Yesterday, I wrote that there are several equally viable readings of the controversial film, American Sniper. Clint Eastwood himself has said that he intended to make a film that aligns more with the interpretation I offered yesterday. "The biggest antiwar statement any film" can make is to show "the fact of what [war] does to the family and the people who have to go back into civilian life like Chris Kyle did," Eastwood said at the gathering of Producers Guild Award nominees. Eastwood also said in a recent interview that he was against the invasion of Iraq and, “Contrary to public opinion, I abhor violence.” The film’s star, Bradley Cooper, has said, “It’s very easy to say, this movie’s this and that, and then write it off and say it’s propaganda, which is so insane. Because what you really neglect are the soldiers. To me, Chris was utterly human. I never had to go from icon to human. I was studying a man, and I was trying to inhabit the man.” Cooper and the film’s screenwriter, Jason Hall, didn’t intend to portray Kyle as a glamorous hero. Hall has described how he tried to learn “what motivated Kyle, what compelled him to serve, what his occupation had cost him, and the impact on his family, on his sense of self and on his soul.” Cooper has explicitly stated, "It's not a movie about the Iraq War....It's not a political movie at all. It's a movie about a man, a character study and we had the privilege of telling this man's story....The hope is that you can somehow have your eyes opened to the struggle of a soldier, as opposed to the specificity of the war."
Now, a good film/literary critic should make every effort to avoid falling prey to the intentional fallacy. I don’t go quite so far as to believe the creator doesn’t matter at all, but we have to remember that once a piece of art (in this case, a film) reaches an audience, it is out of the creator’s hands, and we are allowed to perceive it as we are able or as we wish. As I’ve stated the past two days, all we can hope for is as close to a fair assessment as possible. That being said, here is an assessment I found interesting:
"The hero of this film, who has a terrifyingly dangerous job, addresses it like a daily pleasure.... He isn’t an action hero, he’s a specialist, like a surgeon who focuses on one part of the body over and over, day after day, until he could continue if the lights went out.... His performance is not built on complex speeches but on a visceral projection of who this man is and what he feels. He is not a hero in a conventional sense. He cares not for medals....
"This movie embeds itself in a man’s mind. When it’s over, nothing has been said in so many words, but we have a pretty clear idea of why [he does his job]. I’m going to risk putting it this way: (1) bad guys need to be killed; (2) nobody does it better than [he does]; (3) he knows exactly how good he is, and (4) when he’s at work, an intensity of focus and exhilaration consumes him, and he’s in that heedless zone when an artist loses track of self and time....
"[The director] uses no phony suspense-generating mechanisms in this film. No false alarms. No gung ho. It is about personalities in terrible danger. The suspense is real, and it is earned....[The director is] a master of stories about men and women who choose to be in physical danger. Caring first about the people, then about the danger."
Is this the writing of a red-state zealot fawning over the heroism of Chris Kyle and brilliance of Clint Eastwood’s home-run war picture? Not quite. This is actually the review (paraphrased slightly) of prominent leftist and admired film critic Roger Ebert about the 2010 winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture, The Hurt Locker. It’s amazing how a movie so well-received by so many critics a few years ago sounds so similar to one despised by so many critics today. I’m not sure why this is, but I have a cynical guess that I’ll keep to myself for now. Kathryn Bigelow is an outstanding director and deserved her Oscar, but did she really do anything different than Eastwood does in American Sniper? Both films are about the psychological effects of war on soldiers’ personal lives. Yet, one is loved, one is hated. Strange.
While there are many similarities between American Sniper and The Hurt Locker, I think Eastwood’s film actually finds a kinship elsewhere.
I believe American Sniper is a distant grandchild of Eastwood’s own Unforgiven. The primary parallels are there. "I told [Cooper] it was a Western," said screenwriter Hall. "The character goes from being a hero to being filled with vengeance and slipping over the dark side." Cooper said he “loved the genre" and “the concept of framing it as a Western." In the 19th century of Unforgiven, violence is a brutal primary option; in the 21st century of American Sniper, it’s a necessary last resort. Unforgiven is about a bad man who tries to find a path toward good, but he must continue committing violent acts in order to become good. American Sniper is about a good man many generations removed, who has evolved from the brutality of the old west. But, like his predecessor, he must also act violently in order to prove his goodness. Will Munny and Chris Kyle are both deeply flawed men. While they start from different places, one bad and one good, their lives of violence ultimately lead them to a similar destination, one in which they must face eternal consequences for their actions, regardless of how justified they feel they might be.
In his book Four-Star Reviews, Roger Ebert writes, “Unforgiven is not simply about its plot—about whether William Munny collects the bounty, and about who gets killed in the process—but also about what it means to kill somebody, and how a society is affected when people get killed....For Clint Eastwood, one of the most intelligent and self-aware filmmakers, Unforgiven may have been a reaction to the rising tide of meaningless violence in films and on television. In a way, this is a movie about how, when you kill someone, they’re really dead” (811). This theme is portrayed in one of Unforgiven’s most famous scenes, when Munny tells the distraught Schofield Kid, “It’s a helluva thing, killin’ a man.” Likewise, in American Sniper, Kyle tells his son, “It’s a heckuva thing to stop a beatin’ heart.” The weathered warriors pass on their shared perspective to impressionable youth. But the meaning for Kyle is slightly different. Munny kills because he wants to, Kyle because he feels he has to. In Unforgiven, Munny kills for reward and justice, and because he’s very skilled. But he also does it because he lacks the moral strength to stop. In American Sniper, Kyle kills for duty and to punish evil, and also because he’s very skilled. But his morality urges him toward violence. Munny kills because he can’t change his nature, Kyle for the same reason. And both are haunted by the acts they’ve committed. Eastwood has clearly connected these two men.
Regarding Unforgiven, the Philadelphia Daily News critic at the time said Eastwood managed to “deliver an anti-violence message that is truly powerful,” despite the fact that Will Munny massacres a barroom full of people and shoots Little Bill point blank in the face in the film’s climactic scene. And this is just prior to announcing to the rest of town, before riding away, that if they don’t bury his partner Ned properly, he will come back and kill everyone. As strange as this analysis sounds, it is the right one, and I agree with it. However, we mustn’t ignore the reality of such film reviews: clearly, we can find an anti-violence message if we are truly looking for one. Isn’t it possible to say that just as much as Unforgiven is about anti-violence, so is American Sniper?
At the end of Unforgiven, as Munny threatens the townspeople, an American flag waves over his shoulder as he yells into the rain and darkness. The image, perhaps, symbolically depicts how death has been an integral part of the foundation and expansion of our nation—as if a sense of patriotism is inextricably linked to a past imbued with violence. American Sniper could be perceived as the inevitable conclusion to Eastwood’s vision in Unforgiven, where violence has become accepted as a proof of patriotism. Killing isn’t just done by bad guys, but has rather evolved to a point where it actually defines good guys.
It is up to us to decide how we feel about such a perspective, about the reasons why we commit violence and the consequences it is bound to bring. This is what great films do: they make us truly examine our philosophy of the world. Unforgiven has stood the test of time thus far. We will have to see if American Sniper will be able to resonate similarly in the years to come.
Now, a good film/literary critic should make every effort to avoid falling prey to the intentional fallacy. I don’t go quite so far as to believe the creator doesn’t matter at all, but we have to remember that once a piece of art (in this case, a film) reaches an audience, it is out of the creator’s hands, and we are allowed to perceive it as we are able or as we wish. As I’ve stated the past two days, all we can hope for is as close to a fair assessment as possible. That being said, here is an assessment I found interesting:
"The hero of this film, who has a terrifyingly dangerous job, addresses it like a daily pleasure.... He isn’t an action hero, he’s a specialist, like a surgeon who focuses on one part of the body over and over, day after day, until he could continue if the lights went out.... His performance is not built on complex speeches but on a visceral projection of who this man is and what he feels. He is not a hero in a conventional sense. He cares not for medals....
"This movie embeds itself in a man’s mind. When it’s over, nothing has been said in so many words, but we have a pretty clear idea of why [he does his job]. I’m going to risk putting it this way: (1) bad guys need to be killed; (2) nobody does it better than [he does]; (3) he knows exactly how good he is, and (4) when he’s at work, an intensity of focus and exhilaration consumes him, and he’s in that heedless zone when an artist loses track of self and time....
"[The director] uses no phony suspense-generating mechanisms in this film. No false alarms. No gung ho. It is about personalities in terrible danger. The suspense is real, and it is earned....[The director is] a master of stories about men and women who choose to be in physical danger. Caring first about the people, then about the danger."
Is this the writing of a red-state zealot fawning over the heroism of Chris Kyle and brilliance of Clint Eastwood’s home-run war picture? Not quite. This is actually the review (paraphrased slightly) of prominent leftist and admired film critic Roger Ebert about the 2010 winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture, The Hurt Locker. It’s amazing how a movie so well-received by so many critics a few years ago sounds so similar to one despised by so many critics today. I’m not sure why this is, but I have a cynical guess that I’ll keep to myself for now. Kathryn Bigelow is an outstanding director and deserved her Oscar, but did she really do anything different than Eastwood does in American Sniper? Both films are about the psychological effects of war on soldiers’ personal lives. Yet, one is loved, one is hated. Strange.
While there are many similarities between American Sniper and The Hurt Locker, I think Eastwood’s film actually finds a kinship elsewhere.
I believe American Sniper is a distant grandchild of Eastwood’s own Unforgiven. The primary parallels are there. "I told [Cooper] it was a Western," said screenwriter Hall. "The character goes from being a hero to being filled with vengeance and slipping over the dark side." Cooper said he “loved the genre" and “the concept of framing it as a Western." In the 19th century of Unforgiven, violence is a brutal primary option; in the 21st century of American Sniper, it’s a necessary last resort. Unforgiven is about a bad man who tries to find a path toward good, but he must continue committing violent acts in order to become good. American Sniper is about a good man many generations removed, who has evolved from the brutality of the old west. But, like his predecessor, he must also act violently in order to prove his goodness. Will Munny and Chris Kyle are both deeply flawed men. While they start from different places, one bad and one good, their lives of violence ultimately lead them to a similar destination, one in which they must face eternal consequences for their actions, regardless of how justified they feel they might be.
In his book Four-Star Reviews, Roger Ebert writes, “Unforgiven is not simply about its plot—about whether William Munny collects the bounty, and about who gets killed in the process—but also about what it means to kill somebody, and how a society is affected when people get killed....For Clint Eastwood, one of the most intelligent and self-aware filmmakers, Unforgiven may have been a reaction to the rising tide of meaningless violence in films and on television. In a way, this is a movie about how, when you kill someone, they’re really dead” (811). This theme is portrayed in one of Unforgiven’s most famous scenes, when Munny tells the distraught Schofield Kid, “It’s a helluva thing, killin’ a man.” Likewise, in American Sniper, Kyle tells his son, “It’s a heckuva thing to stop a beatin’ heart.” The weathered warriors pass on their shared perspective to impressionable youth. But the meaning for Kyle is slightly different. Munny kills because he wants to, Kyle because he feels he has to. In Unforgiven, Munny kills for reward and justice, and because he’s very skilled. But he also does it because he lacks the moral strength to stop. In American Sniper, Kyle kills for duty and to punish evil, and also because he’s very skilled. But his morality urges him toward violence. Munny kills because he can’t change his nature, Kyle for the same reason. And both are haunted by the acts they’ve committed. Eastwood has clearly connected these two men.
Regarding Unforgiven, the Philadelphia Daily News critic at the time said Eastwood managed to “deliver an anti-violence message that is truly powerful,” despite the fact that Will Munny massacres a barroom full of people and shoots Little Bill point blank in the face in the film’s climactic scene. And this is just prior to announcing to the rest of town, before riding away, that if they don’t bury his partner Ned properly, he will come back and kill everyone. As strange as this analysis sounds, it is the right one, and I agree with it. However, we mustn’t ignore the reality of such film reviews: clearly, we can find an anti-violence message if we are truly looking for one. Isn’t it possible to say that just as much as Unforgiven is about anti-violence, so is American Sniper?
At the end of Unforgiven, as Munny threatens the townspeople, an American flag waves over his shoulder as he yells into the rain and darkness. The image, perhaps, symbolically depicts how death has been an integral part of the foundation and expansion of our nation—as if a sense of patriotism is inextricably linked to a past imbued with violence. American Sniper could be perceived as the inevitable conclusion to Eastwood’s vision in Unforgiven, where violence has become accepted as a proof of patriotism. Killing isn’t just done by bad guys, but has rather evolved to a point where it actually defines good guys.
It is up to us to decide how we feel about such a perspective, about the reasons why we commit violence and the consequences it is bound to bring. This is what great films do: they make us truly examine our philosophy of the world. Unforgiven has stood the test of time thus far. We will have to see if American Sniper will be able to resonate similarly in the years to come.