand." "Something that again, as was the case often in this movie... was an improvisation." "And something that, you know, came to us because we had rehearsed a lot... and the actors were very confident with each other... very certain of what the structure of the scene was." "So, like good jazz musicians, they could improvise over the top... of what was a very simple, but certain rhythm." "A little, for small holiday concerts and festivals." "Good." "You ain't gotta be Chuck Mangione." "All I need is a bugler." "Somebody to play taps, reveille, battle march...." "Jake's lines about a few "holiday concerts and festivals", that's an improvisation." "Jamie throwing the book in the bin... astonishingly, at the end, is an improvisation." "Can I get my book?" "There's 60 of you." "I only need eight." "Here's a scene that we took from the book... and we adapted and enlarged." "In the book the Staff Sergeant doesn't make him play the bugle with his mouth... but says he could do, if he wanted... and he hasn't done it to avoid him being humiliated." "But, Bill Broyles, the wonderful screenwriter... who is himself a Vietnam vet and an ex-Marine... and I just thought it was too good an opportunity for a great scene... to force him to play reveille with his mouth." "Okay, Swofford, play reveille." "I don't have a bugle, Staff Sergeant." "You don't have a what?" "I don't have a bugle." "Oh, no." "No, no." "Damn, damn." "You better play with your mouth." "What?" "I said, play it with your goddamn mouth." "And then we decided that maybe he should play another classic." "Which I think at one stage was Earth, Wind and Fire... and then maybe was Don't Worry Be Happy, and various other choices." "And Jamie came down on the side of You Are The Sunshine Of My Life... which seemed fantastic, and then Jake again, took it that extra little bit further." "But again, what Jamie says here on the parade ground..." ""My morale is lifted." "Do you know any Stevie Wonder?" "Good, that's a classic. "" "All that stuff, that's improvised." "Improvised on the day." "And often times I was in the..." "I suppose, the nice situation of only having one option of a shot sometimes... because it was an improvisation that never was repeated." "And I was very concerned with this movie, stylistically... to throw out everything I had used before in American Beauty and Road to Perdition... and not pre-plan the film... not over-compose the shots, not be painterly about it." "But to be organic." "To always be in a biased, subjective viewpoint." "There's no unbiased shot in this movie." "There are very, very few God shots...." "Or, there are no God shots, really." "There are no opportunities that afford the audience... a view that is unavailable to the characters in the film." "And to that end, we used mostly hand-held camera... and Roger Deakins operating the whole time, and he is a brilliant operator... which is very fortunate... and a brilliant cinematographer, simultaneously... which is a rare thing, I think." "We entered that scene entirely through Swoff's point of view." "And here we fell into this sequence that was very long in the script... about their training, and there was a couple of other scenes in here that I took out." "But became, once we got into the cutting room... almost one single montage." "Accompanied by Tom Newman's fantastic bit of music here in the background... which kind of binds and unifies the sequence... as one long period of growth for Swoff." "Who at the beginning is laughing and thinking it's all stupid and just a joke... and by the end, is totally obsessed with the idea of being a sniper and being the best." "And here you have these guys running cadence... which in itself tells a story... because the number of people is gradually reducing as each lesson is taught." "More people fall away, more people fail." "One of the things I realised talking to our Marine advisors... without whom it would have been impossible to make this film... was the amount of detail... they have to retain mentally in order to become a sniper." "I mean, Tony, when we were in pre-production... gave me a huge file full of paperwork about snipers." "And one of the things that I think is in the movie... when Swoff turns on Fergus, later on in the film... is that his mind is filled with the technical details and information... about firing a rifle, and what that rifle does and is." "...shit!" "Now, consider your target." "And here he is... in the process of sexualising his rifle... making it part of him, and beginning to understand and catch the bug." "It was very interesting, when we went to boot camp...." "Because, as you'll see from some of the documentaries on this DVD... the actors went to boot camp... and one of the things that they consistently said is their most exciting moment... and the high point, was the firing of the weapons." "Now, whatever you do, you put a gun in someone's hand and you shoot it... something happens to them." "If you pick your head up, you will get fucked up!" "Let's find out if we have...." "Here we are in this live-fire training sequence." "There's an interesting story attached to this scene... which is that this is absolutely not in Tony's book... and only arrived in a very late draft of the script... because I felt the need for something very much darker... to kind of remind us that this wasn't a game... and that these guys were in jeopardy the whole time... and they were dealing with stuff that's frightening." "I mean, really viscerally frightening." "And when you're in the rain and grubbing through the mud... with just fake bullets flying over your head, as it were... it's pretty scary." "And these guys went through the real thing." "Cease-fire!" "The order of lines at the end of the scene here was reversed... by Walter Murch in a stroke of genius." "Shit!" "The first line, "Shit", and then the second line, "Shit"... both were at the end of the scene." "In the original scene he came right over and started shouting." "I told you to keep your fucking head down!" "If you listened to me... you would still be fucking alive right now!" "Stupid fuck!" "And this is so much better... and one of the examples of Walter's particular genius." "This live-fire scene was one of the scenes based on a story... told to us by a Marine that we met during researching the movie." "This happened to his friend, who was crawling in front of him... during this exercise, that he watched him be shot." "And that his Staff Sergeant... walked over and started shouting at him for not listening." "And here is the end of the training which is the presentation of the rifles." "I wanted this scene to have almost a religious feeling... and, to that end, you'll hear on the score... the very beginnings, as you see the rifle, of a piece of music... that Tom composed... that has a slightly religious air to it." "There's something suspended and breathless about it." "...you will repeat after me." "This is my rifle." "This is my rifle." "This little particular piece of back-forth with Staff Sergeant Sykes... is echoed much later when Swoff turns the gun on Fergus." ""This is my rifle", etc." "And I thought it was very important to lay that in early." "And just this shot, of Swoff staring at his rifle... and becoming one with it for the first time... and focussing on what he needs to do... and now he's a soldier and he knows what he wants... which is to use the rifle and to kill... is very important for the whole movie because he's now pointing forward." "He has a purpose." "And the more purposed and the more focussed he was... when he arrived in the desert, the more making him wait... would turn him, on some level, insane." "And I thought that was very important that he was fully engaged at this point." "One of the scenes I took out was a fascinating piece of detail... which is that you need to be able to shoot what they call a "dime group at a grand"." "In other words, a group of bullets that would fit within a dime at 1,000 yards." "And 1,000 yards, for those of you who don't know, is a long way... when you see it in real life." "And that firing range that we just shot on was 300 yards." "...worldwide protests and drew sanctions... from the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union." "The government of dictator Saddam Hussein..." "And here they are." "We trawled through hours of news footage to try and get this... rather moving piece of the Kuwaiti ambassador... saying that "We need help. "" "And I wanted it to be Troy that could interpret that... basically as we're off to war." "We're going to fucking war." "And then we go to one of the scenes that I suppose first attracted me to the book... and in the script... which is this amazing scene in which they're watching, which is... by common consent... one of the greatest anti-war movies of all time, Apocalypse Now... and they're treating it entirely as a pro-war movie and getting pumped up." "There's some very powerful sections in the book... about how all anti-war movies are basically pro-war movies... when you play them to Marines." "But I thought it was very ironic that it should be this great movie... and I'm very, very grateful to Francis Coppola... that he allowed us to use it." "Because there's two ways in which you could take it, and I hope... it's taken in the right way." "That it's obviously not a pro-war movie." "Some people have said that they feel this movie is apolitical... which is not something I would ever agree with." "In the current environment, just the very fact of making the film... in my opinion, makes it political." "What it isn't, of course, is party-political." "It doesn't have a polemic, although I was very tempted... at many times during the making of this film in post-production... to give my opinion of what's currently happening in Iraq as I speak." "It didn't seem to be true to the source material... or to the men who lived through the war in 1991." "But there are many things in the film that you see that are still the case... and this scene, of course, is one of them." "Now hear this." "Now hear this." "All personnel from 2-7... are to report immediately to your company area." "Get some, Marines." "Get some!" "This transition, which I think is one of my favourite... from the men screaming at a fake war to travelling in total silence to a real war... as they did, many of them, in domestic jetliners... with stewardesses serving them nuts." "Here this is an improvisation on the day that we came up with... because originally he was just commenting on the air stewardess... as she was standing and demonstrating things down the end of the aisle." "And I wanted to use Kristin, who's a very, very good actress." "I wanted to make sure she had the last word... 'cause the women in the movie are pretty few and far between... and I wanted to make sure that all of them... at the end of the day, had some kind of justification." "You know, I don't really like the little ones." "Okay, is that all?" "Yeah." "Would you like some nuts?" "But all the stuff about the nuts is improvised... and this is the introduction of Kruger, who is Lucas Black's character." "Cocksucker knew the price of every whore from Olangapo to Stockholm." "And one of the things I loved about Lucas's character... as I love about all the characters, is they're very unexpected." "The cliché of the southern hick is that he's stupid... and here was the guy who was the most intelligent... and probably the most perceptive, and certainly the most in touch... with what's going on in the actual war of any of them." "But he's roguish, too." "You just start all over again." "How long you think we'll be there?" "Two weeks?" "Less, man." "We'll be back so fast... we'll still be shitting out those nuts." "Good luck, now." "Goodbye, now." "Here's another improvised line on the steps." "Want to keep me company for two weeks?" "Goodbye, now." "You don't know what you're missing." "Yeah, yeah." "And then we come down onto the tarmac and everything you see here... was pretty much as we shot it, except background removal." "And also ILM, who did an astonishing job on the effects in this movie... and I can't speak highly enough about Pablo Helman... who's the visual effects supervisor." "Changed all the insignias on the planes so they were TWA planes." "But here they are arriving for the first time in this burning heat... and this was the first chance that Roger Deakins and I... had to overexpose the film and really blow it... and make it feel like it was this hot, almost white... sort of science-fiction landscape, in a way... that gradually during the course of the second act of the movie... which starts, I suppose, around here and ends when they go into Kuwait... becomes more and more blown... more and more overexposed until nothing is available to you." "No horizon line, nothing, no detail." "And they're cut adrift in this moonscape which is the desert." "And here's Chris Cooper." "This is the second time Chris Cooper has played a Marine colonel for me." "He played a Marine colonel in American Beauty." "And he was equally brilliant then." "He's an amazing actor." "And I just love to have him in everything I do, really." "And I was very lucky to get him for two scenes here... 'cause just the authority and the status... and everything he brings with him is so extraordinary." "We are now a part of Operation Desert Shield." "Now, just north of us..." "Saddam Hussein's got one million Iraqi soldiers." "And some of those boys have been fighting... since you were nine or ten years old." "They are tough." "They will stop at nothing." "They've used nerve gas against the Iranians and the Kurds." "There's something of the showman about Kazinski in this scene... pumping them up for war." "This is, I'm sorry to say, a real photograph of a victim of a chemical attack." "You're thinking, "Let's kick ass and take names...."" "It's funny, isn't it, the thin line between fact and fiction... and sometimes you feel it's not acceptable to use real photos of people... in what is basically a movie." "But when fact and fiction are interlinked so closely..." "I think it's probably acceptable." "On this day, as we landed and we walked off these fake planes... or these broken old planes, onto this tarmac... way down the end of the runway there was a plane loading up... real troops going to Iraq." "And that was a very sobering experience." "You can have nothing but respect." "Particularly once you've lived with and talked to Marines... to the degree that we did." "Nothing but respect for what they've gone through... and what they continue to go through in the Middle East." "...and one day soon..." "Saddam Hussein is gonna regret pulling this sorry shit." "Ooh-rah!" "We're gonna kick some Iraqi ass!" "And here's Evan Jones who I think is just also a bit of a genius." "His first appearance, Fowler." "Standing up and doing something crazy... which is what he continues to do most of the time, the rest of the movie." "And they find him funny to begin with, which I think is very important... and increasingly he sort of becomes unhinged." "Oh, boys, I just got a hard-on!" "Here's a shot I particularly liked that we took driving out of the mirage." "When we went to the big, wide open, empty desert that you see here...." "This is Mexico." "We shot most of this movie in El Centro, California... where we built the camp, which is a pretty, you know, average kind of place, really." "It wasn't wildly interesting, but it certainly did its job." "And then we shot various, different kinds of desert in different places." "We went, for the big dunes at the end, we went to Yuma in Arizona." "And here we're in Mexico, where we lived for two weeks." "This location really is the middle of nowhere." "Seventy-five minutes from the nearest...." "Basically from the nearest house." "And we all went a little bit insane there as people will do in the desert." "He's full of shit." "Who do you think gave Saddam all his fucking weapons?" "We did!" "Fuck politics." "This scene in the Humvee was a much longer scene." "That line, that is now the last line of the scene... that was actually in the middle of the scene." "And we made it the last line, which I thought was much, much better." "And that was, again, something that we created in post." "When I did this movie, I rehearsed for four weeks, which is a long time for a film." "And this scene I particularly focused on, and we spent three days on this scene." "We kind of gently rewrote it with Bill Broyles as we went along." "But not a great deal." "When Jacob Vargas first saw the movie, he's the actor playing Cortez, he said..." ""Man, that scene's great, you know..." ""we rehearsed it for three days and it looked like we hadn't rehearsed at all. "" "Which I took as a compliment, you know." "What I think he was trying to say was... it looked totally natural and it looked like it was being invented on the spot." "And I think that's one of the great misunderstandings about rehearsal... is that by rehearsing you set it... or make it stiff or make it pre-planned." "For me rehearsals are about filling up the gas tanks... of all the actors with as much fuel as possible... but not turning on the engine." "So that when they go, they've got a hundred ideas... they've got things they wanna cram in and there's invention all over the place." "And that's what you see here, I mean... pretty much everything that's being said, other than what Cortez is saying... is just improvised on the day." "A lot of the time I told the actors... they didn't have to match from take to take what they were doing... 'cause I felt that would stop them inventing... and make them feel like they were limited." "And I didn't want that to be the case." "As a consequence, you know, you do get a great sense that they're giving themselves... to the roles and, that somehow, there are definite crossovers... between the people acting the roles and the roles that they are playing." "A good example of that, in fact, is the relationship between..." "Jake Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard, who plays Troy... and both of whom are, I think, fantastic." "But both of whom know each other very well in real life because Peter... at the time we were doing this movie, and now as I speak... is with Jake's sister, Maggie Gyllenhaal... and they've known each other for two or three years." "And so, in a sense, he's kind of his brother-in-law." "And that closeness and also that love-hate relationship... was very useful in making this film, because it's there on screen." "You know, some of the competition, some of the boredom... some of the envy, some of the frustration is present." "And it was my job to kind of make sure it didn't spill over too much... but that it was allowed to be on camera when it was needed." "...you're not too busy...." "Gas!" "Gas!" "Gas!" "Right now!" "I'm talking about gas!" "Let's go!" "Let's move it!" "Come on, guys, what the fuck are you doing?" "Let's go!" "Get it on!" "Right now your dicks are falling off!" "Your skin is bubble wrap!" "Let's go!" "Move it!" "This entire sequence, again, everything that Jamie says is improvised." "But we improvised it in rehearsal and, you know, he said...." "He might have said some of these things, but he just came in knowing he had to... give them a hard time." "You stay ready, you ain't got to get ready!" "Jamie did an amazing job on this film, and he had a difficult task." "A more difficult task, I think, than some of the other Marines... in that he couldn't descend into the group mentality... and turn to the person on his right and say, "Well, what are we doing here?"... because he was on his own giving the orders." "Which, in many ways, is more difficult than taking them." "And he did it amazingly." "Given the fact he was about to win an Academy Award for Ray... and that's all anyone could talk about." "He remained incredibly focused during the making of the film... and was always five minutes early and over-prepared." "And I'll always be grateful to him for that... 'cause he really showed the way for lot of the young guys." "Let's go!" "Swofford, if you don't pick it up..." "I'm gonna shoot you in your fucking foot!" "Move it!" "The price of crude oil has nearly doubled." "President Bush sends in more troops." "And here's a sequence that I always thought of, when I was shooting it... as a much more kind of poetic, almost languid sequence... which is one of the reasons why it is shot in this sort of very fluid... quite, sort of relaxed way." "But then when I watched it in the cut..." "I felt like the energy of the gas mask sequence... should be poured into this whole sequence in the desert... as they try to give themselves the feeling... that what they're doing has some kind of purpose... but with, increasingly, the sense that it doesn't." "And that everything that they've been doing is coming to nothing... and that they're losing the reason why they're there... and it's becoming a series of meaningless exercises." "Which is what we feel when we watch them hydrate over and over again." "And we hydrate some more." "You will hydrate till I get full." "There you go." "Hold it down." "Now, hold them up." "Here's this shot sitting on the berm." "This was in El Centro... and there was just an amazing sky one night and it was, "Quick, quick!" ""Run up the top of the berm and let's grab this shot from this sequence. "" "'Cause it was scheduled to go somewhere completely different." "This was a much longer scene." "We've taken just the section where Fowler enters with the scorpion." "And one of the things that fascinated me... about the notion of the film before I started it and when I first read the book was...." ""Well, what happens to a group of men when you train them to go to war..." ""and then you take away the war?" ""How do they create their own war, their own battles?" ""What do they put in its stead?"" "Now, astonishingly, these scorpions that you see... are, in fact, computer-generated creatures... made entirely by ILM." "I suppose, scorpions are the ideal computer-generated creatures... because they're modular, and they don't have hair." "So, they're little tiny sections of things." "But I defy anyone to spot that they are not real." "When they first showed it to me, I just laughed." "I couldn't believe it." "I thought that they were lying to me... and that they'd just gone out and shot real scorpions." "Go, Chango!" "This, as it's picked up is, in fact, a real scorpion... that Laz Alonso picked up." "And there it is crawling back into the box." "That's real." "And I know that Laz would want me to say this on the commentary... because he's very proud he picked up a live scorpion." "The only thing that he won't want me to say is it took him about three hours to do it... while everybody watched." "And here's Evan Jones just giving his scorpion a really hard time." "It's one of my favourite lines in the film." "But it's also just the beginning of a sense... that Fowler is dancing to the beat of another drummer entirely." "Here's a second-unit shot." "They went out in the desert and did this time-lapse photography... of the sun coming up and the sun coming down." "And if you look carefully, in fact, you see a sunspot on the sun here." "And it's just this mesmerising shot of the sun rising." "And here's another second-unit series of shots... based, in large part, on documentary shots... or shots that we got from real Marines that they'd taken themselves... of what went on when they were in the Gulf." "...cleaning your rifle...." "And then another time-lapse shot." "And then over the top of this sequence...." "This sequence wasn't in the script that I put in... because I wanted to feel the beginnings of darkness... and the beginnings of a true sense of waiting." "And what happens to the mind when it begins to lose its focus... and to question why it's there." "...left- versus right-handed masturbation...." "And this voiceover was written after the event... and again, it's a very good bit of Bill Broyles voiceover... that's kind of in the style of Tony Swofford but isn't from the book at all... but is taken from various sections of it." "The obsession with masturbation... and talking about women and all that kind of stuff... that leads into this shot of the "Wall of Shame"... where all the women who have betrayed the Marines get stuck." "And there's this great sense of self-pity... and, sort of, self-justification about this... you know, which I think is slightly inappropriate... to the degree that I think all the Marines choose to become a Marine... knowing that they're not going to be at home... and then complain when their wives and girlfriends say, "He's never home. "" "And you do get that a fair amount... but the life of the Marine is nomadic... and, you know, you're going to be away from home... and what happens, happens back home." "You leave it behind." "So, inevitably, life moves on if you're not there." "Three days ago, as I speak..." "George Bush gave a wonderful press conference to the Marines... telling them what they can and can't say to the press." "And as I watched it, I thought of this scene... which is exactly the same, but on a smaller scale... which is Staff Sergeant Sykes telling them what they can and can't say to the press." "And here's Kruger, as he does in this movie, objecting... and just firing the truth back at Sykes... which is that actually he shouldn't tell them what they can and can't say... and it's un-American." "That's un-American." "Yeah, what about freedom of speech?" "The Constitution?" "And Sykes points out the simple fact... that it's not up to them, what they can and can't say." "It's up to the Marine Corps... and once they've signed a contract, it's not up for debate." "And I thought that was a great scene." "That's a scene straight out of the book." "You are a Marine." "There's no such thing as speech that is free." "You must pay for everything that you say." "And here is another series of improvisations, really." "I set up the camera one morning here to do the interviews that were scripted." "And I think only one scripted interview is in the movie... and that is the one with Troy." "The rest of it are improvisations." "We always did the scripted interview, and then we took it from there." "I gave Donna Kimball, who was playing the reporter, a series of questions... and some questions that she came up with herself." "She was incredibly inventive." "So, who's waiting for you back home?" "And just pushed them into talking about various things." "The state of the food... if they had any messages for anyone back home... which is what Fowler is doing right now." "They just improvised." "...you are a maniac." "The one person who didn't want to improvise, and didn't like improvising... was Lucas Black, who's right here now, as Kruger." "He just doesn't think like that." "He likes to have his lines scripted and all that kind of stuff." "And this, in actual fact, is a shot of Lucas Black waiting for me to say, "Action. "" "He didn't know that the cameras were rolling here." "And then we dubbed over the top those questions... and to all intents and purposes... it looks like the most fantastic piece of acting as he ignores every question." "'Cause I count for something." "And here is the scripted answer." "Peter pulls it off 'cause he's a great actor." ""We burn the fat off our souls."" "Hemingway, he said that." "Who's waiting for you back home?" "And here we go back to Swoff." "We used Swoff three times in this... because I felt like we really needed to get some kind of insight... into what was going on in his head." "It was very important for me." "And, I guess, it was probably the biggest challenge of the editing process... to stay in touch with what was going on in Swoff's head... so we didn't feel disassociated from him." "Yeah, sure." "Yeah." "Hi, Kristina." "And although this is a very seemingly simple section... where he decides to say something to Kristina back home... just the very act of Swoff staring into the camera... gave us a connection with him that I thought we didn't have otherwise." "I love my country." "I miss my parents." "Hey, Mum, hey, Dad." "Again, what Fergus said there, that was an improvisation... and now what Laz Alonso is saying, as Escobar, is improvised." "When we rehearsed, we spent a long time... talking about the back-story of all the characters... and where they'd come from, why they'd joined up... and what they might say if asked by reporters why they'd joined up." "And that was something he said in rehearsal, and we just used it." "...and to learn skills to eventually go into law enforcement." "Are you scared?" "Jake was very, very tired on the day we shot this... and that exhaustion... as is sometimes the case with actors, as long as it's not a high-energy scene... led to him losing self-consciousness... and kind of feeling, a kind of relaxation... that doesn't happen when you're trying too hard." "And something happened in that last take, which I loved." "In which he was very honest and very vulnerable... and when he said he was frightened that the bombs were coming..." "I believed him." "And that's really all I care about in that particular section... that I believe that he's scared." "This is what we call the NBC suits." "That's nuclear-biological-chemical protective suits." "We also have a mask." "This is the M17 A1 mask... which is fitted with a drinking tube... so these guys can drink from their canteens... without taking off their masks." "Oh, really?" "Want to try it?" "No, thanks, but can I hold it?" "Yeah, sure." "It's heavy." "Yeah, it is." "But you know, we need these in order to protect us." "All the video footage here... it was shot by our crack team, led by Laura Nix... who, way in the background there, you can see holding a boom." "She's the lady responsible for producing the documentaries on this DVD." "There was a sense in which the people who were working alongside us... on the documentaries and on the EPK-style video diary... were kind of embedded with us... and lived through the experience with us, too." "And, I think, that's gone a long way towards making this whole DVD... feel kind of unified... even though we're talking about then and now." "That's right." "Come on, let's go." "It's 112 degrees." "Then I guess you won't be needing your parkas, will you?" "Let's play!" "Here we have this set piece that was written about in the book... which is when Sykes forces them all... to demonstrate the brilliance of the NBC suits... by playing a full game of football in 120-degree heat." "which is something that Tony Swofford was forced to do." "Swofford, I guess you call that using your head, huh?" "Using his head." "And a lot of this was very difficult to shoot, as you can imagine... because it was very, very hot, and we were out in the middle of nowhere in Mexico... and they were taking some very severe hits." "Some of these are second-unit hits, stuntmen, and what-have-you... but most of it's the guys." "There was just something animalistic about this." "There were these ritual scenes that took place in the book and in the movie... which were kind of the tent-pole scenes for the film." "From Apocalypse Now... to the scorpion fight, to the football game... to the party and the celebration at the end when they're firing their guns... these were kind of collective expressions of different things." "Rage, relief, disappointment... and here, the need to fight... and the need to just feel like they're engaged in something." "Which, of course, tips over into violence and insanity pretty quickly." "Don't you ever call me a squishy-face." "Squishy-face." "Let's go, baby, squishy-face!" "Let's go, squishy-face." "Motherfucker!" "All right, that's it!" "That's halftime!" "Put the masks back on." "Bring the water." "We're gonna further this demonstration." "Men, these M17 A1 drinking tubes... are designed to work perfectly with your canteen and your mask." "And here we're mixing in video footage with footage shot by Roger Deakins." "And there's this sense in which this very, very quickly grows out of hand." "They're hot and they're frustrated... and suddenly, they hate their equipment, and they turn on Sykes... and Sykes can't control them." "...my drinking tube fell off... at the gas chamber at Pendleton." "It's been four months" "I understand that, and I want everybody to understand this!" "Fucking piece of shit!" "I want you to play fucking ball!" "Oh, that's a pick." "Kruger of Arabia!" "Kruger, field fuck." "Field fuck?" "Field fuck!" "And then, of course, out of the blue, Swoff suggests this "field fuck"... which is this complete confrontation... of any homoerotic subtext there may or may not be in the movie." "It's made utterly explicit here." "And in a way kind of dealt with, I think, quite brilliantly... because it's so out there, you know, what I mean?" "And it's so clearly a way of fucking up Sykes." "And then he has to walk off and try and take the reporter away." "And here we see all the various techniques of all the guys... little insights into their bedrooms." "There's Jacob, who looks very with-it... and Evan who looks a little bit more...." "Of course, he's in character." "I couldn't possibly comment on their... on their home lives." "But a little bit more animalistic, let's say." "And that's Jocko Sims down there." "I gotta give him a mention because that's really his only appearance in the film... and it's blowing the lead actor." "And Jocko, if you're out there, well done." "And then we cut straight to the punishment... which was inevitable, I suppose." "I don't hear you laughing now." "This was a miserable scene to shoot for the actors." "I mean, I think you think, "Well, they're just standing in the rain." ""We stand in the rain every day, on a street corner, or what-have-you. "" "But the truth is movie rain and real rain are totally different." "Movie rain is about 18 times as strong... because it doesn't read on camera otherwise, and it's freezing cold." "And they were shooting it over, and over and over again." "And it was a miserable night." "And meantime, Jamie, and I have to say, me... were sat in tents drinking coffee." "So, you know, we had it lucky on this particular night." "Colour-wise, in the movie... we went for a very desaturated, blown look, as I mentioned earlier... with very occasional pops of colour... to remind them and us what we were leaving behind them." "Little reminders of home, in a way." "And one of my favourite ones of those is coming up just now... which is the Hawaiian beach chair that Sykes has been sitting on." "Your mummy again, Fergie." "This push-in is a quite specific moment... when we...." "Kind of beginning the process... of Swoff cutting himself off from the men..." "losing himself in his own paranoia, his own thoughts." "Now his worries are taking over... and he's beginning to lose sight of reality." "...the third fucking time, man." "What's that?" "I just want it to say "no preference."" "Is that so fucking hard?" "What difference does it make?" "God knows you're "no preference."" "So I let this play on the tight shot with the other guys soft in the background." "Even though Swoff wasn't really speaking..." "I could have the sense that he was the centre of this scene... and his concerns were isolating him from the group." "I wonder what she's up to?" "Now, I dare you...." "Which, in the case of this shot right here, is made explicit." "You know, here it's very deliberately...." "I mean, I very rarely composed a shot like this in the movie... because I felt it was too precious." "But this is a very deliberate shot." "Look at that cute kid." "You better check the mailman, bro." "Swoff is so concerned with what he's going through... that he's missing life in the background... which is that one of his friends, one of his compatriots, has had a child... and everyone's celebrating that... and that he's obsessed with Kristina and whether Kristina is being faithful to him." "And that that is a sign that he's being cut adrift." "I'll put my little boy up." "Doesn't look good." "That movement continues all the way through the rear... and all the way up to the scene with Fergus when he puts the gun to Fergus' head... which is that he's becoming self-obsessed... and egotistical and difficult with all his buddies." "Man!" "This is getting worse." "He's fucked, man." "Oh, I told you." "I told you." "She's one of those girls with a military fetish." "And, of course, they just really ruthlessly exploit that." "They know he's worried about Kristina... so they just find that open wound and they burrow into it." "As they are doing now." "And believe me, those guys in that tent were all too happy to do that to Jake... by the time we got to this scene." "Go pull the legs off a spider." "Okay, Corporal." "Hey, Swoff." "That's right." "Cheer up, man." "We heading back to the rear." "We'll get some AC... shit in a flush toilet, you can use the phone." "I'm gonna call her." "You fucking A." "Even if she is fucking someone else." "Root beer shower!" "No more monkey ass!" "And here we are in the showers." "We had a whole sequence where we arrived in the rear." "Went through a series... of little stalls run by Egyptians." "And made it clear that they were actually in the rear... in an old oil company compound." "But it just seemed to over-complicate the film... and at this point we wanted to move quickly into Swoff's state of mind, I felt... which was this process... of this period of isolation, and depression and paranoia." "And here's this masturbation scene... which I find an incredibly sad expression of loneliness and kind of pathetic." "Fuck!" "And it was the last shot we did in the movie, ironically... in a small stall somewhere on the Universal stage in the backlot." "Hello?" "Kris, it's me." "Hello?" "Hello." "Oh, my God, Tony." "And here's Swoff finally getting to talk to Kristina... and unable to prevent himself... from asking the question that he really wants to know the answer to straight away." "How is she?" "Your mum?" "No, Rini." "She's doing better." "She's doing really good." "So this guy" "Did you get the pictures?" "Yeah, I got them." "They're great." "Did you see the one of you and me?" "We re-recorded this a couple of times with Brianne Davis, who was playing Kristina... just to try and get that sense in which she is lying, basically... and that something is going on, but that she's covering it up relatively well." "But he smells something off." "Tony, he's just a friend." "Hello?" "Yeah, I'm here." "And it's a very delicate thing because, you know... those of you who've made long-distance phone calls to loved ones... will know that sense of hanging on every word... and misinterpreting or re-interpreting things that they may say." "And we go into what we think is a reality... and in actual fact is a kind of, what is a dream state." "And I'm very, very grateful to Courtney Love and Pete Asher, the manager of Nirvana... for giving us the rights to use..." "Something In The Way, which is the most amazing track." "It's traditionally been the case that Nirvana haven't granted the rights... to use any of their songs in movies." "And there's a line towards the end of the film when they're in the night-time desert..." ""That's Vietnam music, man." "Can't we get our own fucking music?"" "And I felt it was very important... given the fact that, that line was in the movie, to have our own music." "And to have the music of the period that in some way defined that era." "And there's no greater expression of that, I think, than Kurt Cobain and Nirvana." "And this, I suppose, is the first moment you realise it is a dream, when you see Kristina." "And there she is wearing her USMC T-shirt, which you can't really see." "And this astonishing bit of lighting by Roger Deakins." "This was based loosely on a dream that Tony recounted in the book... in which he actually vomited glass." "But I felt that the sand just felt more comprehensible, I think." "The sense in which he was choking from it and it was inside him now... and he was unable to breathe and he couldn't escape." "In this sequence, in the book, Tony contemplated committing suicide." "We talked a lot about putting that in the movie, Bill and I... but, in the end, we decided that the more important scene... was the scene in which he threatens Fergus and puts a gun to his head." "And we kind of wrote that into the Fergus scene." "Shut the fuck up." "You shut up already." "Yeah!" "Get your boot off my fucking chair, you fucking boot." "Rude motherfucker, Swoff." "And this is a scene, again, from the book... that was slightly incomprehensible, actually." "It was just a guy's wife sent him a tape of her being fucked by the neighbour." "But there didn't seem to be any reason for that." "So, one of the things we were very conscious of in this scene... was trying to make sure that we understood why she was doing it." "And towards the end, when she says, "Who's fucking around now, Brian?"" "Well, that explains it." "And one of the things that Marty Papazian does so well in this scene... and this is a pretty amazing performance... he establishes very quickly that the guy's a bit of an arsehole." "You know, he's kind of unpleasant to people... he's got a big mouth, he's sitting right in the middle like he owns the place." "And then this happens to him... and he kind of becomes a little boy and he says, "I wanna go home. "" "Oh, fuck, baby." "You don't need to see this." "Swoff, come on." "Take him outside." "Come on, Dettman." "Come on." "Fuck!" "I wanna go home!" "I wanna go home." "Who's fucking around now, Brian?" "One of the weirdest days on the film, in fact, was shooting the porn video... or the homemade porn video." "That was odd." "But the guys were very good and they made it very easy for me." "And, again, you know, it's one of those things... that having quoted Full Metal Jacket at the beginning of the movie... and watched Apocalypse Now... here they were ready to get stoked up by using another Vietnam movie." "Because, you know, in many ways, our experiences of these wars... are through the movies and not through the reality." "And certainly our collective experiences." "And here was a scene that used to be set outside and that Jake and Peter and I... kind of changed again the day before we shot it." "It was Jake's idea that he would be the person to say, "Let's play it again. "" "Originally, it was Fowler who was gonna do that." "But I was very excited by the surprise... of Jake, of Swoff, being the person to turn round and do it... and then for Troy to know that something was wrong." "And for him to hold his feet to the flames... and in the process, get underneath what was really wrong." "And I think that it's one of the best bits of acting in the film that Jake does... this turning point from bullish defiance and childish resentment of Troy... to this shot where he looks like... a 12-year-old who's just lost his parents." "I mean, he's just utterly, utterly bereft and completely lost." "Come on." "Get your shit." "Come on." "We're going back." "And here we have this sequence again... accompanied by a voiceover that was written in post... just to get the sense that he is now lost and not quite sure where to go next." "So that when he walks in... to pick up the hooch and to pick up the booze in the next scene... he is kind of going a little crazy." "But also in this sequence there is some indication... of how much the camp is growing and how many people are there... how much he's lost within this huge number of people... that are gradually accumulating in the desert." "And now we walk into... this tent full of people planning the war and people writing about the war... and people making communications... and we come across Corporal Harrigan here... who I became aware of through the American version of The Office." "He's a fantastically gifted actor, John." "...read this." "What is it?" "It's a love letter...." "And this bizarre echo that keeps coming back to Swoff... of all the women that are betraying everyone... or this fact that other people are having these relationships that he's not having." "And this kind of jaunty, sort of fake jollity... that Jake has got, that he puts on here, which is about to crack." "$40, five gallons." "Hey, Swoff." "Which way do I mount this?" "Here's Brian Geraghty, who, I think, is absolutely amazing in the film." "Brian is absolutely nothing like the character he plays." "He has the same softness, obviously, of voice and face... but he is a very smart guy and a very, very good actor." "And I think it is a very difficult part to play." "It's Christmas Eve." "I'll send you out a fucking tree." "Oh, great, a tree." "Merry Christmas." "I gave these guys six songs at the party to learn, basically." "One of them was OPP, by Naughty by Nature... which many of them knew anyway, kind of having grown up with it." "And there were several scenes in this movie that I kind of threw Roger Deakins... and Scott Sakamoto was the second camera operator and the Steadicam operator... into without telling them what was going to happen." "And this was one of them." "I just said..." ""You know what?" "The guys are just gonna do their thing." ""They're gonna party." "Jacob might breakdance. "" "I remember Lucas Black doing the worm." ""And you just go where you think you should go." ""Treat it in a documentary way. "" "And it was exciting that way... because there was obviously nothing happened the same twice... but it didn't need to... because I knew we were going to cut it in a particular way that wasn't linear." "And then we go outside, shot totally at a different time and a different place... to Fergus making his sausages." "And then back and forth." "The important thing about the editing of this sequence... was just trying to get the rhythm, the back-forth rhythm as good as possible." "And the sense that this wildness and this alcoholic... excitement was building up in the tent... while Fergus was chilling out to his mother's Christmas tape outside." "This took a while, to try and get the trousers to catch fire... and we had wind machines and pyrotechnics and what-have-you." "Sometimes, it's the simplest things that take the longest." "You know, you wanna set up a big explosion, it's pretty straight-forward." "You wanna set up a tiny thing that catches fire... and then something else catches fire off that... it's actually quite difficult." "And this is them getting wild in the tent... probably listening to Guns N' Roses, actually, rather than to OPP... but we just wanted to have one track." "What the fuck?" "And then this high jinks of hearing... what they think is an enemy attack outside and responding accordingly..." "looking absolutely ridiculous as they go." "This was a scene in the book in which Fergus just fell asleep." "And I read on an Internet diary... a story of someone who'd told someone else a story of someone who'd fallen asleep... and their fire had tipped over... and set off a bunch of rockets, actually, not even flares." "And I took that, and Bill and I developed it into this scene... so that Fergus would do something so substantial... that it would humiliate the whole camp." "It was kind of a chain-of-events decision...." "I wanted to make something so big that this scene and his demotion... was a very public event." "Here's a scene from the book." "Forced to drink water until he vomits." "And punished first in this way and then by burning the shitters." "...out of your system?" "Here's another splash of colour also, this Santa hat that we decided to keep on him." "I felt like Sykes would force him to wear it, a little bit like it was a dunce cap." "You know, "I want everyone to know the idiot..." ""who nearly burnt down the camp last night." ""And I want everyone to spot him from a thousand yards. "" "You think you're the only one that's bored around here?" "It also was this kind of image... of Swoff as this joker, this strange outsider in the camp." "By this time, he's divorced himself from almost everyone... and he's very, very isolated." "And that was something I was seeking to express in the next shot here... which is him, for the only time almost in the movie, shot in a camp... alone in the landscape of the camp." "Very isolated, very solitary." "Hold it right there, Marine." "Dennis Gassner, the production designer... did an incredible, selfless job on this movie... because it's a production designer's nightmare, really." "Because there's no fantasy landscapes." "There's no...." "There's nothing to sort of get their teeth into." "What they're doing is they're building a camp in the middle of nowhere... and they're moving sand... and they're constructing spaces within spaces, within spaces." "You know, interiors of tents, tents within camps... camps within deserts and all that kind of stuff." "And he did a brilliant, brilliant job." "One of the things he and I were really tickled by were these sort of little... wooden Tardis-like structures that dotted the edge of the camp... which were the shitters and the showers." "And there was this whole string of details in the book... about things like this that really made you feel like... you were living the day-to-day life of a Marine." "And it was that texture and that level of interest and those... amazing little details that jumped out of it at you that really made me... want to make this film and focus on what happened to him in the desert." "It's the specifics." "The fact that you need a pair of welder's gloves... and an iron fence post to stir the burning shit." "Always, I don't know." "It always stood out." "And then, with the help of a very skillful Tom Newman cue, we kind of... explode or arrive into this scene... which is the beginning of the confrontation between Swoff and Fergus." "And this, I suppose, has been building for a long time." "I think when you train a man to use a weapon... and then you don't allow them to use it... or use it in the way they're expecting to use it... in the end, it will come out in other ways, whether it's to do with the weapon or not." "And in this case, it is." "How many is that, Cortez?" "Swoff is angry with Fergus and something snaps in him... that's been waiting to snap." "And it was a really, really interesting scene to shoot... and you'll see something about this on the DVD additional documentary... the video diary." "And it was interesting because it was the scene that Jake auditioned with... and he felt he auditioned very badly... and compared to what he is doing on film here, he didn't audition particularly well... but I wasn't expecting him to go full-out." "He was at my kitchen table." "But something happened to him in that, which is that he... felt that because I'd asked him to audition with this scene... this for me was the most important scene in the movie for him as an actor." "And so, he kind of froze the first day we shot it." "And we started on him and he couldn't do it." "So, we turned around and shot Fergus' direction first." "That's it." "What do you think, Cortez?" "You think I'll accidentally kill your homeboy from boot camp?" "Sure you'll kill him." "Accidents happen." "And during that, Jake warmed up and the next morning, he came in really focussed." "But he was so tense that... he was really quite out of control of what he was doing with his body and his hands... and as he jams the barrel of the rifle into Fergus' cheek here... he was pushing it really pretty hard." "And gradually during the course of the morning..." "Brian Geraghty's cheeks got more and more swollen." "And Brian being a mensch and a general good chap... didn't really say anything about it but kept saying." ""Can you ask Jake to not push quite so hard?"" "Repeat after me." "Repeat after me!" "This is my rifle." "There you go." "That's right." "And the scene got more and more tense... and Jake had to remember this machine-gun dialogue... that had to come out, pouring out at great speed." "And I told him, when he stopped, to not stop and go back to the beginning... or for me to say, "Cut. "" "I told him to shout "wrong" at himself and start again." "So he became kind of insane." "Without me, I'm...." "This is my rifle." "And by the time he got through the end, he was so wound up... as you see now, that he kind of went berserk." "And when he turned the barrel on himself... he jammed the barrel into his mouth and knocked out his front tooth." "At which point, he walked off-camera." "And I was about to say, "cut" and he walked back on again... with blood coming out of his mouth and carried on." "That's actually not the take you're seeing now, strangely." "This is the take before." "And he was so out of control he started slapping Brian around the head... in character and in the scene with the dialogue." "And Brian, who I'd said, "You can say 'cut' whenever you want", didn't say "cut"." "And it went on." "Eventually, I said "cut", and Brian was very, very upset." "He felt that he was being abused by Jake." "And in a way, he was." "But I tell this story as an indication of when you want people to act... on the edge here and this extreme, the line between... punishing someone and acting punishing someone, is very, very, very slim." "Brian took a while... to forgive Jake." "But I felt that because of what happened in that scene... because I realised how humiliating it had been for Brian... the reality of someone turning a gun on you... and sticking it in your face became greater for me." "And I realised that in the script we didn't have a scene... in which Swoff apologised to Fergus and it was essential... for the movie and for Swoff's journey as a character... that he confronted what he had done." "And from that point on... he was a different person and a better Marine, ironically." "And so that's what we did." "And the turning point, therefore, of Swoff's entire character... which I think is this moment when he turns around and says he's sorry." "After which, he ceases to be the egotistical creature... that we've got to know in the previous half-an-hour... and starts being some kind of human being again." "That turning point was written two days before the scene was shot." "I'm sorry, man." "And was entirely a response to a scene that we'd shot in sequence... which is one of the great things about shooting a sequence." "One of the great things about working with actors who know what they're doing... and have rehearsed and are used to improvising... because, basically, we improvised a scene, sent it to Bill..." "Bill rewrote it, and then we printed out the pages... and that's the scene that you see onscreen now." "Army has satellites, and we have this fucking shit." "That was one of the pleasures for me about doing this movie... is that we were able to respond... quickly and accurately to what the actors were doing... right in front of our eyes, all the time." "I mean, minute-to-minute, not just day-to-day." "So, here we go into this Bedouin scene which I took out for a long period in the cut." "When I first put the movie together and showed it to the studio... this scene wasn't featured." "Because I felt it was texture, and it didn't really have a point." "But what I realise now, retrospectively... now putting it back in, and what I hope is the case... is that finally, it adds some kind of tension." "Military tension, I mean, they point their guns at something." "They have what they think are the enemy facing them." "Now, the fact that they're not is not available to the audience, yet." "That tension is something that we've been craving for the last... thirty, forty minutes of the movie... and we need to feel like there is some threat out there." "Also, they represent, in a way, a gradual encroachment... of the desert into their world, into their environment." "The sudden realisation that they're actually not alone out there... and that there are enemy over the horizon and that it's coming down quite quickly." "When this Bedouin scene was first written, it was much more involved." "Swoff went all the way up to the Bedouin." "We went up with him." "We heard the dialogue between them and all that kind of thing." "And then, when we got to the scene I just felt it was wrong." "It was too mundane to go up with them." "And it was too, somehow predictable." "The whole "these guys are humans too" line." ""These are all people who live there. " It seemed a little obvious." "So, I stayed back, in the point of view of Troy, mostly... and shot the scene at a distance, which I felt retained the mystery of the Bedouin... without really seeing their face." "So that they were these figures who emerged out of the mirage... and kind of retreated back there, these amazing indigenous desert folk." "And as a consequence this scene remained in the film." "I think otherwise it probably wouldn't have made it in... because, I think it would've been a little bit too ordinary." "But there's something, also, about the reality of when you're confronted... with an enemy that isn't aggressive or who you think is an enemy." "How do you go about dealing with them?" "And I think that Troy's line, "Well, what do we do now?"" "I think it's a really good line, but it's also a line, again, improvised by Peter." "Joe, our Arabic advisor, gave Jake the line "ana sadiak"... which I think means, "Good afternoon", or "How are you?"" "But that was prompted by... me studying one of the Marine guidebooks... which had a page full of Arabic expressions spelt phonetically." "So, I thought it would be credible that he would learn a line of Arabic... and be able to deliver it to them." "Swoff spoke Arabic." "Sounded like a duck fucking or something, but he spoke Arabic." "Oh, yeah, yeah." "But at least we finally saw something." "You guys should see what the .40 does... to the head of a fucking camel...." "And then we get this scene again which, on the face of it, is just texture, really." "It's not pushing the story on and so much of this movie... you know, is not narrative-based, it's not a story... but needs to give you the feeling that a story is being told... and a narrative is taking place all the time." "And that was one of the things that was most difficult for Walter Murch and I... in the editorial process." "And here's Fowler doing something...." "You know, early on... they might have found him amusing and now, progressively... he's stepping over the boundaries and they actually do have some kind of... moral compass, and think that what he is doing is pathetic... as you can see by the look on all of their faces when he does it." "Sit down, Fowler." "That's the one." "You saw." "And then this stuff at the end... that Evan says, that Fowler says over to Jake is improvised, too." "We were very lucky to have that improvised line because it kind of... pointed the way forward to the beginning of the war." "Your day will come, man." "Your day will come." "And here we go into what is effectively the beginning of the war... as Staff Sergeant Sykes reads out the message from Saddam." "...you better not consider this a bunch of bullshit." "One of the things that is very similar between... the war in 1991 and the war now is... and I felt this very much at the time, the mythologizing of Saddam... as this kind of bogeyman who has more weaponry... more force, more power than he really does." "One of the things Chris Cooper's character... says in the first speech he gives to the troops... is that there's a million-man Iraqi Army, the Republican Guard... trained in chemical weapons." "And here, in a minute..." "Staff Sergeant Sykes reminds the men that they expect 30,000 casualties... on the first day of the war." "And, of course, this is very like what's happened since then... which is that we have been promised that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction... we have been promised that he has a nuclear armoury underway... or in the planning stages and, of course, no such weapons have been found." "And so, here you see this sort of foreshadowing of what's to come... over the next 15 years." "This sense of the mythic baddie that Saddam is." "...we expect as many as 30,000 casualties the first day." "And, of course, the big question is." "Who is responsible for creating that myth?" "Whether it's the media or whether it's from within the Marines." "Of course, well, we'll never know." "...by nerve agents such as soman... these agents will produce casualties immediately... if you do not deploy these countermeasures fucking ricky-tick." "Why in the fuck, if we've already taken a set of PB pills... and just now been issued the fucking injector?" "Shut the fuck up." "I'm sick of your shit." "All right, all right, man." "Calm down." "Look, they don't want chemically dead fighters on CNN." "Just sign it, Kruger." "What the fuck is this?" "It's a waiver." "And this scene I love very much and wanted to make sure was in the movie because... the discussion of how to deal with chemical attacks and the fear, the collective fear of... the way in which they were gonna be able to deal with the gas, particularly... was an obsession of that particular war." "And it led to them taking a lot of anti-gas drugs that many believe... created what was known, and what is known, as "Gulf War Syndrome"." "Some people will deny that, and I think a lot of the Marines on our set... said they took the pills and they were perfectly fine... and that was probably undeniable." "But I think it's also the case that there are some people who have suffered from it... and it was as a direct result of the drugs that they ingested during that period." "And here, Kruger, I suppose on some level quite justifiably, is saying..." ""We don't know what these pills are." "We don't know what they do to our bodies." ""Why are we taking them, suddenly?" "Do you know what they are?"" "You know, and he complains about it and with that memorable line..." ""In a year's time, my arsehole's gonna turn inside out and start talking to me"... conveys the concern that they were taking stuff that they didn't trust." "And, as Jamie turns his back here, Sykes turns his back..." "Kruger spits his out and Troy takes his out as well." "Dig your holes with the hands God gave you." "Something has turned in Troy." "Obviously, he's learnt in the last couple of days in screen-time... that he's not gonna be able to re-enlist and so, suddenly, he starts behaving differently." "He's aggressive towards Kruger after being so calm for so long and now... he launches this tirade against them." "Saying that surely they must realise that in this particular war... the grunt on the ground is gonna be left behind." "...look around." "You hear those planes." "This war is gonna move too fast for us." "All right, we can shoot 1,000 yards." "To go that far in Vietnam...." "And I love this because it was both a demonstration of Troy's state of mind... which is that he is very, very edgy and they don't know why." "Of course, in a minute we realise... it's because he's not being allowed to re-enlist... and he's the person, I suppose, who cares about it the most." "But also because it makes the point... that in some way the whole movie is making... that these guys on the ground were the victims of this war." "They were the people who suffered and when they came back... they felt that their war memories didn't even warrant serious consideration... because their war had only lasted four days... and in the eyes of the public, it had been a totally one-sided effort." "The fact that there had been people out there for nine months... wasn't something that I realised until I read the book." "And the argument that somehow this war was fought in the air... by people, who as Cortez says in this scene..." ""Go home and sleep in their own beds tonight"...." "That argument hadn't ever occurred to me." "This is the beginning of a type of war in which... the men on the ground are utterly out of the loop and just not... in the midst of the war." "Bear witness to the war more than fight in it." "I don't need your fucking attitude." "But that's all he wants, is to be in the Suck." "I know that, but the Suck doesn't want him." "He had a criminal record." "He lied about it." "And he lied about it on his application." "We had a long scene that we took out... which is the next scene after this one that you're watching now... between Troy and Swoff, explaining why he couldn't re-enlist... because he'd been caught selling drugs." "And I felt it was too on-the-nose, it was too explanatory and it was too expositional... and that, instead, it was better to put the information... about why he couldn't re-enlist... very casually in the conversation between Sykes and Swoff." "So, we ADR'ed that line." "After, in post-production, we dubbed that line of Jamie's... in which he says, "He's got a criminal record." "He lied about it on his application"... so that we wouldn't have to deal with it in this scene." "And I kind of felt like we nodded towards... why he wasn't allowed to re-enlist in a later scene, when he says..." ""What do you think you're gonna do when you leave", and Troy says, "I don't know." ""Sell some crack, sling some dope"... he says, and so it kind of hints at the fact that he had that kind of life before." "And I wanted those hints and those suggestions... because I felt that the character was best when shrouded by a little bit of mystery." "That wasn't just me being bloody-minded about not giving the audience information." "It was making sure that when finally Troy flips and he explodes... that it is genuinely shocking and volcanic... and comes from someone who you utterly don't expect to express themselves... or to be able to explain what is happening in their life." "And I felt that, that's where the power of the role lay... so I kind of deliberately stopped him explaining himself... and coming out with philosophical gobbets about... what the Marine Corps meant and what it should be... and, you know, the history of the Marine Corps." "...'cause we're about to go in the shit." "We're Marines." "This scene was the one scene where I stopped in the middle." "And, just, we ground to a halt for half a day and I stopped... and we talked about what the scene should be and re-shot it." "It was much longer, originally, and I felt like... it was the moment when the men, who have all... separately discussed that Troy is at a low ebb and can't re-enlist." "They've all discussed what to do and they've decided... that they're going to brand him and it's Swoff who basically gives them the signal... that the moment has come." "And you hear his voice over the wide shot here saying..." ""Get the brand, get the brand, now, now, now", he says... and before you know it, it's out, and this is their love letter." "And what they are saying to him, really, is that it doesn't matter what happens... however long you are in the Marine Corps... you're a Marine for life, because you are one of us and you will always be a Marine." "And there's something about the brotherhood and the bond... that exists between these guys, particularly when you meet them... that whatever they go through, they will always be... a jarhead." "And that's what the movie says at the end and what this scene is very clear to say." "And this expression on Peter's face... after he gets branded is, I think, one of the best pieces of acting... in any film that I've done, or play, either." "It's just heart-stopping." "We turned the inside of our tent...." "Always, with Peter, I pushed him just that little further than he expected." "He felt he'd done it and I said, "Just give me one more"... and this was the last take and it was pretty special." "And then we have that voiceover about... the inside of their tent being a circus and then we... in the style of the film, in the cutting style of the film, cut very...." "In a very jagged fashion to this, the middle of this incoming-fire sequence." "It was very deliberate, the sudden changes of rhythm and shifts of tone in the film... and the clashes of one tone with another." "Very deliberate on the part of myself and Walter Murch." "It's kind of like, you want the dissonances between different styles." "Between the lyrical, in this case, and the violent... and then suddenly back to the lyrical again." "Between the comic and the serious." "You want people... hopefully, laughing one moment and gasping the next." "This is a shot that took a long time because we had to... set a lot of explosions in the background." "We had to ramp the speed of the camera as we pushed in." "We had to go from, I think, 24 frames to, I don't know, 120 frames... and go gradually into slow motion as we got closer to him... and watch the sand pouring down on him." "120 frames is the speed that we shot the rose petals in, in American Beauty." "It's the same speed we shot here." "And then, suddenly, he's out of his weird, terrified... frozen reverie in which he pisses himself... and he is thrown back into the middle of the action again by Sykes... who is completely practical and very focussed... and just wants him to go and get the battery." "Again, we stoked this up from the book." "This run happened in a break in the fire to Tony Swofford... and I made it happen as the incoming fire was happening." "It's a movie, and you needed this kind of visceral thrill at this point... to remember the danger that they are under and to just try... and keep us focussed on the fact that they can die at any minute." "Do not fucking die!" "Do not fucking die!" "Do not fucking die!" "Do not fucking die!" "This fucking hole isn't deep enough!" "Again, here we are with an improvisation." "These two guys that came in in the morning... that's John who played Harrigan in the earlier scene... and we improvised the scene in my trailer, scripted it, narrowed it down... edited it and shot it that way in the afternoon." "I wanted them to be having an argument." "I wanted it to be overheard, thrown away." "Just something about the absurdities and people's just raw terror." "Everything is running ahead of Swoff at this point... and then nothing is as he expected, which is something that's gonna obviously... continue all the way through." "He's just there, as all of them were, a beat after something has happened." "He goes to get the batteries, he comes back." "They're dead batteries, but it's too late anyway... they're already going through the berm." "They think that they're heading in one direction... and the planes are heading in one direction, and then in this scene... of course, the planes turn round and face them." "That was A-10s." "Warthogs, baby." "Those things are fucking tank killers." "That shit's a fucking monster." "Yeah, no shit, Fowler." "Off they go into the wild blue yonder" "Let's go, zoomies!" "Let's drop that righteous hand of God!" "Fowler, get back in formation." "They're about to drop those bombs!" "Fowler, stay in position." "They're gonna drop the hand of God all over the Iraqis!" "Fowler, stay in your formation." "Yeah!" "This is my little homage, this scene to North by Northwest." "The shot of Cary Grant running away from the biplane... is something that occurred to me... as Fowler runs towards us, pursued by two A-10s." "This is the beginning of the really serious work done by ILM on the effects." "When we shot this, this scene was surrounded by scrubland... and shrubs, and what-have-you, and mountains in the distance." "And the sense of there being an area over the next berm... which has been bombed, which, of course, is the highway, way in the distance... and the planes, and the smoke in the atmosphere... and the whiteness of the desert, all of those things were added by ILM." "Of all the scenes in the movie that were utterly different to shoot... the discrepancy between the shooting of this scene and the actual scene... that's on the screen was the greatest." "'Cause this was a really boring scene to shoot... with one tiny little airplane flying over." "And on camera, and onscreen, it is a much more..." "I hope, exciting scene." "And also, surprising." "And happens much, much faster." "It took us two days to shoot a scene that must last maybe a minute." "I deliberately didn't shoot the scene with seven cameras... right up against the explosion." "We shot the explosions on four cameras... but from a distance, all from the point of view of Troy, Sykes and Swoff... in their formation." "I didn't want it to be sensationalising in any way." "I just wanted it to be fast and simple and brutal." "And then our guys, our platoon, is cut adrift... just making it over the next berm... expecting to receive enemy fire, or at least to meet the enemy... and what they see instead... is the effects of the last 78 hours of sustained bombing... by the US Air Force... which I talked about a great deal in pre-production." "You know, we did a large amount, an enormous amount of research... and photo research in pre-production on this movie." "Very little storyboarding, which is very unlike what I'd done in the past." "And I went in with very few pre-planned shots." "One thing I was very concerned to do was talk to people... who were there all the time... and, indeed, to surround myself with those people." "And one of the people I talked to was a member of the US Air Force... who flew over the "Highway of Death"... and explained to me that what had happened was that they were... bombing those people coming out of Kuwait City." "All four lanes of a two-way highway were all facing in the same direction... that the vehicles were exiting Kuwait City." "And they bombed the head of the road and the end of the road... and they created a log-jam, a giant traffic jam, if you will... and they just picked out all the cars in between." "So they were firing at sitting targets." "But such was the obsession, at that stage, with the scale of Saddam's army... that they felt that they needed all of that hardware in the sky... and, of course, they vastly outnumbered them, in the end." "And they destroyed many innocent people in the process." "They were only operating on orders and they were only given those orders..." "I think, because there was a great fear and a great sense... as Sykes' character says at the time, that there would be 30,000 casualties... the first day of the war." "In the event, there were barely 30 of the US side... but there were vast numbers of opposition soldiers and civilians... killed in those 78 hours, and this is what they stumble on." "It was an iconic image that really gripped me when I was watching the war... from afar in England, in 1990." "And looking at these photographs on the front of the newspaper... it felt genuinely shocking, and I hope that some of that... shocking aspect of what happened there is present in the film." "It was very odd to create this, to build corpses and cars and set light to them." "I think Dennis Gassner, the production designer... did an extraordinary job of creating something that was... so desolate and real." "But I felt that the atmosphere on set that particular day was unlike any other." "Fergus, here." "Thanks." "And here you have a little scene... which shows Swoff still trying to atone, on some level." "Spaghetti marinara." "And then a line that we improvised... about the MREs, Meals Ready-to-Eat... based on something that Jim Dever, our wonderful Marine advisor, said to us... which is that, you know, his favourite MRE was spaghetti marinara." "It just always amused me... 'cause it all tasted the same to me." "They're made to eat some pretty brutal stuff out there." "And here we are in this scene... that really was the most vivid scene from the book... and, I think, one of the scenes for which I did the movie." "The scene in which he goes and sits down in a circle of dead Iraqis... who were sitting in a not dissimilar positions to... the positions his friends are sitting in over the berm." "We blew this black dust on everything to replicate explosions." "We had no idea there were going to be white footprints on the sand... which also seems very powerful." "Very clearly indicating that he is the only person to have...." "The only living person, to have entered this circle." "We were pretty lucky with the weather and stuff on this movie." "You know, here you have this very, very flat, dull, almost dead light... in this scene, which was just very overcast on that day and hot... and it felt really suffocatingly claustrophobic there." "And it was very, very helpful for the scene." "And then Jake had to do it over and over again." "Be sick over and over again... with a mouthful of vegetable soup, or whatever it was." "And we improvised some lines." "This brief line..." ""One hell of a day", is actually something that was an improvised line as well." "And then this really crucial moment, I think, showing as much about..." "Jamie's character as it does about Swoff's character... that Jamie cares about what they're seeing and what they're going through... and is interested, is very important." "But also, Swoff decides not to talk about it." "What?" "Oil wells." "They lit up the oil wells." "Something that Bill Broyles said to me is that there will always be... those things you see in war that you will never talk about." "And one of the extraordinary things about Tony Swofford is... he not only talked about it, he wrote about it." "Here are these oil fires, the beginning of the oil fires on the horizon... and everything you see, with the very rare exception... of the occasional very close fire... is created by ILM, out of nothing." "The oil rain that hits him on the face and on the tongue, that's real." "We made that out of a molasses-type mixture." "It was pretty vile, but it wasn't nearly as vile as crude oil... which frankly would've been intolerable... as I'm sure it was for those guys when they were there." "Well, you'd better get used to it, 'cause we're gonna be living in it." "And you see it splattering on his face here." "And now you see them literally knee-deep in it... digging their sleeping holes." "They had to dig sleeping holes in pretty much any environment... and put up little canopies over them." "But here the winds change, and it's blowing the oil rain down onto them... while they're trying to dig their holes, and Kruger gets it in his eyes." "But one of the things about this scene... is it forms a kind of...." "One of the circles of hell... in the third part of this movie." "I've always thought of these as concentric circles." "Gradually descending to the still centre." "You know, you go through the friendly fire... and then you walk down the "Highway of Death"... and then into the circle, and then you're put into the oil rain... and then you're in the scene where Fowler is mutilating the corpse." "And right at the centre of this hell... is this man, Sykes... as he does later, justifying why they're there and saying... how beautiful it is." "Which to me is the true vision of hell." "Let's go, man." "Let's go." "I always felt that this sequence was part of that journey... deeper and deeper into the darkness." "And as such, again, there is no story." "You don't know where they're heading, you don't know why." "And in a sense, neither do they." "They're just operating on orders." "They're moving across the desert." "Sleeping and moving." "But they haven't encountered anything." "They haven't seen any enemies, except dead ones... and now the fires are burning all around them." "So, there's some kind of... emotional journey going on." "Some state of mind that is echoed by the landscape... and what's happening to it." "Their sort of mental landscape is aflame, as well." "Fowler, what are you doing?" "Fowler!" "What are you digging...." "And now they spot Fowler over the next berm... and he's doing something that isn't what he's supposed to be doing... and they all have suspicions, and so they go and check it out." "This was a scene that was in the book... and that wasn't in the original version of the script... and I think the studio was a little nervous, understandably, and by the way..." "I couldn't be more grateful to the studio for letting us make this film." "It is not an easy film to make." "It's a big film to make." "It's expensive, and it's...." "It offers no easy answers, I hope... and it's not told in black-and-white terms." "And it has some pretty extreme scenes, this being one of them, you know." "For any mainstream Hollywood studio now to spend money on a movie... set in the Middle East in any way is pretty extraordinary... let alone to have scenes in which... you see a US Marine mutilating a corpse." "But, you know, you see, as hopefully is the case... throughout this movie, both sides of the argument." "You see the person who's mutilating, and then the disgust of the people... that are his compatriots." "And, in the end, they win out." "But he has a totally justifiable argument, in his view... which is that he didn't kill him." "He was already dead." "So what's he hurting, what's he harming?" "And that's a terrifying argument to hear, I think." "And, I think, at this point Swoff provides the moral compass, you know." "He says there is something wrong about this... and this is unacceptable, and I'm not gonna explain why." "I'm just gonna take the body away and bury it." "But it's very difficult, in these situations, to keep your moral bearings, I think." "And I think one of the things that the movie does... hopefully, is show how it is just possible, but difficult." "...as many as I want." "You won't get this one." "Evan auditioned with this scene for Fowler and did it brilliantly." "And he does it brilliantly again here." "'Cause I don't even fucking want that one!" "I don't." "Fowler..." "And again improvised that line about..." ""I didn't kill him." "He's already dead. "" "And improvised this stuff at the end saying, "You know, I...." ""I don't even really want that one. "" "And then this is a scene that wasn't in the book... that I felt we needed to have in, really... which was something that indicated the destruction of the natural world... which is what happened here in the desert." "The oil killed thousands, tens of thousands of creatures." "Horses, cows, camels... reptiles, birds, et cetera, et cetera." "And, in a way, this horse represents... the whole of the natural world here." "But it's also a creature that allows... some tender moment from Swoff... and kind of gives him a moment alone, which I felt was necessary... at this point in the film, just to somehow isolate him." "And allows us to breathe a bit after that Fowler scene... and everything that's been happening... all the craziness that's been happening in the oil fires." "Allows us to just get some distance on it before the scene with Jamie... as Sykes... that begins with this shot." "There is something, I hope, iconic about... the image of a man digging a grave... in the still centre of this hellish landscape... and being joined by his commanding officer... who proceeds to tell him why he'd rather be there... than anywhere else in the world." "...pull this type of shit, but the Marines don't." "If there was ever an equivalent to that great moment in Apocalypse Now... where Duvall says, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning"... it's this moment which is him saying..." ""Who else gets to see shit like this?"" "And there are many, many people, many men out there fighting now... who, ultimately, feel the same way... and I felt it was very important to give those people a voice." "You know, on the one hand, you've got Swoff staring at him... and looking at him as if he's a total lunatic... and on the other hand, you have a very, very sane rationalisation... of why he's there and why he loves it." "And I think that in microcosm there is the debate... and there is the argument, and it's up to the audience... to pick their way through it." "In a way, a lot of the meaning of the scene is carried in Jake's reactions... which are very subtle, I think." "And most important of all, his reaction at the very end... when Sykes looks out at the oil fires and he carries on staring... at this person he takes to be a lunatic... and yet, who makes total sense." "So, I suppose all the scariest lunatics make total sense." "Do you know why I don't?" "Because I love this job." "I thank God for every fucking day that He gives me in the Corps." "Ooh-rah." "I mean, who else gets a chance to see shit like this?" "Here is this big wide shot, again created by ILM." "If you can believe it, all the night-time desert oil well scenes... starting with the previous scene with Fowler and ending with this... were shot on Stage 22 at Universal Studios." "These are interior scenes shot on a stage... and when we walked into the stage, it looked like a blasted... empty desert landscape." "One of the strangest sets I've ever walked onto... with an enormous bank of lights above... and here you can see those lights coming into play... as dawn breaks over the desert, and they're given their final mission... which is to...." "Well, they don't know it's their final mission... but it is their final mission to go and report to the Colonel." "Here's a line that was in the book that I loved..." ""Don't thank me, just don't fucking die. "" "Thank you." "Don't thank me, just don't fucking die." "Let's go." "Sykes is a very brilliant composite of many, many lines and characters... from the book, as indeed are many of the other men." "Because, although Tony writes brilliantly about himself in the book... he fails to go into great detail about any of the other guys... and that was Bill Broyles'job, and he fulfilled it brilliantly... and then the actors added the next dimension to it." "And here we see this kind of important shot... that takes them out of the burning oil fields... and moves them into the daylight again." "Although, they're still wiping off the oil from... their faces and hands and what-have-you." "Sykes thinks you boys are good." "Yes, sir." "And then we're back to Chris Cooper who is giving their final briefing... and suddenly they feel like...." "You can see the two of them feel... kind of excited and awed... and totally focussed about what they're going to do." "And, I suppose, this begins the process of the biggest, kind of... rug-pulling exercise that the movie attempts... which is to put the audience... in the shoes of two men who have been trained to kill... and, whatever their political views... liberal or not liberal, to be willing them into shooting someone." "Before you take a shot, you must get clearance." "And then realise what they've been asking of their central characters." "Some of my officers...." "This journey that they go on... this build-up, really begins with this briefing... and this fantastic bit of music transition... that happens at the end of this line that takes them up the berm." "...fucking show me." "Again, ILM created the background here... the factory and what's beyond Swoff... as he looks now." "That was an empty berm and they created the long shot... of the observation tower." "And again here we were in a bluescreen studio... in Universal, the Universal backlot." "This is not a real location." "Neither is the interior." "I think had we not come to this pretty much in sequence... towards the end of the shoot, I think it would've felt ridiculously fake." "But by the time we got here... the reality between Jake and Peter was so great... and the sense that this was the climactic scene... they could've acted it anywhere, they were so ready to do it." "I approached Peter before we did this scene, and I said, as I often do... to actors who have big scenes, "How would you like to shoot it?" ""Do you want to do it in pieces?" "Do you want to do the intense bit..." ""in other words, the last bit, first?" "Do you want to do the whole thing as one?" ""How do you wanna do it?" And he said..." ""I'll do the whole thing as one." ""From the moment they start looking at the observation tower..." ""to the very end of the scene..." ""and then we'll do it as many times as you need. "" "And so that's what we did." "We did the whole scene beginning to end... over and over again, so that Peter would always have a run-up... into the tension he was experiencing... and the sense of disappointment that he wasn't getting the shot... and then the imploring and the pleading that he goes through with the Major... and then his final breakdown, which I think is an amazing piece of acting... to totally make yourself vulnerable like that." "And here we deliberately go...." "We iris down on the scene with listening to tiny noises... to the sound of Swoff's cheek scraping against the butt of the rifle... to the sound of the clicking of the scope, to the catch being flicked here." "The tiniest breath, the tiniest noise." "Everything in extreme close-up... which is not something that I'd used up to this point in the movie." "Racking back and forth between the tower and the sniper scope." "And I love this particular shot of Troy's hand shaking... as he holds the receiver ready to get the news... that he's got the clearance to make the shot." "And the quieter it gets and the stiller it gets, the more and more tension builds... until the moment the Major walks in and blows it all apart... in a big wide shot... and then the scene changes direction suddenly and very dramatically." "Fire." "Fire." "Fire." "What the fuck frequency are you on?" "Oh...." "This was something that I loved from the book... was the lines that Dennis Haysbert has here." ""Bad knees." "College football", when one of his right-hand men there... flips up a deck chair for him." "Bad knees." "College football." "It's kind of like a man at the races... or a man sitting down for a slap-up meal, or something." "You can't believe really what he's looking forward to... is calling in an air strike that's gonna kill three or four hundred men." "And another favourite line is..." ""You never know how many chances you're gonna get to do this. "" ""You can't take my chance away. " And every bit as much as Troy wants to... take out the officer, the Major wants to take out everyone." "We have permission from the Colonel, sir." "Hitman 45." "Hitman...." "This whole scene was suggested almost entirely by Walter Murch... once we had the idea that the Major took away the kill." "In the first draft, Troy just gave up and said, "Okay, fine. "" "And Walter said, "Well, why doesn't he argue with him?" ""Why doesn't he try and justify it?" "Why don't they have a fight?"" "And everything emerged from that one note." "And it was a brilliant note that Walter gave... and he is such an extraordinary man, Walter... that he's capable of giving notes about every aspect of the film." "Very much like Conrad Hall, who shot my first two movies." "He's elevated the position that he finds himself in of editor and sound editor... to something closer to an art." "And here's Peter's breakdown scene of Troy." "Again, in every take, he said something different." "And what he's trying to say, although it's very difficult to make out... towards the end, is, "I was just trying to explain. "" "Which breaks my heart." "I don't know why." "One of the things I asked Peter to do towards the end of the take... was to turn himself away." "I think he's very humiliated about what he's put himself through." "And what has been seen by the Major and by Swoff... and so he turns himself away to face the wall... and covers his face like a child." "Hitman 45." "Hitman 45." "This is Bravo 4 Lima." "Over." "And here we are with the air strike that the Major has called in." "Again, almost entirely a CGI shot... with a miniature airport being blown up in the background." "This all shot on the bluescreen stage at Universal, as I said." "And there's very few things that link my three movies... because I feel particularly this one is quite different from the other two... but, in all three movies, you'll find... shots of characters being divorced from their reality... by a window, and the reflections in the window." "And then we're into this scene, which, again, was much longer... and I cut down in editing process." "A final conversation, as it turns out to be, between Troy and Swoff." "One of those things that they'll probably look back on... when they get home and remember." "And it's some little indication of what Troy did... to stop him being able to re-enlist, which is the drug comment." "You got any ideas?" "I'll sell some crack." "Sling some dope." "And I felt like there was a need here for some brief touching moment... between the two of them in which... ultimately Swoff really expressed that that was it for him." "He wasn't going to come back into the Corps... and that what he had seen was enough." "But that, you know, Troy... is the person who should be staying, and he's not allowed to... which is the ultimate irony." "And then they realise that they've missed their pick-up... and they're suddenly cut adrift in the middle of the empty desert." "And we shot this next scene here in Yuma, Arizona... on the most amazing, dramatic dunes." "One of the pieces of luck we had... was that the tyre marks from all the dune buggies... that go up and down on those dunes on a daily basis... were blown away by this extraordinary wind." "And we were, in fact, shooting in a sandstorm." "This was a pretty brutal evening, but it was one night... and it was really worth it, because the landscape... as it looks here, and as lit by Roger Deakins... is just extraordinary... and it really did look like this." "Fucking Scuds, man." "Obviously, those oil fires in the background are computer-generated... but the lighting banks that were lighting the desert were there." "The way Roger did it, by the way... was to put huge banks of flickering lights up... wherever we wanted an oil fire, and then we replaced those banks... with oil fires in post... but, of course, the light was there when we shot." "This is largely ADR, this sense of danger and impending doom over the berm." "The sense that the screams are the screams of people being tortured... and that these are two heads impaled on poles... rather than what they actually are, in fact, which is two Marine covers." "Helmets put on e-tools." "And instead of the scenes of torture and destruction that they expect... what they see is the end of the war and the party celebrating that." "I wanted this to have a kind of nightmarish feel." "This feeling like... you know, you come home expecting your house to be empty... and closed up, and someone's having a party in your house." "Not only a party, but it's in the final stages and people are really high." "Having a little party." "You're a little overdressed." "And Sykes is totally abandoned here." "I love what Jamie does in this scene." "Suddenly, there's this guy who's been pushing them around all movie... and now he's just another guy partying." "Again, a suggestion of Walter Murch's that Lucas Black here... says, "Did you get a kill?" and Swoff has to say, "No. "" "No." "Oh, shit." "That sort of embarrassment immediately afterwards... that they haven't done what they were supposed to do." "We're going home!" "And then Evan Jones burning his desert camies." "This was very important for me, this scene, that they all felt at the time that, that was it." "That Saddam was dead and deposed." "That they would never have to come back, as Fergus says in this shot..." ""To this shit hole ever again!"" "And, of course, we know now that that was not the case." "And this moment when Swoff realises the war is over and he never fired his rifle... and that sets off a chain of events with them... unloading the barrels of their weapons into the night sky... which is a scene, again, from the book... and there was something kind of ritualistic and wild about this." "The release of tension of all those months of waiting... and the inability to act and their own impotence... and the sense in which they were the victims of this war." "There's an expression here... of, kind of, solidarity and desperation, depending on who you're looking at... which I felt was really powerful." "And for a long while... this is almost how I wanted the movie to end." "And then we thought about it, and we thought..." ""No, it needs some contextualising, in a way." "You can't just end it here. "" "And we had various different voiceovers playing over this." "But in the script form, we decided that we were going to... go back home with them... and witness the scene that Tony Swofford remembers... when they're on the bus at the end and a Vietnam Vet steps on." "This was a pretty intense scene, 'cause they were firing guns... and it was very, very loud." "So everyone was struggling." "It was very, very cold that particular night." "People were getting to the end of their tether... which happened on a fairly regular basis on this movie." "And you can sort of see it in their faces which I kind of loved, again... because that's exactly what they are in the movie, too." "That was my war." "And then we go back to El Centro, to shoot this scene of them returning home." "They're home now, and in their Marine buses." "Their friendly, but rather sad, welcome-home parade... and the can of beer, and stuff." "There was a real sense of, you know, that they all got home safely at the time... and a sense of celebration and delight and relief, I think, more than anything else... that there had been so few civilian casualties...." "So few military casualties." "But there was also a sense of disappointment... that they didn't come home with the war stories that they wanted... and the combat action ribbons that they might've prayed for." "And then this, this scene with the Vietnam Vet." "And he came on the bus, V.J., who played the Vietnam Vet, who was superb." "You did it." "And he kind of took everyone a bit by surprise... and that shot of Jamie staring at him is very much...." "Was what Jamie's expression was on the day." "And I told V.J. to shake their hands and they all looked a bit shocked." "It was exactly what was required." "But this image of this wreck, really... who's still, even now... proud of having been in the Corps, and giving them an "ooh-rah" at the end." "This was what effectively felt like the end of the picture... and everything else was really about what happened next." "And we cut and re-cut this sequence over and over... dealing with whether to have voice-over here... whether to have score here, whether to let the Tom Waits play." "In the end, I wanted something that was... a single coda that felt like one piece." "And I wanted the audience to understand that the movie was coming to an end... and to experience this as the last images they would have of the characters." "Some of them going back into civilian life... some of them remaining Marines, and not always the people that you expect." "Some doing well, some doing badly." "It also gave our wonderful costume designer Albert Wolsky... a chance to actually put some clothes on them, as opposed to... what he's had to do throughout the entire movie... which is dress them in uniforms." "Hey, where you going?" "This very sad shot of Escobar stacking Coke cans... and, of course, I don't know whether it is sad or not... to see Sykes still there... in a different set of camies with a different weapon in his hands... fighting still in Sniper Alley, somewhere in the Middle East." "And then the return of Fergus to Swoff's house, you see time has passed." "Swoff's grown his hair, so has Fergus." "They've both left... and then this line when he says, "I've got some bad news. "" "And you think, "Oh, no. " And Troy is dead." "Now, a lot of people have asked me, "Well, how did Troy die?"" "And the truth is in the book he dies because he flips his car on black ice... coming home from what Tony describes as his "dead-end civilian job. "" "But I liked taking out the description of why and how he died... because I felt there was a mystery attached to the character throughout the movie... and that mystery should continue through to the end." "And I feel like we're always answering questions in films... and answering questions in entertainment, and sometimes it's nice to ask them... and to leave a little bit of mystery attached... because there would always be a question of whether Troy killed himself or not... and I loved leaving that door open." "And I still do." "And then we go right at the end to Swoff in his den... with the current conflict playing on the TV in the background." "For a while, we had a shot of George Bush here... but I felt that limited it just to this historical period... and I want this movie to mean the same in 10, 20 years as it does now." "And I daresay we'll be at war somewhere, I'm sad to say." "...build a house...." "Then this final shot with this final voiceover." "This sense that there are no explanations, there is no message... there is no judgement, but there is understanding." "Greater understanding of what he went through." "And also a bond that will always be there." "Not only with the people that he fought with... but the people that are fighting there now... as I speak, who are, just as he says... at the end of this movie, "Still in the desert"." "And this, of course, is a shot of six people that we know... having seen them in the movie in this exact same shot... but at the same time, it's six faceless Marines who could be there now... and I felt that was a very appropriate way of ending the film." "And then we go into the end credits and the music playing... is the instrumental version of Jesus Walks by Kanye West... which is a track that we used over the trailer... which kind of weirdly became associated with the film... before it came out, and I thought...." "Well, I think it's an incredible piece and I wanted to use it." "The temptation with this movie... particularly towards the end... was to add my own point of view... about the current political situation while we were making this movie... in Iraq which is that I felt very strongly... that we shouldn't be there, and the war shouldn't be continuing." "But in the end, after much debate and thought..." "I felt that it was inappropriate in a movie about... the Gulf War in '91, to give the characters the benefit of foresight... as to what would happen next." "And I wanted to leave the audience to draw their own conclusions." "So, in many ways, for me... the great strength of the film... is its ambivalence about the future... and its unwillingness to make a comment... about the current political situation at the time the movie was released." "And I hope in years to come... that 10 years down the line, 15 years down the line... the movie means as much, if not more... than it did when it was first released... because it isn't limited by being a specific polemic... against the current Presidential incumbent." "And that's it." "I hope you enjoyed the commentary." "I hope you enjoyed the movie." "Obviously, if you're listening to this, you can't have hated it, but maybe you did." "I hope that more movies like this movie get made." "Not war movies specifically, but movies that are... specifically engaged with political issues... and engaged in them in the current climate." "Because I think it's important that people go and see them... and people continue to make them." "So thank you very much for watching, and thank you for listening, too." "I'm Anthony Swofford, author of the book Jarhead." "And I'm Bill Broyles, the screenwriter of the movie with the same name." "So, Bill, I know a little bit about your service in Vietnam... but I'm wondering about when you joined and where you served." "Well, it was a completely different context 'cause it was 1968... and I had been in the anti-war movement... and actually against the Vietnam War." "Then I got drafted... and I couldn't get in the Coast Guard." "I tried to get, actually, to get into George Bush's reserve unit... but that was of course full to people like me." "And, of course, I got sent immediately to Vietnam." "And I was an infantry." "I had an infantry platoon in the mountains for six months." "And, basically, I didn't see anybody above the rank of captain... and we were just off on our own." "The thing that attracted us to the movie so much was the voice Tony had in the book." "So we thought, "Let's just start with that. "" "And then we thought we'd show... what happens to a young man... when he's no longer a civilian." "And this is a memory that everyone who's been in the Marines... or any military will recognise instantly." "The guy with his head shaved... standing in a line with a bunch of people he's never met... and being yelled at by his drill instructor." "An instantaneous change in one's life, right?" "Completely instantaneous." "You suddenly realise that everything you knew... is meaningless." "Particularly, your girlfriend." "One day your mother was making you fried eggs... and the next day a pretty guy like this is yelling obscenities in your ear." "And, you know, the thing is, the hardest thing about going through boot camp... is to keep a straight face." "'Cause if you laugh, you're dead." "And, of course, the other thing that's introduced right here... is that Swoff's father was in Vietnam." "Because the Vietnam echoes are going to be all through this movie... as they were through Tony's life." "And also this thing here is of Tony and his girlfriend... which is, again, resonant throughout the movie." "What in the fuck is this?" "Sir, it's a recruit's drawing of a footlocker, sir!" "And this is something that I think every Marine realises... shortly after putting his feet on the boot steps." "Why the fuck are you my scribe, then?" "Isn't my scribe supposed to know how to draw?" "Sir, the recruit doesn't know!" "The recruit thought the scribe was supposed to write, sir!" "Of course the recruit doesn't know!" "This guy is great." "Yeah, this guy, he's actually better than my drill instructor." "Show me exactly where your Skivvies and running shoes go." "Sir, the recruit can't think... while the drill instructor is hitting him on his head, sir!" "There's always a point about this boot camp stuff, and the point here is... you better learn to think when things are going on all around you... because if you can't... you're going to be in serious trouble." "Sir, I got lost on the way to college, sir!" "And that's the beginning of the movie." "Welcome to the Marine Corps, Mr Tony Swofford." "The drill instructor who replaced that guy... who also abused a few other recruits... and then got kicked out of the drill-instructor position..." "I ran into him in Austin, Texas, one time." "It was very bizarre." "Not all drill instructors are violent with the recruits." "And he remembered that that guy was out of hand... and they had to send him out of the training regiment." "Yeah, and we had fun with this scene... because he's still this bright-eyed, young recruit... joining the Marine Corps, which he dreamed about." "And so we thought we'd put in this ridiculous song of an era..." "Don't Worry, Be Happy... as a counterpoint to what's about to happen to him." "So much of this experience that Tony had... was so true to my own experience... and I think it's true of my son's experience in Iraq, too." "There is such a universal quality to this rite of passage, that... the Swoff character's going through right now." "Swofford." "What kind of fucking name is that?" "It's English." "Tony, you should talk a little bit about how... your passage went through the Marine Corps... because we had to condense a lot of Tony's story... which took place over several years... to make it, sort of, seem like it's part of the dramatic unity of the movie." "Right, 'cause after boot camp ended..." "I went to the School Of Infantry and trained there... and then was eventually sent to the Fleet Marine Force... which is this scene where I'm reporting to Second Platoon Golf Company." "This is the world right here, boy." "You are plunged into it." "You know, it is a world that civilians just don't know about." "It's so hard to explain to them what it means to be a Marine." "And these guys are the hardcore guys that have been in for a while... and walking into their family is this new recruit." "May I help you?" "And part of their distaste for him is that he's a vision of themselves... two or three years ago when they were dumb enough to join, as well... and to step into this crazy, insane world." "And that's one reason that they play so many games with him." "Yeah, and I love this guy, too." "Just, "You're welcome to second platoon. "" "Yeah." ""Fresh fucking meat. "" "This is this very testosterone-driven rite of passage... to say, "Are you worthy, really?"" "You know, not only what Tony says, which was, you know..." ""You're like what we looked like when we were dumb enough to be here..." ""but are you worthy to be one of us?"" "And, it's not going to be easy to become worthy." "Peter Sarsgaard just, sort of, walking out of the group and coming over here is... a really great, I think, introduction of his character, too." "But these guys really have it down." "I have so many memories just like this... and when I read Tony's book... it was this resonance of how specific his images and memories were to his war... but how much they spoke to mine, as well." "Get some!" "It's great that this movement to the darkness in the barracks... is kind of reawakening here." "When we were trying to figure out how to do the movie... there's so much rich stuff in Tony's book... about what happened to him before the war and why he joined the Marine Corps... and we kept struggling with how to do this and, of course... some of the things you're getting here... you know, the image of the brand and the reference to the girlfriend... some other little props and details that are going to resonate through the movie... are all set up here at the beginning." "If you want a brand, you've got to earn it." "Welcome to the Suck." "We're about to get to the point where we've figured out... let's try to find a way to talk about all the stuff that was in Swoff's past... but do it in a much more filmic way... 'cause we really wanted to stay in the world of the Marine Corps." "Still got that stomach flu, Swofford?" "The structure of my book couldn't be preserved for film... but the montages, really, in some way... echo some of my structure of the book." "And this is great, Sam's idea of the doors closing and opening." "You know, we sort of worked our way toward this later." "But I think it's very effective." "It has a little echo of The Godfather, too, at the end of part one... where the door closes on Michael." "But, you know, I think that you get through this... at least, our shorthand, which I'm not sure is quite fair... you know, completely, to Tony's real family experience..." "but for the film...." "Right." "Yeah, I mean, that family montage is possibly arch and a little extreme... but, I think it does, you know, in a few seconds... the real work of telling the story." "The movement from my parents in bed... in Honolulu... and then the latter darkness, that was part of my father's Vietnam service." "And also, there's the T-shirt again." "We were trying to set up these images... and props that will resonate later." "You see his girlfriend putting on the T-shirt, which we're going to see again and again." "And here, I love this entry of Jamie Foxx... because the staff sergeants that I had in the Marine Corps, who were just... you know, I would follow anywhere, this guy is it." "And he's kind of a composite character of several sergeants... that Tony meets through the course of his Marine Corps career, but... he is so true to the guys that I knew in Vietnam, I mean... that my son, in fact, is with now in Iraq." "But you can't have a military without guys like this." "The younger guys, like I was, you know you're going to leave the Marine Corps... but you know these guys are going to stay in for 22... and they're somewhat foreign to you, and you don't totally understand..." "that decision." "They're lifers..." "They're lifers." "Yeah." "...which is often derogatory, but... the young Marine who sees a guy like Jamie's character knows that... you know, that he's a sound leader as well." "Indoc class starts on Monday." "I suggest you have your ass there." "Is that an order, Staff Sergeant?" "It's a fucking opportunity." "It's a fucking honour." "It's the best fucking job in the Marine Corps." "Sounds good, Staff Sergeant." "Sounds good, Staff Sergeant!" "Sounds good." "Could I have my...." "You know what?" "I got a better idea." "You play any instruments?" "I played the trumpet in third grade." ""I played the trumpet in third grade, Staff Sergeant. "" "Community concerts." "And so you see this guy, this sergeant, picking up on the fact... that Swoff's not necessarily happy about being in the Marine Corps... eager to take advantage of this challenge of being a scout sniper." "My pleasure." "Humiliation is a key part of the ritual of being in the Marine Corps..." "as we've seen through the branding scene." "Right." "And we're now about to get it... what was the terrifying version, we're now going to get the humorous version." "But it's the same sort of thing." "And it's the, you know, his humiliation here...." "This is sort of an amalgamated scene, too... because, in fact, the Staff Sergeant..." "looked at me and said, you know..." ""You dumbass, there is no bugle job." "Get back in line. "" "But that humiliation, that's part of drawing someone into the group... and if they can deal with it." "Okay, Swofford, play reveille." "And this is, of course, extremely funny." "You better play with your mouth." "Now, see, it's hard to comment...." "As you try talking about this, because, again... part of the joy of writing the screenplay for this... is not only working with Tony's book, but seeing what Sam and the actors... did with what I wrote based on what he had done and how they brought it to life." "'Cause this is so real." "Just every detail..." "Jamie's look, the way he looks back to the men... the way they are trying not to laugh." "In the book and in real life, this happened in the desert... and our First Sergeant..." "asked a couple guys." "Yeah, it was to another guy." "And it was just such a good moment that I just had to have it happen to Swoff." "And you had to humiliate me, right, Broyles?" "I did." "Yeah, exactly." "Once I met Tony, I had to think... of whatever possible humiliating positions we could put him in, that would be great." "Will you shut the fuck up?" "There is no bugle programme." "You sizzle-dick motherfucker." "Who do you think you are...." "Part of the process of becoming a Marine is to let go... of the civilian values that you have... including many of the really basic ones of life and death." ""Thou shall not kill, " you know, "I walk through the valley.... "" "There's just several biblical references here... that are turned on their head." "And that's very common in the Marine Corps, is that they want you... to know that you're leaving behind those things... because if you keep them..." ""Thou shall not kill, " you're gonna die... and your friends are gonna die... because you're in a whole different world now." "It's a world civilians don't understand... and, not only that... you're in a world of the Marine Corps... that's more elite than most Marine Corps guys are going to understand." "So these guys are the elite of the elite." "Plus, we wanted to have some fun with this." "Oh, shit!" "Fuck, I can't see!" "Back to the grunts, dick face!" "In order to engage your target, you must see your target...." "The idea of the rhythms here... is to deal with the extremes of military experience, that is... sometimes you're laughing, it's very funny... and then, immediately, you can go to pure terror and pure horror... which is what's going to happen here." "All this sniper stuff comes straight from you, you know." "Just the things they are trying to learn." "Yeah." "The shooting, of course, the ghillie suit...." "And we see that the slow attrition of these guys...." "When I joined the platoon, there were about 40 guys who tried out for the platoon... and six of us made it." "Yeah, again, that was Sam's idea, to sort of keep inter-cutting the jogging... with a smaller and smaller group." "Again, you know, this is also introducing another character in this movie..." "which is the rifle." "Right." "And the love affair with the rifle... and you're going to hear things about it that are going to play back again later." "But in the end, you have to trust your gut." "Details, gentlemen." "Details is gonna be the difference between you killing your target... and your target killing you." "We've all been taught that, "Thou shalt not kill."" "But hear this:" "Fuck that shit!" "This is meant to be disturbing... and it's meant to be the introduction to this rifle, which is a machine for killing." "And we spent a lot of time behind the rifle like this." "What we have here, is the making of the sniper... which is the most important process for me... and for the making of, you know, a guy who serves in the state platoon." "Fire, fire, fire." "This is a scene that didn't occur in the book... but, certainly, you know, sometimes... training can be as dangerous as warfare... and, unfortunately, many people die a year from accidents." "And this was your idea, yeah, Bill?" "Yeah, well, it was actually one of the guys that came in... told us this story, that something like this happened in his training... and I remembered it had happened in mine, too, when we were working on .45." "And it really seemed like the kind of thing that we wanted to introduce right away... just how serious this is." "This is life and death." "And you better do what you were trained to do." "You better learn, you better pay attention... or there are serious consequences, like right here." "Keep moving!" "Don't bunch up!" "I can't!" "No!" "Cease-fire!" "Cease-fire!" "And this reaction of this guy... of Jamie to this, is so true to life." "First, he's just so completely upset... and then, he's just super pissed... because this guy didn't listen to him..." "And he died." "...and he died." "That's what really happens." "If you listened to me... you would still be fucking alive right now!" "So we wanted to drain out all the possible sentimentality out of this... but, at the same time, leave the horror of it." "God help me." "You are now scout snipers." "This, to me, is one of the most poignant moments in the whole movie... and then to switch to where they actually get their rifles." "This is the introduction of their rifle." "And, again, we're setting up some verbal mantras... and some visual images that are going to pay off later." "Just whether it's the T-shirt or the rifle or the Rifleman's Code." "You may now open your case, pull out your M40A1 rifles." "And there's that tension there between..." "Troy and Swoff over who's been deemed the shooter." "Right." "Tony was a shooter in his team." "This is my rifle." "This is my rifle." "Boy, I remember saying this." "Don't you?" "Yeah." "Again and again." "I still can say it by heart, 30 years later." "Without my rifle, I am nothing." "The Rifleman's Creed, right?" "Yeah." "Exactly." "And you notice again the sort of biblical things, is that... we've dispensed with the traditional, kind of biblical... incantations that you believe as a civilian, and you're given a new one... that you have to believe as a Marine." "Not just as a convenience, but as a practicality... of keeping you alive and keeping your friends alive." "Hit." "This is not just a Marine Corps movie." "These snipers are a whole other breed apart." "Which is one of the things that make Tony's book so interesting... because it distils a lot of the military experience... down to the essence of the violence... which is, you know, a man with a target in his reticle." "Yeah, you know, one guy with a rifle and his partner...." "There's a strange kind of simplicity to the rifle, as well... in a world of laser-guided bombs... and cluster bombs and all the other, sort of, larger machinery of war." "Good evening." "Iraq invaded and took over... its tiny neighbour, Kuwait, today." "That set off worldwide protests and drew sanctions... from the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union." "The government of dictator Saddam Hussein... claimed it went in at the invitation of revolutionaries... who had overthrown the Kuwaiti government." "We have appealed to all our friends around the world... including the United States... to come to our aid and assistance." "We're going to fucking war." "This is a scene that when I read it in the book... this is one of the moments that made me want to do this as a movie... because it's the effect of... the films made about the war I fought in for real... on these guys of Tony's generation... and the reactions of these guys is so disturbing, but so true... that they're just so juiced up by this... but, at the same time, the undercurrent underneath is absolute fear." "It's like, this is the moment they realise that they're not just possibly going to war... but they are going to war." "And so what do you think watching this, Tony?" "Yeah, it was...." "You know, these films helped us... kind of attach ourselves to that history... and there's one way in which... our base knowledge of war was through these films." "This is what they're about to step into... and they have to protect themselves... and part of that protection is... excitement, exhilaration, the possibility." "I love this shot, like the midnight showing in The Rocky Horror Picture Show... where they all know all the words... they all see the things." "They're seeing it both technically and emotionally." "And that screen is like the protection." "Like, on the other side is their real war, but right here is this one... which they can watch safely." "This scene is so... to the heart of what happens to you and what you have to do." "And everyone could quote..." "Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Platoon..." ""I love the smell of napalm in the morning"... which is the scene right after this in Apocalypse Now... which is, for most people, shocking, but... for young Marines, exciting." "And this is the moment that they've been waiting for." "They're told they're going to war." "It's the moment they're waiting for and the moment they're excited about... but they're also terrified, because they could not only kill, but die." "When I was in the Marines, you know, we watched World War II movies." "When my father was in World War II, he watched World War I movies." "Before that, people read books." "But you want to know how you're going to do. "What am I going to be like?"" "And then, my son, now, is a pararescue jumper in the Air Force... which is Special Operations guide." "He's on his third tour of Iraq, and I'm hoping he'll get home in a week." "He's been in Afghanistan, as well." "And I, in fact, did not encourage him to join the military... he did that very much on his own... but, of course, I'm immensely proud of him... and have my own very conflicting feelings about the war in which he's in... what his service is being used for." "And this is, like, the beginning of the horniness that's evident." "Jake makes it totally evident that they're about to go to a barren land." "Yeah, I'll say again, I think for Tony, you know, we talked about this too, is that... a lot of their Vietnam myths that they saw in the movies... it's all about the bar girls and the women... just like for us it was all about the French girls in World War II." "And here these poor guys are going to where there's nobody." "There's no alcohol, there's no women, there's no nothing." "There's just the desert." "A large part of all military life... in all combat and all wars... is boredom in downtime... and the guys in Vietnam had the ville to go to... to sort of fight some of that boredom, and we were going to have nothing." "This is exactly how I went to war in Vietnam, too." "We got off of a Braniff airline jet." "It's crazy." "Just like this, with the stewardess, saying, "Goodbye, now." "Good luck, now. "" "And all of a sudden, you turn off the ramp, and there you are." "And, you know, the light changes." "I mean, you're in the middle of all this stuff and...." "Does this ring true to you, Tony?" "Yeah, the first time I saw the movie, I was so shocked by this scene... because it's exactly... what the tarmac in Riyadh looked and sounded and felt like." "And, you know, this massing of troops." "We were the first Marines on the ground... and we were getting ready to go to war." "It's a really perfect representation of that." "And, by the way, just to, you know, footnote... which we could be talking about on every scene is that... when Sam directed this, he didn't know anything about the military, really." "And I think a lot of the movie's... just amazing qualities... are his journey of discovery, his determination... to get this right and to find out what really happened and to get it onscreen." "Everything we're talking about is filtered through Sam's imagination." "And I love this Chris Cooper scene." "This guy is your classic..." "Marine officer, who is... not a buffoon, who's very smart... and who can talk to the President as well as he can talk to these guys." "Good afternoon, Marines!" "And he's talking to the guys now." "He's putting on his talking-to-guys hat." "For those of you who don't know me..." "I'm Lieutenant Colonel Kazinski, your battalion commander." "He really looks like a lifer officer." "I mean, he looks like, you know, a Lt Colonel who's been in for 23 years." "And, again, he's a guy you would trust." "You would follow him." "Those boys have been fighting since you were nine or ten years old." "These kinds of shots are...." "Those are just super authentic shots." "A group of Marines, sitting with their rifles... being briefed for war... and shocked here by what they're seeing." "And, again, just so we put this in context... you know, this is about the first Gulf War... in which Saddam Hussein invaded a neighbouring country... and used these nerve gas... and, in fact, these troops are part of an international coalition under UN mandate... with support of the Arab League." "So they're going to be waiting for months, they don't know this yet... to get the diplomacy done... and to get the troops built up and to get the alliances built." "But what we want is to go to war tomorrow." "And these guys, like they say on the plane, "We're going to be back in two weeks. "" "'Cause these guys are ready." "You could see how pumped up they were in the previous scene... so between that incredible excitement and anticipation... of watching Apocalypse Now... we're now transitioning into the life of the desert." "You know, our first month in the desert we were running live patrols... with ammo locked and loaded... supposedly ready for the army to come down, and... that wasn't going to happen." "We're gonna kick some Iraqi ass!" "I love this introduction of Fowler who is, to me, one of the great characters in the movie." "Because all of these guys are trained to kill... because that's what they have to do as their vocation." "But every now and then you get a guy that the screw's turned a little too much... who's not just trained to kill, but that's what he lives for." "He loves it too much." "Yeah, too much." "And his particular psychosis really becomes detrimental to the unit." "And also, see, you're starting to meet these guys here... and you'll see they have different kind of political viewpoints... a different kind of everything." "And this is one of my favourite lines in the movie... you know, that Troy's gonna say... after they start talking the politics in just a second." "You're gonna get all you want soon enough." "First to fucking fight!" "Yeah." "For what?" "I've been around these old white fuckers all my life." "They got their fat hands in Arab oil." "The motherfuckers drink it like it's beer." "And it seems kind of funny to" "He's the subversive." "Yeah, to make the subversive the guy from Texas, which are like me... 'cause you think that, stereotypically, he would not be." "But this is just much more real." "And, of course, they dismiss him." "All the rest is bullshit." "This is like the grunt's mantra." "That's what I felt in Vietnam... even though it was much more politically charged and this wasn't." "We talked politics every now and then, but we knew it didn't mean anything." "Right, and, you know, we'd get the papers, and we knew what was going on... but, in the end, we were there to fight, just as Sarsgaard's character just said." "One thing I talk about fairly often in the book... something I write about is the domesticity that the Marine Corps offers." "And it's this simple, kind of close-to-the-bone living." "And here, I love this scene... because we see the making of their home." "This is where they're living, on these cots with these CC mats." "You know, the guys are pulling out their flags... and their relics." "Look at her!" "Ain't she an animal!" "You know, it's the interior life of this family... that we see emerge onscreen." "We see the making of it onscreen." "Yeah, and also it's just the different ways they look at their women." "You know, you've got these objects of lust... and, you know, the girlfriends, and then you're about to see... you know, the guy with his wife... with a completely different idea of beauty." "And, you know, I really love how different these guys are." "Give it up!" "Check this out." "Yeah, boy!" "Give it up, give it up." "No, no, no." "Oh, no!" "Please don't love me!" "The cultural, like, Mexican versus Cuban stuff was...." "You know, there were these two guys in platoon, one Mexican, one Cuban... who were always talking trash back and forth... about how one or the other spoke Spanish... and the difference between the women." "And again, here's Troy going to say... you know, the Marine Corps thing... if the corps had wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one." "A couple years after I got out of the Marine Corps... the General made an order... that anyone under an E4 couldn't get married... and he got in a lot of trouble over that one." "You're supposed to be married to the Marine Corps, if you're at this level." "It's like your calling." "It's almost like being in the priesthood." "Again, these themes of loneliness, doubt, worry... about what's happening to their girlfriends back home... is introduced right from the beginning." "You know, I love this." "Yeah." "'Cause they're just not prepared for it." "They've got the gear... you know, they've put it on before... they've used it, they know how to put it on." "Part of the grunt's complaint is..." ""I know how to put my gas mask on." "Why are you calling, 'Gas!" "' again?" ""Like, there's no gas. "" "Yeah, but then the truth is that they can't get it on fast enough." "So this is Jamie being, like, the classic sergeant... who's not going to let them get soft." "That's your fucking sleeping bag, you moron!" "Let's go!" "It's been 30 seconds." "What the fuck are you doing?" "Get it on!" "Bill, I'm wondering if the Marines that we see on the screen... and that you first encountered in my book... if they reminded you of men that you served with in Vietnam?" "Those 18-, 19-year-old guys that were in my platoon... you know, they saved my life over and over, and..." "I was a second lieutenant, which is like the lowest form of life... and what I quickly learned was that you just had to... let your squad leaders essentially run the platoon... and just not get in their way." "55 seconds." "You're all dead." "And since you're all dead..." "I guess you wouldn't mind taking a little run in these suits." "Let's go!" "Swofford, if you don't pick it up..." "I'm gonna shoot you in your fucking foot!" "Move it!" "The price of crude oil has nearly doubled." "President Bush sends in more troops." "Us, six times a day...." "And, again, this was Sam just pushing to find ways... to show time passing and what they're doing." "And we did this." "We patrolled in the middle of nowhere, with no enemy nearby." "And we dehydrate." "You know, I was talking to one of the guys in the platoon last night, in fact." "And he reminded me of this three-day patrol we did... through the middle of the desert." "...into nowhere." "And I love this scene, because it's what we did." "We used our bayonets... to dig into the earth, to supposedly look for landmines." "This is also, as Tony said, they were so anticipating doing what they're trained for." "They fire at nothing." "They throw hand grenades into nowhere." "You will hydrate till I get full." "There you go." "Hold it down." "Now, hold them up." "And we look north...." "And this, again, is a great line from Tony's book." "...and we wait for them." "This is our labour." "We wait." "When you're a screenwriter and you're given a book like Tony's... what you want to do is just not screw it up." "And this, again, this is sort of added in from some of the things... that Tony and the other guys told us." "This is not in the book, I don't think." "But it was something that happened." "Yeah." "But when you're given a book like Tony's, and it's so good... you just want to get as much of it as you can into the movie." "I think people will be shocked by that scene, as well." "Yeah, this is such a great example... of guys trying to find a way to stave off the boredom... and find something to do... because there are so many times that you can fire your rifle... so many times you can practise land navigation... so many times you can put your gas mask on in less than seven seconds." "And, you know, guys literally went out and found scorpions... and kept them as pets and had fights." "But I do want to point out that no scorpions were injured in the making of this movie." "That's good to know." "I just love the way that they're together... and they love each other and get on each others' nerves." "They're just trying to pass the time." "What I love about the scene is it's so small." "It's these two little scorpions fighting." "And look how emotionally involved in it these guys are." "I know, isn't that great?" "Yeah." "It's like the world depended on that... on that scorpion fight." "Fucking asshole." "Part of what's so great about Tony's book... is that it captures what happens to men at war... in those moments that aren't the typical Hollywood-combat moments." "But I think that's the heart of this movie, is what that does to your soul... to go through this." "This whole sequence here is a wonderful, sort of, Sam montage about boredom." "You know, you wash your clothes, you sit around." "This is how I spent nine months of my life." "Yeah, this is the making of the landscape here, which Bill and Sam just did expertly." "You know, there's a part in the book where I talk about...." "You know, at first we hated the desert." "We couldn't stand it." "And then, eventually, we realised that the desert was our home... and the desert was going to be our home for a while." "That eventually we would fight there, but first it was going to be our home... and this scene is the making of that home." "One line we had to cut out at the last minute... was a great line from Tony's book, which was... you know, "The desert, we thought we invaded it, but it invaded us. "" "...left- versus right-handed masturbation... further cleaning of rifle...." "Here is, again, this theme of helplessness... with the one, the most important, connection you have to the life you knew... which is your girlfriend or your wife." "And you see it really working on Swoff here." "He doesn't know." "And he sees all these examples... of what these other women have done and how they've...." "This is a great scene, again from Tony's book, the Wall of Shame." "Yeah, and, you know, it's this fear that the guy has... and some of it may just be unfounded... but he has no control over what's going on back in the world." "And later, in another really important scene... just before the war starts, we'll hear Lucas's character talk about that... about the difference between the jarheads and the world." "I wonder what she's doing right now." "No way to know." "Now, here are the rules." "This scene came right out of the book, and there was a time, I think... though, when we thought that this would open the movie." "This is one of those scenes that I just knew... had to be in the movie, when I read the book." "Like the watching Apocalypse Now." "And if I get fucked up, I'm gonna fuck you up." "Take your shirts off." "Show your muscles." "You've been working out." "This is censorship." "This whole sequence where they want to put on a show...." "And we did this in Vietnam, too." "We had to...." "Of course, you know, it's a little different." "They stayed with this longer, and we couldn't put on a show that long." "But this is exactly what he's trying to get them to be... the Marines that the press office would like them to be." "And this is a great line from the book again." "You are a Marine." "There's no such thing as speech that is free." "You must pay for everything that you say." ""You must pay for everything you say. "" "Right, which is true." "You end up paying." "And this, again, I think this acting...." "This is great." "'Cause the actors have to be their characters... not being, you know, being..." "They can't be actors-- -...uncomfortable in front of the...." "When, in fact, they are totally comfortable in front of the camera." "...so I'm proud to serve my country here." "I have supreme confidence in all my leaders... you know, from my team leader...." "This is the line that Jamie's character... you know, wanted Swoff to say." "He wanted them all to say, "I have supreme confidence. "" "He says it perfectly." "He gets...." "But...." "And this guy's just crazy." "He's...." "And again this was a way to get personal... just, you know, for each of the characters... so you could just get a little vignette." "And I wrote some of them... some of them came from Tony's book, then he just completely improvised his." "You're a Marine here in Saudi Arabia." "And this is great, 'cause here's the guy that didn't want censorship." "And he's just...." "You can see what happens." "And these were actually outtakes." "He's just getting ready to do... his thing he's written, and Sam decided this was even better, which I think it is." "Do you have nightmares about them?" "How do you...." "I love it out here." "This is what I want." "And this again, this is the essence of Peter's character right here." "And so much of the guys that I knew were like this." "And Troy, who wanted to be in the Marine Corps..." "loved the Marine Corps, wanted to be there more than anything else..." "would've spent his life there." "That's him." "That's how he lives." "You know, Swoff sort of breaks, you know, changes the mould here." "He's playing the game at first, telling her about his" "Because there are two sides here." "And when the Marine says... that, "I'm confident in our mission." "I'm confident in our abilities"... and that, "We're gonna go win the war, " all those things are true." "But the alternate side..." "Is also true." "...the fear, the loneliness... the complicated feelings about, "Well, are we really here for the right reasons?" ""Why are we in the desert?" "What's going on here?" ""Who are we fighting for?"" "They're not allowed to voice those concerns." "Are you scared?" "Yes, ma'am, I'm very happy to be here." "I love my country." "And again, you know, I just want to say again that these actors... you know, we could talk about it anytime in the movie, are extraordinary." "This guy is just...." "He has that immigrant enthusiasm for America, which is all so true... but when these actors shave their heads... it was the transformation of them, just like it is with the recruit." "They became so serious and dedicated... to getting these characters right and to honouring... these characters that they're playing, the real Marines." "I mean..." "I think that...." "And Jake is, of course, incredible in this." "He doesn't make a false move." "I'm 20 years old... and I was dumb enough to sign a contract." "I can hear their fucking bombs already." "It was great, actually, when Tony and Jake got to meet... because the Tony that Jake met is not the Tony that he's playing." "That's the other interesting thing." "It's the Tony of, you know, after reading the book, and 10 years later." "But I think he really...." "Don't you think he really gets you the way you were then?" "Yeah, he really captures that 20-year-old me." "NBC suits." "That's nuclear-biological-chemical...." "People keep asking, "Did Jake study you?" ""Did Jake spend a lot of time around you?"" "And studying me or spending a lot of time around me at 34-years-old... would have been totally the wrong thing to do." "'Cause it's the 20-year-old me, it's the young jarhead... it's the juiced-up, ripped-up kid... who's on the verge of going to war." "And that's what's so great about Tony's book, by the way... is that he is so honest about how 20-year-old guys think... and feel and what they do to be warriors like this." "And a lot of that, as you get to be 30 and 40 and 50, you want to forget." "Ball." "Fuck." "Give me the ball." "All right, listen up, guys, today is your lucky day." "These reporters want to see how your NBC suits work." "All right, so we're gonna continue this little football game... in full chemical gear." "That's right." "Come on, let's go." "It's 112 degrees." "Then I guess you won't be needing your parkas, will you?" "Let's play!" "I'm gonna hurt you, Swoff." "And this is another scene that I just knew... had to be in the movie... this playing football in their gas masks." "You know, which...." "It's shot as just being shot by the TV guys." "Using his head." "Jamie's very" "Yeah." "And, you can see, he's kind of hamming it up for the reporters." "Yeah, exactly." "He's getting his time...." "He's getting his 15 minutes." "He's the staff sergeant." "He does that really well." "And it's gonna sink in on these guys, though... that so long as those reporters are there... that they kind of have a window of opportunity... because their staff sergeant really can't come down on them." "Right." "And they can...." "Because...." "You know, this is their humiliation of him, is what we're about to see... because, you know, he's always in control of the situation." "He's told them what to tell the reporters." "He's forced them in 112 degrees... into their mob suits and gas masks to play football." "And, you know, they're pissed." "And they're kind of pissed at each other." "I love this guy." "Just completely collapses." "Yeah." "Who got me?" "Who got me?" "No, no, I want him." "You want the Mexican leprechaun?" "Well, let's take him." "Yeah, I'll take the fucking midget." "I'm the midget?" "Let's go, you squishy-faced retard." "And these two guys did this themselves." "This is...." "You know, I would love to take credit for writing this, but" "That was the two of them." "Yeah." "And a part of it is the actors, you know, in the course of doing the movie... became their characters and lived on isolation and got the same kind of..." "Ioneliness, boredom, connections that the Marines themselves did." "Yeah, they really captured the essence of the platoon... the love-hate relationship that everyone has with one another." "Here the respect for Jamie, for the staff sergeant... but that also we see devolving here, because things don't work." "My hydration tube is busted, Staff Sergeant." "And this is so true." "This happened to me in Vietnam, too." "You know, things are all...." "You think that everything is gonna work, and everything is gonna be perfect... but nothing...." "You're always having to improvise." "Fucking piece of shit!" "I want you to play fucking ball!" "And now that, you know, it's like...." "It's going to sink in on them that they actually have the upper hand here... just so long as those reporters are there." "And this totally aberrant scene, the field fuck is... you know, is something that we would do... and, you know, here Jake yells it." "Field fuck!" "Jamie realises what's gonna happen and...." "Shit." "He's so good." "He's just...." "I mean, he's got this guy down" "And there's like, there's this great line there, "'Stop it, you assholes, " because... you know, now that's what they are, 'cause they've got him." "Put your clothes on, assholes!" "Come on." "Let's go check out the artillery and everything." "Field what?" "He said "field fun."" "That's one of the exercises that we run here in the field." "This is that kind of strange sexual repression." "You know, it's a very disturbing scene... because they're frustrated, they're alone... and they're just pretending and acting out things." "But they're really trying to stick it to him and to the desert... and the interviews, to all the things they're supposed to say." "Because they're the ones that are forgotten... you know, nobody's gonna care about them." "And that's the scene where they're, like, fucking everyone else..." "and from the book there's a" "There's a great dialogue..." "and we tried to get it in." "It's this long... mantra where, "Fuck the peaceniks, the politicians..." ""you know, everyone else, everyone who's not a part of our world, because..." ""they'll never understand, but mostly they're not here now." "They're not with us. "" "That's how it was in the Marines, is anybody who wasn't out with us..." "we could care less." "They were lesser than us and...." "They didn't understand." "I can't hear you." "This is crazy." "We wanted it to rain in the desert." "We wanted it to be cold in the desert." "'Cause one of the things in Tony's book is so clear is there's not... is that you go through seasons there." "And all of them are harsh in their own way." "Lance Corporal Swofford!" "Yes, Staff Sergeant!" "I recently met our corpsman again, and he reminded me of this night... that it was freezing cold in the desert... and we were on this, like, two-and-a-half, three-day patrol." "And we were so cold that we like slept together in the same sleeping bag." "I totally forgot about that." "But otherwise, we would've frozen." "You can start by taking all that down." "Fuck!" "Yeah, whatever." "Come on, Swoff, pack up." "Your mummy again, Fergie." "This is, of course, the dog tags that you're gonna wear when you're dead." "And..." "They stick it between your teeth." "Yeah, and I spent a little more time on this in the book... but, you know, I'd been raised Catholic and I'd been an altar boy." "And then I came to the Marine Corps, and for me those two systems... just weren't gonna work." "They weren't compatible." "And then, you know, I didn't want Catholicism on my dog tags." "What difference does it make?" "God knows you're "no preference."" "At least they got the blood type right." "I mean, which would you rather get?" "The wrong prayer or the wrong blood?" "One lonely pink letter from Sacramento." "Kristina." "I wonder what she's up to?" "Now, I dare you...." "Go jerk off outside." "Here's, again, the payoff of the earlier scene with the guy with the pregnant wife." "And juxtaposed... his happiness with his family working out in his life... and then juxtaposed with what's happening to Swoff here." "And you just go the range of emotions in this scene..." "I really think is so true." "You know, you got this guy so proud of his son... and so happy with his family... and then here's Swoff, you know, getting a completely different kind of news." "And, again, it's happening, you know, inside the tent." "These real, kind of, important scenes to the emotional life of the platoon... and all of the Marines happened inside of that tent." "He's beautiful, man." "I'll put my little boy up." "They see that there's something troubling Swoff." "And they key in on it." "Part of the reason they key in on it and give him trouble over it... is because they want him to get rid of it, they want him to forget it." "They want to tell him that it doesn't really matter." "And, see, you have no secrets from these guys in the 'toon." "You know, everybody knows what everybody's happening... with everybody's family life, with everything else." "You know, you'd heard everybody's stories, you know everything... about their girlfriends, what they did when they were in the eighth grade." "You know so much about each other, and you can pick up on everything." "I can see it." "I can see it now." "She works in a hotel." "She goes into a vacant room, right?" "Grabs onto the pole and goes, "Jody!" "Jody!"" "Then, of course, Fowler, you know, he always takes things a little too far." "Okay, Corporal." "Hey, Swoff." "That's right." "Cheer up, man." "We heading back to the rear." "We'll get some AC... shit in a flush toilet, you can use the phone." "I'm gonna call her." "You fucking A." "Even if she is fucking someone else." "There's always that, "I'm gonna help you out, man." "I'm on your side. "" "And then, "You know what, but by the way.... "" "Root beer shower!" "What?" "Where are you going?" "To work." "Where you going?" "Something that's felt but not articulated either in dialogue or voiceover here... is the fact that..." "Swoff doesn't really want to leave the tent." "He doesn't want to go back to the AC and the showers." "He just, you know...." "They're in the desert, and he wants to stay there." "Yeah, and we had the same experience in Vietnam, too... you know, that my son's talked about, as well." "Once you're in the place where you're supposed to be fighting... the idea of going back and getting soft... that is taking showers and having air-conditioning and sleeping in a real bed... and, you know, it's just...." "You feel like it could kill you." "We're starting to reach this thing where he's getting so upset and helpless... about what's happening to his girlfriend... and then the feelings of jealousy are really starting to build... and he can't do anything about it." "But at least he's going to get to call her on the phone." "And in the bathroom stalls on either side of him right now... there are probably other jarheads... masturbating to pictures of their girlfriends." "And here's the phone call, the bad connection and all that distance." "How are you?" "You can hear that distance, you know." "It's obvious in their miscommunications." "Missing you." "I'm all right." "I'm missing you, too." "I saw your mum." "We went to visit your sister." "Well, I got to make one home phone call from Vietnam, and you had to say, "Over. "" "And there was a long gap, but I think this is, again, just from your book." "Yeah, you know the phone call was never enough." "You were trying to say too much in too little time." "And this happened, you know." "The girlfriend had a friend who was a good listener... who worked with her, nights at the hotel." "How well do you know him, Kris?" "Who, Carl?" "And the "just a friend" line." "He's just a friend." "How well do you know him?" "Oh, God, every time I hear this, it just really kicks me in the pit of my stomach." ""Tony, he's just a friend. "" "Hello?" "Yeah, I'm here." "And Jake's acting here is just so great." "You see, he's losing everything that is back home." "God." "Kris?" "And there are a couple of dream sequences in the book... which are much bigger and this is sort of...." "We took the idea of it and brought it down to this one thing about his girlfriend." "As I was reading the book at this part... you're still feeling for Tony's, or Swoff's character, so much... because he's young, and he's in love, and he's so helpless, and he's in the desert." "And this is sort of, you know, the symbolism of... what the desert is doing to him." "And this is, again, a Sam invention of... here with the mirror, which I think is just..." "amazing." "Yeah, and I love this scene." "It's so quiet here... that it's richly disturbing." "This vomiting of the sand is genius." "'Cause the desert is now inside of him." "It's inside of him" "I think...." "Did he vomit glass in the book..." "or something?" "I'm trying to remember." "Yeah." "We wanted to do sand just 'cause the desert." "'Cause we couldn't get that great line from the book, like, "The desert invaded us. "" "Troy's up there above him smoking coolly, like, "You said some weird sounds, man. "" "And notice how subdued the barracks here is... versus the tent out in the desert." "Like this scene where they're actually living." "And then we get, you know, this is the rec room with the VCR." "Some guy's wife has sent him... a war movie, The Deer Hunter." "They're gonna watch it." "And, also, see, we wanted to do...." "We did Apocalypse Now with The Valkyries... and now we're doing The Deer Hunter... 'cause, again, it's that resonance of Vietnam that got me into the movie in the first place." "And, you know, and besides Tony's book being so good." "And two very different films, too, and then here's the home porno... that is going to change radically when Dettman realises... that, you know, that it's his wife and the neighbour." "And this happened to a guy, I think it was in Fox Company, in my battalion." "He was still looking on when this happened?" "That's my wife." "That's my fucking wife!" "Swoff just sort of notices it." "They're all still into it." "This guy is great in these, you know...." "What is this scene, like 90 seconds?" "And you know him absolutely." "No!" "You slut!" "No!" "Fuck!" "You don't need to see this shit." "Oh, fuck, baby." "You don't need to see this." "Swoff, come on." "And what he says here is what they're all in part of them feeling... and he wants to go home." "Fuck!" "I wanna go home!" "Yeah, but again there's that...." "These guys, in some way, well, obviously... they enjoy the pornography." "And, also, the woman's pointing out exactly, you know, that these infidelities..." "do go both ways." "Yeah." "Which...." "And it's the...." "Yeah, you know, they go both ways and...." "Obviously, you know, the guy's been screwing around on her." "It's not just the women who are unfaithful to the men but...." "This was a Jake idea to come up with, wanting to watch it again." "And which I think is really brilliant." "Oh, was it?" "Yeah, it was." "Yeah." "Yeah, it's a great idea." "And I'd love to take credit for it as a screenwriter... but Jake and Sam came up with it." "We had a whole other scene in here from the book... of a suicide-attempt scene." "This let us kind of get all the way over and get to the subsequent scene." "What are you doing?" "I'm waiting for you to leave...." "I think this is one of the moments where... as viewers, we see the two men, you know, coming closer." "You know, Troy is a little older than Swoff is... and he's trying to be his guide." "I want to see what it's like... to watch somebody else fuck your girlfriend." "He's also, kind of, the conscience of the movie." "I mean, he's the guy that turns off the VCR." "He's the guy that makes the decisions." "He's the guy that should stay in the Marine Corps." "Because you want guys like that in." "Right." "Come on." "Get your shit." "Come on." "We're going back." "These desert shots, the sort of...." "The machinery at war... and now they're going back to the desert, back to the tent." "And this is like Swoff's disintegration." "He's, like, continuing...." "He's just trying desperately to hang on to some shred of his own sanity as...." "Through the waiting and the doubt about his girlfriend." "If wounded, call corpsman." "If dead, report to graves registration." "If losing his mind, however...." "I love this scene, because there was this guy...." "I think he was an S4, who was selling hooch... whose mother had sent him brewer's yeast or something like that... and he threw in this cheap juice and let it ferment." "And we should point out that it's because of the sensibilities of our Muslim allies... alcoholic beverages were forbidden in the desert." "They were." "Fly, rumour, on winged feet." "Here... read this." "And this sort of obscenity and depravity is great." ""Dear sweet Gloria, I wish I was up in you now..." ""with a finger in your ass." ""Love you, Captain Skinboat."" "The Dartmouth kid writing..." "the porno love letters for the Major." "Yeah." "And it's fun to be able to get those things in... just a really quick thing, as you're...." "On the fly, kind of." "And this, actually, is...." "You know, we had this same guy like this in Vietnam... who couldn't figure out how the claymore went." "Right." "And were there directions right on it?" "Yeah. "Front, toward enemy, " is what he says." "Got to be a clue." "Thanks." "And this poor Fergus, the boot guy, is constantly being assigned people's watch." "And he's kind of the outsider." "It's Christmas Eve." "I'll send you out a fucking tree." "Oh, great, a tree." "Merry Christmas." "In some ways, for me... when watching this scene, I think of our parties." "The private life that we tried to have inside of our tent... and this was...." "This is it in extremis." "And then, you know, Jake's hats, the Santa hats, are just like his great touch." "The Santa hat thing is I know a guy in Vietnam that did exactly this." "That's sort of where the idea came from... but again it's part of what Tony kept emphasising... is this tent was their family, it was where they were safe." "Where they bonded, they did everything, you know, they knew each other so well." "And they could tell whose letter it was... by the smell of the perfume on it." "They got the hooch, and they were gonna party... try to get rid of all the things that are driving them crazy." "And they're alone at Christmas." "You know, this is Christmas." "And I love the sign on Fowler there." "Yeah." "Which was in some photos that I sent to Sam." "Yeah." "You gave me some photos." "It's not in the book or... it wasn't in the script, but I sent Sam a box of" "And Sam saw the photo and he said, "Oh, yes. "" "And it's a...." "Yeah, that was the sentiment." "And again, this is great sound editing, too." "To see that, you know... you get the different song he's listening to, and compare it to what they are." "Shit." "Oh, shit!" "These guys are so desperate for combat, for action." "And they're really ready for it." "Come on!" "Now!" "I love that Troy is the first guy out of the tent, too." "You know, he's just...." "He's the first one that realises what's going on, and then he's gone. "Okay." ""Okay." "Here, we're out of here." "Let's go, we're in it." "This is it. "" "What the fuck is that?" "It's time to do it all!" "It's time for me to...." "Sorry, guys." "I'm really sorry." "It was my sausages." ""It was my sausages, " like... that could be an answer to so many... so many mistakes that Marines make." "You know, like, "Sorry, guys, it was my sausages. "" "Fucker's fucked now." "Yeah, I love these stories here, 'cause, again, this goes across every war." "This is some of the classic punishments... and it's interesting that Swoff is getting punished for what Fergus did." "Because it was Swoff's responsibility, it was his watch." "So do you have all of that unauthorised beverage... out of your system?" "Whose watch was that, Swofford?" "It was mine." "It was yours." "But since you don't know how to handle responsibility... we are demoting you." "I wasn't demoted, I think I should say for the record." "I know, Tony." "Bill...." "You were the ideal Marine" "I was meritoriously promoted upon returning from war." "But I don't think that would've worked quite so well in the scene, to say..." ""Swoff, we're gonna meritoriously promote you. "" "That's true." "I have a screenwriter's licence." "I was able to take the liberty there." "But you definitely did this." "I definitely burned the shitters." "Yeah." "Which is no fun... as we can see." "I did this, too." "It's a bad, bad duty." "Hold it right there, Marine." "The Major's perfect." "The Major's just perfect." "He is the classic, self-important officer." "Yeah." "Stick that back in there." "It's already full of diesel fuel, sir." "I don't care if it's full of Chanel No. 5." "I'm not going to the other side of this camp for my morning glory." "And also, by the way, what you've noticed here is Dennis did a great job with the set." "As we first saw the bulldozer just making it, and now it's got...." "Every time you see it, you go back and it's bigger and bigger... and more things are added and it's homier." "And now we've got these structures for shitting in." "They really are homier." "The last thing they expected was to make a home in the desert." "They came to fight." "I left you a little gift in there." "Not too hard...." "The scene is now getting darker." "Perfect." "Yeah, and this is great acting by Jake." "I mean, you can really see that he's at the end of his rope." "And he's infuriated at what's happened to him." "I love the red of the Santa cap in this." "It's just so gleaming." "Yeah." "But it's just this disgusting...." "And the scene that's coming up is another one of the scenes... that when I read the book, I just, "This has got to be in there. "" "It was very hard for me to write about... because I did something kind of insane." "I lost myself." "He'd gotten me in trouble." "I'd had to burn the shitters because of him." "He was a boot." "He was constantly screwing up." "His mind wasn't on war." "He wanted to listen to his tape from home." "And he fell asleep on fire-watch and he, you know, failed me." "Failed us." "And I was gonna make him pay here." "I really, you know, I lost it." "My desire for war... folded into, you know, my desire to punish him." "He who had gotten me into trouble... and had sort of, you know, sacrificed my integrity within the platoon." "And I think, also, is that here you've been...." "We've had this love affair with the rifle." "And you've wanted to kill, and he hasn't been able to... and so the first thing he does is he turns it on... turns the rifle on the guy that he thinks has betrayed him." "And, again, you listen to the language here." "It starts being all of this classic Marine Corps training stuff... describing the rifle, and describing the sitting position, and we go into the litany." "And, again, this is the payoff of the Rifleman's Creed... that we set up in the beginning." "But in a much more horrifying situation." "That's a great point, Bill, but the language is now... the mechanical language of nomenclature." "And it's the language of the rifle manual." "And the language of training." "It's not the language of the heart." "It's not the language of the human." "This is what I was supposed to do." "Jake's acting here is just amazing." "And Brian, too." "I mean, he is so good." "The fierceness of this scene." "Every time I watch it, I'm kind of shocked." "This will blow you away." "But it also combines two scenes in the book." "Which is when he turns the rifle on this... and there's another scene in the book where Tony turns the rifle on himself." "And he thinks he's gonna...." "Puts the muzzle in his mouth." "Instead of doing two scenes, which in a sense... were variations of the same kind of thing, we combined them into this one." "But this one is mine." "Without my rifle, I am nothing." "Say it, you fucking idiot!" "No." "This is my rifle!" "There are many like it, but this one is mine!" "Without my rifle, I am nothing." "When I read your book... and John Gregory Dunne sent me an e-mail... he'd written a review in The New York Review of Books... and said, "This is an amazing book. "" "'Cause we had this conversation for 30 years about the military experience in America." "And I read the book, and I just had to do it." "And Doug and Lucy Fisher called and said, "Would you be interested?"" "I just said, "Yes!" And they asked, "Did you want to fly out and talk?"" ""No." "I just want to do it. "" "Because the thing Tony did in his book was capture so powerfully... and so honestly, the passage that a young man goes through... from being a civilian, to being a Marine, to back again." "You don't see that." "People don't get inside and let you see the things as honestly as Tony said, and..." "I just thought it was an extraordinary thing." "And Tony's experience in the book is so clearly done and so concrete... that my basic job as a screenwriter was not to mess it up." "The better the book the harder it is to adapt into a screenplay." "You would fracture time and be in the war and before the war and after the war." "And I sort of did the first draft of the screenplay... with, you know, first act before the war, second act during the war... and a third act after the war." "And Sam kept saying, "Look, I really think the heart of this movie is..." ""the war stuff, the whole Marine stuff. "" "We had to find ways to do the before-the- war material and the after-the-war material... just so cinematically, and stay to the heart of that movie." "And Sam just had this vision from the beginning of what he wanted to do." "And we would be on the phone from the set." "You know, I was coming to New York for the editing." "Because he just was so determined to keep making it as good as it could possibly be." "You know, and never being satisfied right up to the end." "And we were writing, tweaking the voiceover three or four weeks... before the movie came out." "You know, and it's really been an extraordinary collaborative experience... and I think the actors would say much the same thing... that they all felt like if they were gonna have to be in a foxhole with the director... this was the guy they'd wanna be in a foxhole with." "Working with Tony on this has been a real joy for me, too... because I feel, you know, like a... almost an ancestor to him as a Marine." "You know, from the previous war and all the Vietnam echoes." "And just wanted so badly, and Sam did, too, to really be true to his book... and to have Tony be proud of what we did, that we didn't mess up too bad." "Troy." "Troy." "Who are they, man?" "One of the things that makes Troy, again, so interesting a Marine here is that... he's not trying to act like he knows what he's doing when he doesn't." "You know, and that's what you want your team leader to do." "This was kind of fun." "Yeah, this is a great" "Let them speak in Spanish." "The dialogue between the two guys." "He raises his right hand." "He's like, "Yeah, man." "That's how you do it. "" "And this was, again, part of the book that was really fascinating to me is that... you do have these almost bizarre experiences... wandering in and out of the desert." "Bedouins appearing" "These Bedouins just appeared." "We didn't know who they were." "I mean, there's a very real way in which we wanted them to be..." "Iraqi Republican Guard." "What do we do now?" "And we wanted these guys to be the enemy." "We wanted them to be the Republican Guard." "You know, we wanted to engage." "This was going to be our first moment of combat, and we were gonna wipe them out." "See those guys pulling their rifles, they're ready to shoot." "You got to think, this is so true of what's going on now... and what happened in Vietnam, what happened in World War II is that... you just get in these situations where you either pull the trigger or you don't." "And sometimes you don't have time to decide." "It's so symbolic to me of the situations... that these kids or these guys get into where... you ask a young man to go off to war and either kill or die for his country." "You know, you really are asking the most profound thing... you can ask a human being to do for his society." "And so this passage they're going through here... the deciding not to shoot... is as important, you know, as deciding to shoot." "In fact, more so in this case, because these Bedouin are completely innocent." "And it would have been easy for us to simply engage them." "That means kill them." "Kill them." "That's the euphemism." "In the case of the movie, it's an important moment... because Swoff has just done something reprehensible... and understandable... but really so complexly difficult." "And now he's actually done something good." "If he hadn't done that, who knows what would have happened at that moment." "This is their, really, first and only... interaction with any nationals." "You know, it's this moment where he's human." "Swoff spoke Arabic." "Sounded like a duck...." "And then here we find out that it was Fowler who shot the camels." "...at least we finally saw something." "You guys should see what the .40 does... to the head of a fucking camel, though." "Although that line is just like...." "You know, that's what they want." "They want a head shot, so he took it." "It turns the head inside out in about three fucking knots." "The head shot's like a motherfucker, too." "It's easy shots, slow...." "And, you know, this is totally obscene and distasteful." "Wow!" "Here they are!" "My lady love!" "Show's starting, boys!" "Hey, teach me some of that Arabic." "What's, "Come suck my dick"?" "...ducks fucking...." "Fowler is pushing the envelope." "But he's as real as all the other guys." "I mean, you can see their reaction to him." "Yeah, look at them, they're looking like, "What's wrong with you?" ""What's wrong with you, man?"" "She'll never forget me, man." "It's not funny, man." "That bitch wanted me." "Did you see that?" "You truly are an asshole." "Come on, man." "You just haven't got to kill anything yet." "Yeah, see, but what Fowler says here, though, it has such an element of truth in it." "You know, it almost, like, explains the scene with Fergus right there." "Listen up!" "I'm about to read to you what Mr Saddam Hussein... has just said to the Iraqi people." "And you better not consider this a bunch of bullshit." "Now we see movement, right?" "We see the trucks moving." "The camp has been static." "And it's not static anymore." ""Kuwait is the branch that must be returned to the tree." ""The blood of the infidels will flow like a river." ""Jihad is the way of all Arab people."" "We are now Operation Desert Storm." "And we're the fucking righteous hammer of God." "And that hammer is coming down." "It's real now." "We're going to the border." "And that's what they've been waiting for." "They've been waiting to make it to the border." "They've been waiting for the fight." "And there it is." "I mean, again, you suddenly sort of see this huge mechanism of war... and, you know, there's 575,000 troops, there." "And you compare it to the size of the troop strength we have in Iraq now..." "I mean, it is an awesomely huge military operation." "Of which our guys are a small part." "Yeah." "It's mammoth." "And this pill scene again, is another thing I thought should really be in the movie... because it's...." "It's very scary, you know." "They don't know what's gonna happen." "They are really scared." "And the story is, like, you don't know what these pills are." "And, you know, now there's controversy over them." "Some people believe that... veterans who are suffering from Gulf War Syndrome... that these pyridostigmine bromide pills... might have something to do with it." "And of course, we don't know it then... but it's something else that, you know, we're just being told to do." "Like, "Do this and the reason you should do this is because it might save your life. "" "And this is classic Kruger, too." "He's just not gonna take anything." "I'll take the fucking pills, and a year later... my asshole will turn inside out and start fucking talking to me." "It's all a bitch." "These pills ain't worth a shit." "Kruger, you country motherfuck!" "In 1987, Saddam Insane used chemical weapons... against the Kurds, and he killed thousands like fucking that." "The ones that lived, their kids came out fucked up." "Eight toes to one foot, no anal opening... retarded, blind." "Such fucked up little motherfuckers... they should have just killed them all anyway." "None of the Marines that I served with... have claimed to suffer from Gulf War Syndrome." "But a lot of people have." "But a lot of people have." "Just like, with Agent Orange in Vietnam, it took a while." "And it's still controversial." "And I think some Veterans are not receiving what they should be receiving." "Well, even now they're doing the anthrax vaccines." "There are a lot of people not sure they should do that." "It's a context of this modern war where you have biological and chemical weapons." "And you try to do the antidotes, and they're not sure if they're even...." "This is classic Kruger here, you know." "Right." ""Yes, Staff Sergeant, " and he spits it out." "Although Kruger was smart enough to spit it out" "And don't you have memories of just digging sand, Tony, you know, my God...." "You're just digging for days, moving from...." "You know, sometimes we would move three times in a day... and dig fighting holes." "Fucking zoomies." "You know, this is a great moment because... you know, Troy vocalizes... probably what some of them are feeling, and that is that..." ""This war is going on over our heads." "It's been going on for a month." ""They're dropping bombs." "We shoot from 1,000 yards." ""And then the war is moving at a mile a minute. "" "To go that far in Vietnam, that would take a week." "In World War I, a year." "This is one of the things that was different about this war from mine... and from the war today, actually... which is, this was very much a war with a clear mission... with massive air power." "And the actual guys on the ground... who had this idea of what was gonna happen when they went... are finding the war has changed underneath them." "And, of course, it's the Troy character who is the truth teller here... and it's not what they want to hear... but he's saying it, for reasons which they don't know yet." "Swofford, you got to sign your waiver again." "I can't read your fucking handwriting." "Yes, Staff Sergeant." "This is an important moment." "Notice he always grabs his rifle." "I love this." "They got the Jim Deever arm." "They do everything, I mean..." "It's really so, you never go anywhere without it." "You never go anywhere without your rifle." "Even if it's just to go" "He grabs it... just to go talk to the Staff Sergeant." "And this is a great moment, I think... you know, the Staff Sergeant... as much as he punished Swoff in the past, sort of... understands the bond between Troy and Swoff and the platoon." "And Troy's link to the Marine Corps... the importance of the Marine Corps to him in his life... and he wants to make sure that Swoff is gonna look out for Troy." "So when we get back home, he's out." "And that, I think, is the other side of these guys, like Sergeant Sykes says... is that they really become almost the father of their...." "They do take care of their guys." "And this is very real." "My guys did that, too." "You know, they were always aware of the problems the kids were having... and what to do with them and how to help them out." "Because a Marine who's not thinking about his job... but is thinking about things he's worried about back home... is somebody that can get himself or someone else killed." "And here, you know, Swoff is angry at Troy, because he wasn't going to tell him... that he's going to be kicked out." "And Troy has this sort of hands-off attitude." "What?" "So you weren't even gonna tell me?" "What?" "Why don't you just shut the fuck up and mind your own business?" "One of the things you look at as you see this berm, is that's the border." "And it's very clear what they have to do." "They have to go and get Saddam Hussein's troops out of Kuwait where they invaded." "It is a clear mission." "And, unlike in Vietnam where the mission became very confused... or even today where it's quite confused... this was a war in which, with the Powell Doctrine... you had a clear mission, you had overwhelming force... and they had a clear exit strategy." "And that was supposedly that they'd learned the lessons from Vietnam for this war." "And now, of course, you know, my son's war... you know, is disturbingly, for me, more and more like Vietnam... and less and less like this." "Nobody gives a rat's ass." "No, we're jarheads." "Yeah, what the fuck do you know?" "This is really important... when Lucas's character just said, you know, "We're jarheads, Swoff." ""The world doesn't stop just because we're at war. "" "That's their greatest fear." "They want the world to stop, but it doesn't." "And they know that the world continues." "That people keep living their lives while they're at war." "This is the last scene inside a tent, you know, where they really are...." "Killed 37 Chinese by hand during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900." "The greatest weapon on earth?" "The Marine and his rifle!" "They're giving Troy the initiation that he had supervised Swoff getting at the beginning." "But this time, he's actually getting it." "Get him down!" "They all know that he's gonna get kicked out." "And they all know that he wanted to be a Marine, nothing more..." "and so this is their" "He has to be marked." "This is their gift to him." "As far as they're concerned, that's what he is." "And they're saying, you know, "This is what you'll always be. "" "And this is incredible acting by Peter Sarsgaard here." "You see the pain... but also the kind of joy of it or the acceptance of it." "These guys bonding with themselves just as they're about to go into battle." "And the voiceover here... from Tony's book, I think, is just perfect." "...inside of our circus, we cannot be touched." "The circus atmosphere, you know, was our safety." "The tent was our safety." "Yeah." "...to believe this." "Incoming!" "Corpsman!" "This is actually really greatly shot... because, the truth is, is when you're in these situations like this... sometimes sound goes away, or vision." "You're overwhelmed, one sense or another." "You do have a guy like Swoff... that just kind of zones out of whatever is happening around." "Yeah, this is what I've been waiting for, and now here it is." "Finally." "And it echoes, you know, the soon to come oil-well fire scene." "Most men of every generation... going back to the time of Homer, have always wondered... what they would do if they were faced with a situation like this... if they had to go into combat, if they had to find out what they were made of." "And this, of course, is your nightmare." "That you're gonna piss your pants." "Which most of us do... one time or another." "Troy, get on that radio." "Radio's dead." "I was sent off to the com shack to get batteries during this scene... and it was obviously one of the... more anxiety-provoking moments of the war for me." "The first time we were fired at, and then you're being sent on a mission." "And artillery coming in is so terrifying, because it's so random." "And you just know there's no place you feel safe." "And when you have to be out in the open with rounds coming in..." "I mean, this is as terrifying as it gets." "And there's the, you know, occasional call for corpsmen...." "Yeah, these guys are in their holes." "There's no one coming over the berm." "There's no one fighting." "There's no one...." "You know, what they're ready for is to fight with rifles." "And there's no one to fight with their rifles." "We need batteries for the 77." "Fuck!" "Man, we are fucking dying!" "And these knuckleheads give him a dead battery." "You know, the com guys, like, you hate the com guys... because they're always screwing up, and of course they give him a dead battery." "What took you so long?" "Fuck you." "Here are the coordinates, call that fucker in." "And, by the way, these equipment things, they're so real for Tony's war... but they were real for us in Vietnam... and they're real for the guys that are out there today." "I mean, today being 2005..." "I'm hoping that years from now it will be different, but...." "Sykes says we're going after them!" "We're gonna get some!" "And now, this is, "We're gonna get some. "" "Which is the call to war." "And then they've breached through the berm and now they've crossed the border." "And they're into Kuwait." "And this is exactly as you move across the border...." "You know, something that's not in the film is the fact... that my sniper partner and I were, for a few days, running missions... across the border and watching where the Iraqis were." "They were moving back and forth across the minefield in these safe passages." "We marked those on the maps and moved really quickly." "There was first a battle plan... that gave 36 to 48 hours, I believe, to breach these minefields." "And whole battalions of men were through these minefields... in six hours." "The ground war, as well, was ahead of itself." "Let's drop that righteous hand of God!" "This is this horrifying friendly-fire scene, which is planes here... but in the case of my platoon it was tanks from a nearby unit... that misidentified the convoy that was right behind us as being enemy." "My scout team leader got on the radio and got the attack stopped... but not before our own tanks had hit us a couple of times." "Incoming!" "This is so terrifying." "You see the looks on their faces... when they suddenly realise that these planes, which they think are allies... are turning around and going to attack on them." "This happens in every war." "It's confusing." "Things don't happen as you expect." "Quebec 4 Delta, this is Echo 5 Charlie." "Request medevac, priority." "Marines down, in grid 671584." "We'll mark with smoke, over." "And I really love the Jamie Foxx response here... which is whatever's happening behind them, their mission is ahead, you don't stop." "Fowler can't believe it... like, these guys who were supposed to be killing the enemy... just turned on them." "Keep moving." "They could be over this next berm." "And this was that highway of death, which is, I mean... of all the war images I've ever seen... is got to be one of the most disturbing." "It's almost like...." "It reminds me of those pictures... of the Gls walking into Buchenwald or something in World War II." "Where you just see this... suddenly you're confronted with horrors that you could not have imagined." "This is all the results of the air war." "Without that six-week air war... we would have been engaging the enemy... fighting position to fighting position." "We would've had a lot more casualties." "Rifle combat." "Yeah, we would've lost more guys." "So that six weeks of air war that frustrated us... and continued our way... we realised later saved many of our lives." "I love the quiet of this scene." "Their movement through this waste." "They don't have any idea." "I mean, it's just suddenly hitting them." "Throughout the desert, you know, the defensive positions... and also in the major throughways that had had a lot of convoys... you know, had scenes like this, where there was a lot of devastation." "And also, you know, out in the middle of the desert..." "I remember artillery guns just twisted like pretzels." "Tanks with their turrets blown off, upside down." "Bodies inside of them." "Bodies in the desert." "What are you doing?" "They were trying to get away." "Fuck it, man." "Come on." "This is one of those difficult issues of war." "Like dropping the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, you know... where you see the horrors of the aerial destruction." "On the other hand... a lot of these guys right here might not still be alive if this hadn't happened." "So, you know, it raises lots of questions." "You know, there's an integrity about these guys... that fight on the ground and engage the enemy personally." "The people that drop bombs from the air, it's just a different thing." "You're not...." "You're doing it...." "It's more mechanical." "It's like, it's not as...." "I don't know, it's very complicated." "And this is a great scene where they have to eat." "Fergus, here." "Thanks." "And, you know, one of the things about this is the juxtaposition of just... the daily routines of maintaining your life, like just eating your lunch... with what they'd just seen." "I think that's part of the... what's on the other side of being in the Marines or being in war... that is so hard to explain to civilians." "And I think this movie... and Tony's book, particularly, really does a great job of doing... which is that you're put in situations... you simply could not possibly have imagined." "This is one, too, with this circle of guys that looked... so much like the guys that he just left alive, his friends." "Kind of the Iraqi equivalent." "And, Tony, why don't...." "You should talk about this." "'Cause this is one of the moving moments in the book, I think." "Yeah, this was literally the scene on the other side of that destruction... where the rest of the platoon was eating... and I walked...." "I walked on to the side of it and came upon this scene." "I was compelled to sit down." "Sit down at this circle of death." "In the book there's more interiority." "But I think it's captured here quite expertly with...." "You know, I vomited." "I tasted the smell of death." "I have the taste of pears, dehydrated pears... and chocolate in my mouth from my MRE." "And then just the taste of this death was in my mouth." "Jake looks so defeated here and so small." "He's burdened by his gear... and by, you know, all this death that surrounds him." "In the book I talk about feeling as though I'll never again be so alive." "And, you know, the interesting thing about filming this and doing the movie... was that there's a great voiceover that goes with that... but it was too specific." "You know, it was better, I think, to let the viewer's imagination just go." "And I love the line he says here that, "What's over there?"" "It's like he just says "nothing" because it's beyond words." "There's no language, there's no words in the language... to describe what he saw." "And Sykes knows that he saw something, but he's not gonna, like, push him." "And that's another one of those moments, I think... for me watching the film, where there's another connection... between the lifer and the guy who's gonna get out... an understanding." "Yeah, I think Sykes, you know, immediately picked up on something... with Swoff there." "Then there's this amazing curtain-raiser on the next part of the movie... where the oil fields are lit, and they don't know what it is at first." "Yeah." "This is exactly how we experienced the oil-well fires." "We...." "You know, they started, the sky got dark." "And then this little...." "At first, these little pinpricks of oil started falling." "And I opened my mouth like that." "I looked up." "I watched this scene, and it's exactly as I experienced it." "That rain on his face, it's amazing." "Yeah. "The earth is bleeding. "" "That was...." "Just the idea of that is... again, part of what makes this experience so eerie." "And so different and so specific to Tony's war." "Shit." "This is, like, rain on top of the oil-well fires." "My eyes is burning!" "Shit!" "Oh, fuck!" "Fuck, it's in my eye, I can't see." "Oh, shit, it's burning!" "It's burning!" "This is the guy from Texas, too." "Yeah, this is the guy that's always talking about oil." "Don't rub your eyes." "Shit, it's burning!" "Hey, just close your eyes." "The Giant scene that he, you know, references is all about... the beauty of oil, and what it can do to you... and, you know, how it transforms your life for the better." "And then here you have this, which is just a form of hell for them." "This is as close to it as it gets, the fires, the oil, the blackness." "Hey, listen up!" "The wind's changed." "We're moving out this shit." "Let's move!" "I came here to fight." "I've just got to get out of this fucking oil." "This is completely specific to Tony's war." "This burning fire, blackness, darkness." "You know, it's just, "Oh, my God!"" "And I love this shot of Sykes." "'Cause he's seen a lot, but he's never seen this." "You know, he's alternately shocked and excited by it." "That's Vietnam music, man." "Can't we get our own fucking music?" "Yeah. "That's Vietnam music, man. " There were these Psy-Ops... helicopters were playing all of the music of Vietnam." "...what's Fowler doing digging way over there?" "He ain't digging." "And this is a hugely disturbing scene." "You know, a guy in the platoon was desecrating corpses... and I confronted him about it." "Nothing." "Our orders are to dig over here." "In the book, I spent a lot of time later thinking about him... and his need to do this." "It's sick, and Fowler has lost something." "He's like on the other side." "But he's trying to find, in a way... in a really disturbing way, he's trying to find meaning." "He's trying to make some kind of sense of this crazy situation that he's in." "And by the way, this goes back to Homer and The Iliad... when they drag Hector's body around the gates of Troy." "And it's true of every war." "It is one of the most disturbing things about it, is that there is this feeling... when you've gone through this, and there's death around you... that you are alive and they are not... and there's something so powerful about that." "And disturbing." "This is one of the most disturbing things." "And Fowler is not apologetic at all." "You don't like Ahab?" "This is war, man." "Now he's defiant." "This is war." "You can't handle it?" "What are you, a fag?" "If you fucking touch me, I will beat your fucking head in." "I swear to God." "Get it out of here." "The whole goddamn desert is shitting dead ragheads." "Have we done anything?" "Have we done anything but walk around in the sand?" "I didn't kill him." "He's dead." "Move." "Fuck you." "There's tons of crispy critters around here, man." "And this crispy critters phrase, that's a Vietnam phrase, right?" "Yeah, it's a Vietnam phrase." "Yeah." "'Cause didn't Sam ask you, like, what'd you call the corpses?" "Yeah, I said, "crispy critters. "" "Yeah, it's a way of trying to handle with language... what is incomprehensible at some level of your soul." "You're just...." "This is the stuff... that is beyond most civilian understanding is... how do you cope with this?" "And you see different ways in which they are." "Fowler is an aberration in the platoon, but he's also part of a tradition." "Not necessarily a proud tradition... but just a fact of war that goes back thousands of years." "The living, and what they do to the dead." "This scene, I don't think...." "Is this in your book, Tony?" "No, it isn't." "You" "It came out of something we talked...." "Sam really fell in love with this... and I think it's just this eerily, amazing moment... where you see a sensitivity to the Swoff character..." "that you just never saw before, and it's" "And it's beautiful." "I had forgotten that it was in the script... and the first time I saw the movie I was surprised by it." "Was it in one of the photos we saw?" "We saw a picture of a horse." "I think it was possibly in one of those photos, yeah." "And then Sam and I were talking about it." "And just in the midst of all this horror... you know, there is a moment where he connects with this helpless animal... which is covered with oil." "And it's really, probably, not going to be okay." "Here, Swoff is trying to gain some kind of humanity." "He's burying this corpse that someone else was willing to desecrate." "And there are lots of other corpses that aren't getting buried... but he's gonna bury it." "You know, it's like you can do one thing." "And this was a scene we sort of put in, you know, to give the Sykes character... a real, kind of, moment... where he not only is coming out to check on Swoff... but is essentially giving his credo, what he believes in about the Marine Corps." "At the end of this there's... you know, I think, the important line that I remember hearing a lot of the lifers say..." ""Where else are you going to see stuff like this?" ""Who else gets to see this?" ""Who else gets to live this way?" "Nobody. "" "That's why he doesn't go back to Compton and make $200,000 a year..." "and get a new Dodge truck." "Right." "Because he's not going to see this anywhere else." "Though we've talked about this before, that regardless of the horror... and alternate joys and exhilaration... that a lot of men, you know, who fought in World War II... or Korea or Vietnam or... you know, who've been in combat anywhere will talk about the period at war as being... some of the best years that they lived... some of the best moments of their lives." "And that they'll never live as cleanly... or at such a high plane of confidence and ability." "Yeah, exactly." "And, I think, you know, you see a spectrum of human behaviour... in civilian life, but in war it's stretched way out... both in the good and bad directions." "And you see the people that are willing to give you their last drop of water... or even give their lives for you in a way that you never see in civilian lives." "And you see horrors as well, but...." "This guy, again, it's this gap between the lifer... and the guy that's just in for the, you know, the four years." "And the lifer, Jamie, is trying to tell Swoff... 'cause he sees that Swoff could be a good career Marine... if he really decided to stay in, "Do you get it?"" "You know what I'm saying?" "There's that great look on Jake's face." "Really." "And that's what they're seeing, you know." "This really captures that disturbing ambivalence about war." "Is that it is so terrible, and yet men are so drawn to it." "And for some of them, it's the best thing they ever did." "Even though they buried the horrors and the things they saw and who they were... a few things that are left are those moments of decency or humanity... that you try to grab out of the terror of it all." "...most definitely hard core." "And meaning, because every day there was some kind of mission... no matter how small." "And this is their mission." "This is their mission, now." "They've been told, you know..." ""We're attaching you to the Colonel." ""He wants my best sniper team, you guys are it. "" "Fucking A." "Get a kill, you fucking pussies." "This is another one of those scenes that just looks and sounds... and feels exactly like the desert did." "You know, we were on our way up toward an airfield in southern Kuwait... that hadn't yet been taken." "You know, and just bringing the stuff to the screen with such an incredible realism..." "I think is an achievement of all the sort of technical guys... and Sam and everybody else." "And I love the way that the footsteps are white on the dark, black earth." "Sykes thinks you boys are good." "Yes, sir." "Well, if it comes from him it's not bullshit." "And this is, you know, this is the Colonel giving them the mission." "The thing that they've been waiting for." "And he does it in a way that challenges them, as well." "...003." "The recon reports two high-ranking officers...." "So here they're receiving their mission from the Colonel." "And, you know, their mission is to be the eyes and ears of the battalion commander." "They're being asked to do the thing that they've wanted to do for months now... and for years even." "Aye-aye, sir." "This is not Rambo time." "He's very clear that the air power that's supposedly winning the war... is not available to him right now." "So if they can get these soldiers in the tower... the whole battalion is not going to have to attack these Republican Guard... and take all these casualties." "So it's a real mission." "If they can do it, then they can save a lot of American lives." "And he's going to challenge them, too." "Right." "And that, you know, was one of the knocks against the sniper platoons... because, you know, we had our better rifle." "Yeah, the regular Marines always resent you guys." "Always." "Yeah, so why did they resent you guys, Tony?" "Well, 'cause, you know, we were shooting from 1,000 yards and...." "You got good gear." "We got good gear." "You have less discipline." "They were humping up a hill, and we were in helicopters." "You know, we did our own PT, physical training." "And weren't your units a little less rigidly organised compared to...." "Yeah." "You know, we could go first-name basis... and, you know, there was a chief scout in every team." "You know, there was a shooter and a spotter." "And, also, you worked alone with just these two guys... as opposed to being to part of a unit... which just means you had to be able to function just by yourselves." "Yeah, and we had a lot of autonomy that way." "And so, you know, the grunt who's in a platoon of 16 guys doesn't like that." "And now they're looking for the shot." "And, by the way, the hardest thing out in combat is to be by yourself." "And these guys, to be out...." "I mean, I can't even imagine being out with just two guys like this... you know, 'cause I was always in a platoon with a bunch of other guys." "The sun's going down." "Shit!" "Wait." "Thank you, Jesus." "Romeo, Golf, Charlie." "Romeo, Golf, Charlie." "This is Lima 2 Sierra." "Over." "I love the line here." "This is what Sam wanted them to say is...." "That's what they look like, huh?" "The first time he saw me, he said he wanted something like, you know..." "a realisation that this is" "This is the guy I've been looking for." "These are the...." "A human face on the enemy we've been looking for so long." "For them, they're finally alone." "They're finally in that tower alone with the shot." "We see him, you know, calling the distance, calling the wind." "Swoff's behind the rifle." "Troy's calling the wind." "And then this incredibly disturbing thing right now... is that I really want them to take the shot." "You know, I really have gotten into their world... and I feel like...." "And I'm thinking, "Why do I want them to do this?"" "You know, but I do." "And I think, yeah, the film makes the viewer... want what the two Marines in this tower want." "That should be kind of disturbing and shocking for the viewer." "Permission to fire." ""Permission to fire. "" "You see how he is?" "His handset was just shaking there when he got the news a little bit." "He was so...." "Couldn't believe it." "And that, and again, we're seeing the life through the rifle which is... every time that happens, it's exactly as the sniper behind the rifle sees it." "That's the world of the sniper." "And, here, their shot is ruined." "We got air." "I'm calling it in." "We have permission to take the shot." "You know, this is the lifer Major who comes in, and, you know, the college guy... bad knees from college football." "Bad knees." "College football." "And right now, they're being respectful, they're trying to argue with him... but this guy is going to degenerate pretty fast." "...how many chances you're gonna get to do this." "Wait, wait, wait." "We have to remember that Troy's gonna be... kicked out of the Marine Corps when he gets home." "Those aren't my orders, Marine." "Hitman 45" "No, wait, wait, wait." "Hitman 45" "Wait, wait, wait." "Wait, sir, we won't tell anybody." "We don't need to tell anybody." "You know, I was the guy behind the rifle with my reticle on the enemy's head... and it was denied me, and I was angry." "It was this thing that I'd been after for many years." "Hitman 45." "This is Bravo 4" "For many years after leaving the Marine Corps... you know, in some dark moments, I wanted to go back." "I wanted to have a chance to kill again." "And, you know, we wrote this thing so that there would be a true confrontation there." "And I think part of the reason was, is it felt right... but also because so much of Tony's book is about coming to terms... with not getting to take the shot." "Tony, talk about how you were saying that... what Peter's character is going through here mirrored your experience after that." "Yeah, this is a great compression of really many years of experience for me... and a real long investigation in the book about that desire that I had... to have gone back and to have taken that shot." "And to even consider returning to the Marine Corps..." "to go back to war." "And how you didn't feel...." "You didn't feel like a real, true Marine, 'cause you didn't get to" "Because I hadn't killed." "Like, we had been shot at by rockets and artillery... but that didn't matter, because I hadn't pulled the trigger this time." "Oh, man." "It really wasn't until writing Jarhead that I realised that... in taking those kills from me that this officer had actually given me something... that I would have been altered even more... had I pulled the trigger." "Hitman 45." "Hitman 45." "This is Bravo 4 Lima." "Over." "And now, you know, the Major's called in the air and...." "You know, the thing that the snipers wanted to do, the one shot... to possibly make the whole unit surrender... has been taken from them." "The loss of that shot reverberated with me for many years... and it was part of our discussion when we came back as a unit... trying to figure out...." "We had combat-action ribbons." "Did we even rate them, because we hadn't killed?" "Had we seen enough war?" "You see, this is the uniqueness of this war and how short it was... and how unlike what they had expected it was." "And Tony and I have talked about, you know, why we joined the Marines..." "I mean, I was drafted, and I think one of the things that's so interesting... and I didn't have any choice... but it turned out to be one the best things I ever did." "But I think Tony's book, in some ways this movie is really about... why he did it and what it meant to him." "One reason I started writing Jarhead was to... you know, I was 30 years old, and I was a writer... and I really didn't really understand this 20-year-old version of me... that Jake has just portrayed." "And, you know, it took me the writing of the book... to kind of understand him, understand his savagery... the violence, the way he lived, understand that it was complicated." "And that it was complicated for others, as well, and not just me." "It was kind of, in some ways, an apologia for the person I'd been... but, also, I think the film is the same thing." "A love letter to the other men I served with... and the men and women who serve anywhere... because it's an understanding of the rigorous life... and the long-term complications that can result from it." "That's absolutely why I wanted to do it, too." "Was just because I wanted to say something to the guys I served with in Vietnam... and to my son's guys in Iraq now, and to Tony's guys... you know, to be a part of helping bring Tony's story to the screen." "Motherfuck, it's gotten the battalion." "Because right now, these guys are so scared." "They're on their own." "They think their battalion's being attacked." "To be just with two guys in the middle of the desert..." "I mean, this is an absolutely terrifying moment." "I remember being so scared like this." "You know, you just think..." ""You go up that hill and you're going to die, but you've got to do it. "" "We thought that we were going to engage the enemy... now we were going to get our kills." "And we were greeted with an entirely differently scene." "Which was a V-day party." "I love the burning, the barrel on fire, plus the oil-field fire." "You know, it's like this is their bonfire to celebrate." "Right." "Like, we'll make our own fire." "I love this, their footsteps in the sand." "They're coming down that great dune." "And everybody else is just shirts off, and they still have their...." "And they still don't even know what's going on right now." "You didn't get the memo, did you?" "Having a little party." "You're a little overdressed." "This shit is over, motherfucker." "You didn't die." "Have a cigar." "It won't kill you." "I just remember, you know, first my confusion... and just that exhilaration that everyone was feeling." "Like, "It's over, guys, we're going home." "You're gonna go home to your girlfriend. "" "Did you get a fucking kill, man?" "And this, too, like, "Did you guys kill?" "Did you take that shot?"" "And, also, they all think that they're done." "For these guys, the desert is over, they think, in their head." "And, you know, again, I think it's just sinking in on them that... here's a guy that's trained... and wanted nothing more than to fire his rifle in war, and the war is over." "And he never got to fire his rifle." "He went to war and never fired his rifle." "I never shot my rifle." "You do it now." "See, I think that's one of the things that's interesting about this war... is that, you know, in World War II... a lot of guys didn't fire their rifle, because they were too scared." "That was one of the most extraordinary things that the research about combat...." "And a lot of the training was to teach people how to actually fire their rifle in combat." "You know, it sounds silly, but a lot of people were too scared to shoot." "Wasn't it something like 45% ..." "Yeah." "...or something, in World War II?" "Yeah." "In Vietnam, you know, we all were firing, you know... and I definitely fired my rifle there." "This is a whole different thing." "These guys are now...." "This is that moment where they're actually getting to release... all that tension and waiting and anger and training and everything." "And it's...." "Here it is." "They're shooting into the air." "Yeah." "It's exhilarating, but it's futile." "And it's not" "And this look between these two guys..." "It's not what they wanted." "...is really something." "Four days." "Four hours." "You see, we had patrols longer than this in Vietnam." "And we came back, you know, talking about that, like...." "And I had an...." "You know... so-and-so had an uncle who is a long-range reconnaissance guy... who went on 10-day patrols." "You want some beer?" "Look here, I got a beer." "The party's started now." "But, you know, the thing is, is that this parade, then, this sort of sad parade... and then when this Vietnam vet gets on the bus... this to me, I always...." "Chokes me up... when I see this guy, 'cause he could've been a guy I served with." "Yeah." "And the way Swoff looks at him... and Jamie, too, you're thinking, well... you know, with all his complex emotions, "Could this be me?"" "'Cause the guy thinks they've redeemed him." "We never got a parade in Vietnam." "We never got cheered." "And, you know, these guys have gone off and won us a clear, triumphant war." "Here's this guy Swoff and his buddies have redeemed." "This guy's in the Marine Corps as far as he's concerned." "And this was the beginning of... for me, really, the first moment when I tried to attach... some kind of meaning to having gone to war... something other than not having killed, which was...." "Okay, you know, maybe America has learned this cultural lesson... and learned to separate the war from the warrior... because we didn't do that for this guy." "And, you know, this Marine vet climbed on our bus... and at first we were shocked by him." "And as Bill just said, "Oh, could that be me?" "Could that be me in 20 years?"" "It was important for all of us to see him, for him to thank us." "And this guy is so good." "I think this is the thing that I think is so true of us... that every war is different, and every war is the same." "Because, you know, the warrior's experience is so...." "And this, we had a lot of voiceover at the end of here... that was echoing this theme in Tony's book, about, just, "Every jarhead is me. "" "But it's filmed so beautifully that we just took it all out because...." "And just let the viewer's imagination fill in the emotion." "Because once that Vietnam vet's in the bus, I think you just want to watch and feel." "It's a great montage, just capturing these guys." "You know, this was their future." "This is Sykes still at war." "And here's Sykes still at war." "The lifer, still going at it." "Yeah?" "These transitions are all very common." "And this, Fergus...." "This is another moment... that there's the guy that he had the gun to his head." "Yeah." "And shoots him." "And they're probably the two that would get along the most now." "You know?" "Yeah." "The bearded, scraggily guy and Swoff the writer... who, in the Marine Corps, didn't have a lot in common." "Troy left the Marine Corps." "You know, was forced out, and then died." "The Marine has a love-hate relationship with the Marine Corps." "That was one of those things we hated about the Marine Corps... because they didn't let him stay in." "Of all of us, they should have kept him in the Marine Corps... because he loved the Corps so much." "Wanted to make it his life." "And then this story you heard at the beginning is repeated here... and you see him, he's at his word processor." "And it's almost as if he's just told you the story of the movie... as he's writing it." "I mean, in a way, this is just a moment to show that whatever the war gave Tony... it gave him the material for his first book... and he became a great writer." "This is Bill's choice here... on this voiceover, this repetition, from the beginning and the change." "Yeah." "Well, actually, Walter Murch and Sam and I, we were all working on this." "But I love this, this bringing these guys back." "I think that was always our idea, of Sam's and mine, from the beginning." "Because you do feel connected to all these kids." "I mean, the guys that are out there now, I feel so much." "I read about them, not just my son there, but all of them." "The warrior leaves, but he's still fighting." "And then you said a few times, Bill, there's the biblical sense..." "Being in the desert." "...of being in the desert." "Yeah, it's not just that we're in the physical desert of the Middle East... but that we are wandering in the desert as Jesus did or the prophets did... where you're trying to find who you are and where you belong... and find your way home." "The desert for me was this landscape, but also... when I started writing Jarhead, I had to enter it again, you know, the physical space." "I surrounded myself with all of my photos from the war." "I really, for many years, had avoided that history of mine... had avoided it personally and had avoided it as a writer." "But I kept running up against it and finally could avoid it no longer." "And the desert had always still been with me." "My memories of the war, of the men." "That last shot of the film is exactly as I remember the desert." "A small group of men, walking out, looking for war." "This movie is so specific to that." "I mean, my memories are of the jungle... which is an entirely different thing, and it stays with you." "The story that he tells about turning in the rifle...." "I remember walking around for months feeling strange... because I wasn't carrying a gun, anymore." "You get so attached to your weapon in a war, and it becomes... you know, "This is my rifle." "There are many like it, but this is mine. "" "It is the creed of the rifle." "But the thing with this movie is, that I feel so proud to be part of... is that it is so true to the experience of... whether it's my father or my son, Tony or me." "Regardless of the political context or even your moral feelings about war... or particular wars or whatever, the purity, and I use that word very carefully... of the young man's, in some cases now young women's, experience... is really, I think, to be honoured." "Because what they're willing to do is so serious and so profound... that it needs to be called on by the political leaders... who send them in the most serious of all possible ways... because they truly are on the frontlines." "For those of you who are listening to us, thank you so much... and we hope we've made you think... and given you a new view of these guys that you might see on your TVscreens... with their helmets and their goggles... who are out there in the middle of nowhere... prepared to sacrifice and living the life of an American military guy." "Not just an American, anyone who does this." "I can't do anything but thank all the people who helped do that... from Tony to Sam to the actors to everybody else... because it is truly honouring the guys that go through a passage... that is both horrible and beautiful and in every way so confusing... disturbing and so profoundly human." "Yeah, thanks for listening... and I hope that the conversation between Bill and I... gives you another way to consider the film." "And also to, you know, consider the men and women... who serve and sacrifice... you know, not just during Desert Storm, but elsewhere and at other times." "The vigour that Bill and I brought to the telling of the story... had to do with our personal histories and trying to tell a story... that was not just ours, but that is shared by many." "And so thanks again."