Full Metal Jacket Analysis

Pleasure and Connection
In a previous blog I discussed Agent Pyle from Full Metal Jacket as being condemned to die and looked at it from the perspective of Susan Sontags quote, “more upsetting is the opportunity to look at people who know they have been condemned to die” (Sontag 60). In this quote she says it is more upsetting to see a body condemned rather than already dead. After viewing the film the Sessions I see this same pattern returning but in a different sense. Mark O’ Brain played by John Hawks is a body condemned to itself--- polio disease stole from him his bodily motion, he believes he is condemned to never experience pleasure that is not brought on through unwanted bodily responses to his female aids. This condemnation it what

In the shot above we see a close up frame of both Mark laying on his back and Cheryl leaning down over his chest just moments after she has kissed his chest. This moment shows both Mark and Cheryl in the moment just following orgasm more importantly though this is the first session in which they have both reached orgasm. Cheryl finds her release and then bends down and kisses Mark on his chest a very loving connection, one she has been avoiding in an attempt to keep work and family life separate. In this shot; however, we the viewer see the impossibility of this attempt because the connection is so primal and real, so human the viewer cannot but help to be fully embraced in their connection. Humans are very different from most animals in the way we connect beyond reproduction purposes between Cheryl and Mark. Cheryl is Mark’s savior from condemnation from isolation and Mark is Cheryl’s savior from the emotional isolation she puts herself into day in and day out. This shot also has very strong implications on the viewer bringing the viewer pleasure from the emotional connection of the two characters but also increases the films emotional hold on the viewer drawling us further into the film getting us