Jarhead
Short description
Jarhead follows Anthony Swofford, a young American who enlists in the Marine Corps, as his father and grandfather did before him. After enduring boot camp, he ships out with his unit to the Middle East following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, training as a scout sniper under the hard-edged Staff Sergeant Sykes. The Marines are primed for combat, yet the fighting they were promised keeps receding: they spend months in the desert heat, weighed down by gear, drilling and waiting while an enemy they cannot see remains out of reach. The strain of boredom, fear and uncertainty wears on Swofford and the men around him, testing the bonds they form with one another.
Sam Mendes directed the film, the fourth of the fifteen features he has made, arriving between Road to Perdition and Revolutionary Road. William Broyles Jr. wrote the screenplay, drawn from Swofford's memoir of the same name, and Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher produced. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Swofford, with Jamie Foxx as Sykes, Peter Sarsgaard as Alan Troy, Scott MacDonald as D.I. Fitch, Chris Cooper as Lt. Col. Kazinski and Laz Alonso as Ramon Escobar, among a credited cast of thirty-two and a crew of 170. Made for about 72 million dollars, it took in roughly 97 million worldwide.
On IMDb it holds 7 out of 10 from some 224,000 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 6.7 from a far smaller 3,274 votes.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film is based on Anthony Swofford's book 'Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles' (2003).
- Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire were contenders for the lead role in the film.
- The film was shot in the Imperial Valley, located in Southern California. The conditions there strongly resemble the landscape of Iraq.
- Scenes filmed in the Imperial Valley had mountains in the background that had to be "removed" digitally. Some desert scenes were also filmed in Mexico.
- One of the photos on the "board of shame" depicts porn actress Kitty Yung.
- The word "Fuck" is used 278 times in the film.
- Christian Bale and Joshua Jackson were also considered for the role of Swoford.
- Travis Aaron was considered for the role of Troy.
- During the scorpion battle, you can notice junior corporal Juan Cortez holding a new five-dollar bill.
- During the Christmas scene, you can hear the song O.P.P. playing at the party. In reality, this song didn’t appear until late 1991, while the Christmas in the film takes place in 1990.
- The Abrams tank seen in the film is a mock-up. A real M1 Abrams has 7 road wheels, while there are only 6 in the film.
- Sergeant Sykes, played by Jamie Foxx, originally had a panther tattoo on the back of his head. Fox kept it for award ceremonies for his role in “Ray”. Sam Mendes ultimately decided to remove the tattoo during post-production, believing that with a panther on the back of his head, the character became too “hardcore”.
- The soldiers are watching the film "Apocalypse Now" (1979).
- Jake Gyllenhaal's nosebleed was "artificially" added during post-production.
- All the erotic scenes were filmed in one day. Sam Mendes commented on this as follows: “It’s great to shoot all the sex after all this death and war.”
- "Jarhead" is an informal designation for a U.S. Marine (literally, "jarhead"). The nickname originated during World War II when the Mason Jar Company suspended the production of jars, switching to the more profitable production of soldiers' helmets.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
