Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper has opened to record breaking box office numbers. The cinematic tale relates the saga of an American sniper whose success in killing two hundred and sixty Iraqi insurgents lead to him being known as “The Legend”. The motion picture broke the record for a first night in icy cold January, ($35 million), it grossed $89.2 million for the traditional opening three days thereby beating the previous highest January opening by a hundred percent of any January movie, and within five weeks of the opening it was projected to be the highest grossing war film in American history. Fandango, the online cinema booking agency, reported that the movie garnered seventy percent of its pre ticket sales which was a predictor of its ongoing success. It was screened in nearly four thousand cinemas making it the widest R rated film ever to be released. Finally, the celluloid was nominated for six Oscar awards including, best actor, Bradley Cooper, best picture and best adapted screen play, Jason Hall.
However the production is slap bang in the middle of a partisan brawl as to its message, integrity of its central character and its artistic merit. With regard to the communication the production was said to deliver, it was argued - on the one hand, that it glorified violence and war and on the other, that it depicted the Iraqi war as futile and destructive. Chris Kyle, the legendary sniper, was either characterized as a psychopath or an empathetic hero. As to the story and how it was portrayed, from one vantage point it was nationalistic war porn and from another a valid reflection of reality as seen through the eyes of a patriot and his family.
ROLLING STONE’S WHOLESALE SLAUGHTER OF THE AMERICAN SNIPER
It suffices to detail Matt Taibbi’s review in the prestigious journal, Rolling Stone, to feel the full weight of the detractors of this war drama in each and every dimension. The assessment is that the message is perverted, “The Legend” is a phony braggart and the production is simplistic.
The Stone critic headlined his piece, “American Sniper is almost to dumb to criticize”. The movie is compared to Forest Gump, who, “…in the face of terrible moral choices plays ping pong”, only it maintains that it sinks to even lower depths. The reviewer contends producing a “one - note fairy tale” to the setting of the “insane moral morass of the Iraq occupation is even dumber and more arrogant than George Bush or Dick Cheney ever tried”. The contention is that the story line should have depicted the moral dilemmas surrounding the war - the failed WMD search, Abu Ghraib and the “myriad of other atrocities” that helped to fuel ISIL. Taibbi continues in this vein throughout, believing that Eastwood’s portrayal of Kyle being spurred to greater action by the 9/11 bombings was corny, “…as if there was some logical connection between Iraq and 9/11”. Jay H. Ell could go on and on quoting chunks of the critic’s assessment but he is sure everyone gets the drift.
So the cinematic production was cheap and contrived while the message was totally off target, so what about the central character, Chris Kyle? The Rolling Stone contributor immediately quotes Michael Moore, who tweeted that his father was killed by a sniper in WW 11, and snipers were always regarded as cowards. Taibbi believes that it is “dangerous to be seduced by the pathos and drama of an individual soldier’s experience, because most wars are much larger than that”. He interprets, weaving between the book upon which this movie was adapted and the movie itself, that Kyle was in some sort of sick competition against the crack Iraqi insurgent sniper Mustafa. He mocks at, what has never been disputed, the fact that Kyle took out Mustafa from a mile away. (A circumstance that allowed the sniper to finally feel free to go home phoning his wife Taya, there and then, from the field announcing just that). Taibbi maintains that rather it ratified every idiot fantasy of every yahoo with a target rifle from Seattle to Savannah.
Having completed an annihilating hatchet job on the award winning “American Sniper”, the reviewer summates with the statement, “Eastwood who could have cleared things up only muddies the water further. Sometimes a story is meaningless without context”.
JAY H. ELL’S TAKE
Rather than rely on other commentators Jay H. Ell would like to review this film from his world. Firstly, it should be made clear that this production did not purport to address the whole issue of war in general and the Iraqi abomination specifically. He has blogged on the latter issue again and again. (Blog: “The Iraq War Deception and Its Aftermath”). Rather it was the narrative of one central participant in the context of war, in this instance, the USA precipitated Iraq war. So to criticize Eastwood for not doing for what he did not set out to do is, at kindest, unfair. Then to interpret what he did as extolling war was ridiculous especially as Clint believes that his intent was just the opposite. Eastwood, a man of very few words, called American Sniper, “The biggest anti war statement any film can make”. He added that it focussed on the impact that it had on those left behind and on the combatants when they returned.
It is not often that Jay H. Ell is ad idem with Clint Eastwood, nor would anyone else but Jay H. Ell care, but he does believe that Eastwood is an honest and highly talented artist. He remembers his Super Bowl ad where he hailed the American car industry recovery as indicative of the American psyche. Eastwood, an ardent Republican, was hammered for making a political statement supporting Obama’s bailout. He was unrepentant other to say that was not his purpose.
So instead of arguing what type of screenplay Eastwood should have made let us examine the movie and see whether there is evidence to support whether Eastwood achieved what he set out to do.
AMERICAN SNIPER - THE MOVIE
Context
Anyone who has seen this movie and did not wish to impose his/her worldview on the context and just viewed the repetition of street battles where searches take place in home after home cannot but be struck by the senseless brutality of the exercise and the deaths that never seem to stop. There was the sheer monotony of scene after scene showing violence and bodies with no obvious purpose other than to go through the ritual of finding those were fighting against you and kill or be killed. There was no end in sight of this meaningless slaughter and the only closure was for individuals, in this instance Chris Kyle. It does not need much more to condemn the war that Kyle was in as everyone but everyone knows all about this phony war.
Chris Kyle
So this is the story about an individual who is drawn into a situation, not of his making, functioning in terms of his own psyche and value system. The desire is to turn Chris Kyle into a personality that he wasn’t and to argue that he is an inane stereotype and not to accept that those disparaging Eastwood’s depiction wish to replace him by their own intellectual stereotype. So let us examine “The Legend” in terms of the Jason Hall script of “American Sniper” and see whether Bradley Copeland’s Chris Kyle hangs together as a “real person”.
At no stage was there any hint that Kyle was a rocket scientist. From the word go he was portrayed as an uncomplicated citizen. His job definition up until enlistment was a rodeo cowboy for G-d’s sake. After seeing terrorist attacks on television he decided to enlist and defend his country. It is learned at this early stage that he has aggressive tendencies - beating up someone he finds in his girlfriend’s bed however high that may be rated on the scale of aggressive behavior.
When enlisting as a patriot he shows his determination that he isn’t “like most men” by volunteering for the elite Navy SEALS. Like anyone who survives the training he proves it. He doesn’t seek to be a sniper to satisfy his alleged psychopathic behavior. Rather his skill at long range shooting, one of the many exercises in training, qualifies him for this position.
Kyle’s philosophy of life
At this point in the narrative it is constructive to share his simplistic philosophy of life which is reflected in a conversation with his sons:
“ There are three types of people in this world - Sheep, wolves and sheepdogs.”
“Some people prefer to believe that evil does not exist in this world, and if hatred ever darkened they would not know how to protect themselves. These are the sheep”.
“Then you got the predators. These people use violence to prey on the weak. They are the wolves”.
“Then there are those who are blessed with the gift of aggression and overpowering need to protect the flock”. (Jay H. Ell’s emphasis).These are the rare breed that live to confront the wolf. They’re the sheepdog”.
“Now we are not raising any sheep in this family and I will whoop your fucking ass if you turn into a wolf…”
The American Sniper is true to that philosophy throughout the whole production. A philosophy that lead him to battle with the conflicting priorities of wife and family and duty to country and his “overpowering need to protect his flock,”, having been “blessed with the gift of aggression”.
Philosophy consistent throughout
The Sniper’s loyalty, empathy and care of his family, his brother, friends and marines he is entrusted to protect are on display from start to finish. In one very telling scene he remarks, “ .. (If),These marines keep rushing in like they been doing, they’ll get their asses shot off. They don’t clear corners…lets show them how to do it. I’ll lead a unit in the street.”
His minder, to no avail remonstrates that he should stay put maintaining that he is “too valuable”. His caretaker then pleads with him asking him whether he has, “Some kind of savior complex”. Kyle counters that he just wants to get the bad guys and he can’t shoot them if he can’t see them and proceeds to successfully train the street unit.
He is devastated by the death of his close friend Biggles who provides the only questioning of the Iraq mission in the production. At his dying friend’s hospital bed, to the latter’s amazement, he declares he is going back to revenge, “What they did to you”.
Biggles's inconsolable mother at his funeral, reads from the deceased SEAL’s letter written prior to his death. “My question is when does the glory fade away and become a wrongful crusade. When does it become an unjustified means by which one becomes completely consumed”. To the obvious angst engendered in Taya by this devastating course of events, Chris counters that these doubts lead to Biggles dropping his guard. ( All of this echoes of Lord Tennyson's iconic poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade -
“ Someone had blundered. Theirs not to make a reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do or die”).
When a marine approaches him, when he is back home, hailing him as a hero who had saved his life by carrying out him of danger, he is embarrassed by the effusion and he modestly only discusses the wounded soldier’s welfare.
Finally, when confronted by a psychiatrist offering the commonest reason for a soldier battling to adjust from the mandatory savagery of war to the ordered civilian world - “My guess is you saw things or did things that you wish you didn’t. Some soldiers can cope other’s can’t. The Legend responds, “That isn’t me…I ended some evil men, and I will stand before my creator and answer for every shot I took. It’s the guys I couldn't save. Those are the faces I see. That is my regret that I couldn’t stay there any longer”.
Filmatic strategy
The action is divided into cutting back sharply from the war to visits home by “The Legend” who grows more and more remote from his family. To a distraught wife remonstrating with him not to keep returning, he counters that he is doing what he is doing to protect them. In an earlier encounter with Taya, then his future wife, he has already forewarned her as to why he is a SEAL and would lay down his life, “Cause it is the greatest country in the world”.
The tension mounts with each homecoming and she even threatens to leave him. These “respites” are punctuated by the four tours of duty where the nauseating mindless killing and door to slaughter continues. This, to the background of disturbing screams from the terrified locals, some of whom could potentially wipe the American “saviors” off this earth the moment they dropped their guard. At no stage do you see Kyle enjoying his deathly role as a sheepdog. In fact it either shatters him like the “taking out” of a child and his mother, who were about to blow a troop of marines to smithereens, or he is deadpanned.
The only reference to the juxtaposition of these two irreconcilable existences is when, after returning for a duty, he is informed that there is a $180,000 bounty on his head. His rejoinder, “Don’t tell my wife, she might take that number right now!”.
The Unravelling of Kyle with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.(PTSD).
In spite of all his protestations the evidence that the Iraqi war was taking a continuing and worsening toll on him was there for all to see. His remoteness, his brooding and continued fixation with what was happening in the theater of war impact heavily on his relationship with his long suffering wife Taya on each and every encounter that he is back home. On one visit he screams uncontrollably at a nurse who is ignoring his crying baby. Even when he permanently calls it quits he is too frightened to go home.
Two events seem to shatter his denial that he is ok. The first when he is about to kill a dog that is playfully on top of his child. The other when he has a car accident he realizes that it could have resulted in the death of his beloved family.
It takes a psychiatrist’s suggestion that he fulfills his need to “protect his flock” by caring for wounded veterans thereby, finally, allowing him to rid himself of his demons. Taya then can marvel at her caring husband - she enduringly has him back. The irony is that in the end, having survived four tours of war evading all the "wolves", he is killed by one of his own flock.
HIS WIFE TAYA’S READ OF AMERICAN SNIPER
Taya Kyle was enthralled with the production and exclaimed that it brought her husband back to life. She had alwys trusted Bradley Cooper and Clint Eastwood and was visibly moved by the initial viewing in Washington DC. “You’ll see in this movie Bradley is Chris. I have no idea how he pulled it off. People who knew Chris and who have seen the movie have said one word over and over: eerie. It is almost eerie how much it is really Chris. I will never be able to thank Bradley enough for that. Not only did he do his research and the physical part and get the dialect, which is such an odd mix of places that Chris lived. But then he took this man, who is truly one of a kind and is charismatic and soft and tough and strong and has the biggest heart of anyone that I have ever met. And he brought that to the screen in a way that you will know Chris at the end of the movie”.
CONSENSUS OF THOSE WHO VIEWED AMERICAN SNIPER POSITIVELY
Bradley Cooper echoed Eastwood when he felt the objective was to bring home the impact of what the one percent and their families that remained went through to the ninety - nine percent who had no idea of what those who were sacrificing their lives endured.
Jason Hall who wrote the screenplay and spent endless hours with Chris, before he died, in addition to interviewing Taya and the family before and after, and in addition interacting with many SEALS to get into the soul of the real man, maintained that some of the statements that were in Kyle’s book did not accurately reflect the man. The time he spent with Kyle lead him to the conclusion that The Legend was far more affected by the war than he let on. Several of his explanations in his biography were as a result of pressure to keep his macho image. Consequently Hall portrayed him as someone struggling to regain equilibrium. To anyone who criticizes Hall for not putting, what they perceive to be, the whole story out there he retorts, “You know what, I bled for this thing”.
So not only did Kyle hang true to character throughout the American Sniper, the screen writer, who had the privilege of working with him and his family to establish what made him tick busted a nut to get it right. His wife who had lived through it all with Chris, agreed that Hall’s script was the real deal.
Michelle Obama hailed the fact that the production connected society with the Vets. She conceded that there had been criticism of the picture but she argued that this film touches on many of the emotions and feelings that she had heard first hand from military families over these years. She hoped that the country would welcome back the veterans by integrating them back into their communities.
So to those who believe that the Iraq war was a disgrace, and there are many, this was not the movie to make the point directly. It was the story of a patriot who viewed life in black and white and felt a responsibility to wipe out evil. Evil, being defined as anyone who wanted to kill his flock who were on the side of good.
From Eastwood’s point of view, he certainly achieved what he set out to do, but from whatever viewpoint this epic is considered it is a disturbing and riveting experience and is likely to continue to evoke powerful emotions one way or another.
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