Twenty-five years after making Spartacus, a parable of Roman decadence and rebellious slaves shot in California, Stanley Kubrick made Full Metal Jacket, a ’Nam flick shot in Beckton. Ever the perfectionist, Kubrick had imported palm trees from Africa, the better that the local gas works resemble downtown Hué.
Alas, he wasn’t happy. Something about the clouds over east London wasn’t right, and as for the sunsets… Meanwhile, the crew and cast and hordes of extras thumb-twiddled in the silence Kubrick demanded. Then an extra kicked up: ‘Get him off the crane.’ An assistant was despatched to find the guilty party. ‘You’re working with Stanley Kubrick,’ he lectured the rhubarbers. ‘No talking.’ Came another cry: ‘Get off the fucking crane.’ ‘OK,’ rasped Kubrick, ‘who fucking talked?’ Silence. And then, from somewhere in the crowd, a noble voice: ‘I am Spartacus.’ Then another. And another. ‘Three hundred extras burst out laughing,’ Vincent D’Onofrio tells David Mikics.
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