Editor's note: This story was originally published on August 6, 2012.

(CNN) In 1985, actor Matthew Modine was drafted into Stanley Kubrick's army. After a five-year hiatus from filmmaking, the legendary director ("Dr. Strangelove," "2001: A Space Odyssey," "A Clockwork Orange," "The Shining") had turned his sights to the Vietnam War and asked Modine to star in his next film, "Full Metal Jacket."

Modine, then 26, spent more than two years under Kubrick's command. His head was shaved. He went through basic training. He and the other "recruits" were berated incessantly by a drill instructor with anger management issues and an endless supply of colorful and demeaning insults. The actor lived and saw the horrors of "war" firsthand. Sometimes even in slow motion. During his time, his son was born. There were multiple tours of duty, and he often felt like he was never going to go home. Modine fought in Kubrick's war and emerged a changed man.

Luckily for fans of photography, Kubrick and the entire filmmaking process, Modine kept both a written and photographic diary of his experiences during the making of Kubrick's darkly comic, tragic and ultra-violent Vietnam War masterpiece. Released more than 25 years ago, "Full Metal Jacket" is as powerful and prescient as ever.

The Bronx-born Kubrick, who had lived and worked exclusively in England since the early 1960s, remarkably transformed parts of the UK into Vietnam. Shooting at an abandoned gasworks, his production flew in about 200 palm trees from Spain to create the illusion of South Vietnam during the Tet Offensive. Emerging from boot camp, Modine's character, Pvt. J.T. "Joker" Davis, finds himself in this surreal landscape.

Originally published in 2005 in a limited edition of 20,000 and later as an iPad app , Modine's "Full Metal Jacket Diary" is not your typical studio-sanctioned, whitewashed Hollywood tie-in, replete with smiley candid photos and gushing praise for everyone mentioned. Modine transcends that genre just as Kubrick transcended every genre he tackled as a filmmaker. With inspired and intimate images that detail much of the production, Modine offers astonishing insight into the working methods of one of cinema's most brilliant and reclusive artists. (Kubrick died in 1999.)

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