ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:
Full Metal Jacket Diary is an exhibition of photographs by actor and filmmaker Matthew Modine. The exhibition features large scale aluminum prints of photographs taken while on the set of Stanley Kubrick’s famous film, Full Metal Jacket, in 1987. Modine starred as protagonist, US Marine Private Joker, and documented the filmmaking process using the 1960’s era Rolleiflex camera used by his character in
the movie. Modine’s photographs were shot with black and white, medium format film, and almost bend time by making use of the historic camera and a visual language which is immediately reminiscent of old war footage. Ranging from candid photographs of actors and crew, scenes in progress, pyrotechnics, Kubrick and of Modine himself, the images captured give rare insight into the making of the film while simultaneously speaking to the histories of photography, journalism, and war. The exhibition marks only the second time the photographs have been shown publicly, and their first time in Texas.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Matthew Avery Modine was born in 1959, in Loma Linda, California, the son of a bookkeeper and drive-in theater manager. His iconic roles as Private Joker in Full Metal Jacket, the title character in Birdy, high school wrestler Louden Swain in Vision Quest, oversexed Sullivan Groff on Weeds, and triumphant return of the mysterious and frightening Dr. Martin Brenner on the Netflix global phenomenon Stranger Things have cemented his legacy. A partial list of his films includes The Dark Knight Rises, Birdy, Vision Quest, Full Metal Jacket, Married to the Mob, Gross Anatomy, Memphis Belle, Pacific Heights, Short Cuts, The Browning Version, and Any Given Sunday.
For all of his signature roles, Modine might best be known for his role as Private Joker, the central character of Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 war movie Full Metal Jacket. The film received critical acclaim. The Chicago Reader labeled it “the most tightly crafted Kubrick film since Dr. Strangelove. Variety referred to the film as an “intense, schematic, superbly made” drama, while Vincent Canby of the New York Times called it “harrowing” and “beautiful” The film received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Writing for an adapted screenplay and can often be found on lists for the greatest movies of all time.
