"How Clint Eastwood Ignores History in ‘American Sniper'"

[Dawson Leery]

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/08/clint-eastwood-ignores-history-american-sniper/

"The problem is that the film makes no attempt to tell us anything beyond Kyle’s limited comprehension of what was happening. More than a decade after America invaded and occupied Iraq, and long after we realized the war’s false pretense and its horrific toll, we deserve better. There’s a dilemma at work: a war movie that is true of one American’s experience can be utterly false to the experience of millions of Iraqis and to the historical record. Further, it’s no act of patriotism to celebrate, without context or discussion, a grunt’s view that the people killed in Iraq were animals deserving their six-feet-under fate. When the movie’s villain, an enemy sniper named Mustafa, was killed by Kyle, the crowd at the theater where I was watching broke into applause.

If Cooper, the film’s star, means what he said about its lack of politics, he fails to understand how war movies operate in popular culture. When a film venerates an American sniper but portrays as sub-human the Iraqis whose country we were occupying—the film has one Iraqi who seems sympathetic but turns out to be hiding a cache of insurgent weapons—it conveys a political message that is flat wrong. Among other things, it ignores and dishonors the scores of thousands of Iraqis who fought alongside American forces and the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians who were killed or injured in the crossfire."

[dembotoz]

1. sad thing is many folks will think this is honest it will shape the dumb little minds

movies do that

[nxylas]

17. Will? Future tense?

Ahem:

[uhnope]

38. I think it's arguably an anti-war film

See http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6106493

Have you seen it?

[Pholus]

51. It is, but only because it isn't about the real Chris Kyle.

It was a binary choice: make an accurate account, or sell tickets by playing to stereotypes.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. I haven't seen it. But, from what I've heard it's certainly not "Paths of Glory" or "Catch-22".

[Heidi]

3. Kick!

[Dreamer Tatum]

4. It's not a trial, a history course, a court record, or a deposition. It's a folk tale.

I cannot believe how many people are losing their shit over a movie.

[JonLP24]

8. I lose my shit over lots of other movies

such as "Catch Me if You Can" he escapes out of the airplane bathroom but in the movie he did all that to look outside his mom's window during Christmas where he was easily apprehended when in reality he was hiding in Canada. I also thought the movie should have included his escape from prison where he posed as an undercover prison inspector (which made sense at the time as the prison was hit by undercover prison inspectors shortly before).

Also the many Grisham movies are so far the book loses my mind such as The Firm. Over-billing are you so serious?

I think the true story or book version is always far more interesting than the movie changes which bugs me. Also a lot people put a certain value on movies that are a "true story" but "true story" in American Cinema means something very different to me than most people. With a movie that deals with subjects such as Iraq war in the context with the current conflicts in the very same country the stakes are higher so I have no problem with people in bringing awareness or redirecting to more honest flicks such as Generation Kill.

[Dreamer Tatum]

37. Man, Star Wars must have pissed you off for years.

I mean, how true to the actual history of the Force were they? Not very, if you ask me.

[JonLP24]

40. Was Star Wars ever intended to be a "true story"

I actually couldn't ever watch it all the way through without getting bored but I think you get my point or you somehow completely missed it.

Fiction could bother me, for example there was anti-communist propaganda in films for years, even subtle kinds like in Rocky IV which made it easier for the public support to replace regime changes in Southern America and also made it easier to hate Chavez because he wouldn't play ball with Venezuelan oil or justify the failed regime change.

[Dreamer Tatum]

41. Hang on. Rocky IV from 1985 made it easier to hate Chavez?

[JonLP24]

45. Anti-communist propaganda for years

Rocky was cited as an example, anti-communist propaganda in American cinema had no change in influencing public opinion in regime changes in Southern American (many of which took place under Reagan and even outside including arming, training, & financing Al-Qaeda to fight the USSR in Afghanistan)?

You missed or either deliberately missed my point again.

[Dreamer Tatum]

46. Third option: I think your point has no merit. nt

[JonLP24]

53. By cherry picking and making an irrelevant argument to it?

Now we are making another argument instead of arguing the power of propaganda which you seem to be vastly underestimating. Either way, you still aren't discussing why it has no merit.

[Dreamer Tatum]

64. No, by rejecting it out of hand.

Sorry if it stuns you, but I don't think this movie affects a damn thing, and I am skeptical that any of those movies had any of the effects you claimed.

[JonLP24]

71. Uhh

You could certainly make the argument they felt that way before the movie but it was likely propaganda that caused them to feel that way in the first way but these are people claiming what effects the movie had on them and they aren't positive. I'm sure it would be easier to justify a ground war in Southwest Asia & gain support from those people (as well as others, especially from those who don't have the slightest clue what is really going on & what war was really like & what the Department of Defense did over there)

[Dreamer Tatum]

75. Whoa - FOUR people? OMG!!!

Sorry, unmoved. Movies affect people in sundry ways, and always have. The difference now is that anyone can go on social media and blather about it.

Did you know that Titanic caused a surge in people taking cruises?

[JonLP24]

80. I agree with they affect people & agree with sundry ways as well

Take Birth of a Nation, it was a success at-the-time & also credited with the rebirth of the KKK. It was also was known for several innovations & advancements in American cinema and one of the ways is how they told the story. However if I watched the movie I'd likely get pissed off, another it would confirm prejudices, another it would sway in a negative way though the movie is so old it wouldn't have nearly the same effect like a lot of other old movies did at-the-time.

[7962]

69. Because he SAID so. Dont you get it? :)

[JonLP24]

73. I was referencing the other arguments before he SAID that

If he felt my claim had no merit why was he making illogical arguments? I got the answer to that so no need to clarify things for me further.

[Dreamer Tatum]

76. Has anyone ever disagreed with you, or are you a special snowflake who can't imagine such horror? nt

[JonLP24]

77. Do you ask irrelevant questions?

You could easily answer the first question by performing a search & you're still constructing illogical fallacies to the second one.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

82. "Was Star Wars ever intended to be a "true story""

When "Return of the Sith" came out the Right Wing was screaming about how George Lucas was portraying the rise of the Empire using a falsified war and promises of security with the Bush Administration and Iraq. Lucas corrected the record by saying it wasn't Dubya at all. The parallel he was using was the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

After that the silence from the Right was deafening.

[JonLP24]

85. LOL

I could easily see how they made that mistake though.

[jeff47]

13. It's a folk tale used to shape public opinion.

That's a very large part of why we have folk tales, and why we change them over the decades since they were first told.

[volstork]

33. Good point

This is just more fuel to whip up hatred towards others

[Dreamer Tatum]

42. Yeah, like The Longest Day and the Battle of the Bulge whipped up all that anti-German hatred.

Except it didn't.

[edhopper]

28. Do you realize the power of film and pop culture

to shape public perception?

Or were you not around for the whole "24" / torture debate?

Would it not upset you if this movie lead the majority in this country to think going into Iraq was a good thing?

[Dreamer Tatum]

35. I also realize the power of completely overreacting.

No one will see this move and have their minds changed about Iraq, one way or the other.

Oh, wait. There was that second Civil War that broke out after Gone With the Wind came out.

[7962]

70. Damn Yankees!!

[sibelian]

79. A folk tale! A folksy folk tale for FOLKS!!!! We snipered some folks, folks!

Dreamer. Dude.

[Dreamer Tatum]

81. Powerful. Insightful. nt

[sibelian]

84. Well, it is a bit, isn't it?

It's a similar sort of thing you're doing, really, isn't it?

[KingCharlemagne]

5. The Iraqi resistance in Anbar and other parts of the Sunni Triangle had every

right and even a duty to resist by armed struggle our illegal occupation.

End of story.

[Dawson Leery]

6. kick

[Fred Sanders]

11. Your country being invaded tends to create resistance.

[KingCharlemagne]

14. I hated George W. Bush about as much as I've hated any political figure since

becoming an adult. But had Iraq invaded us on charges that we had WMDS -- which we arguably do in the form of our nuclear arsenals -- without first getting approval from the U.N. Security Council, I would have joined the resistance to Iraq's illegal invasion and occupation.

Where it gets morally tough and complicated is that Americans who knew the score had a responsibility to support the Iraqi resistance to their own government's illegal invasion and occupation, even if supporting the Iraqi resistance meant opposing their own military. I resolutely refused to say "I support our troops" because that was just code for saying "I support an illegal invasion and occupation."

If there's ever any justice in my life, I would hope to see Bush, Cheney and the architects of that war brought up on war crimes charges before some competent international authority. I'm not holding my breath.

[on point]

7. Clint needs to make a movie showing patriotic Iraqis resisting invasion as best they can

[JonLP24]

9. He did a very good job with World War II movies

I like the honesty portrayed in Flags of our Fathers & heard great things about Letters from Iwo Jima which the settings of the two movies are from the same battle, but told from different perspectives such with the Japanese soldier in Letters from Iwo Jima.

[on point]

12. Yes, he did a great job there. Needs to do same in Iraq. Tell both sides

Even though I think US side has no redeeming qualities. Good soldiers doing as they were told by their corrupt greedy political war criminals. That's the tragedy that needs to be told.

[Paladin]

24. "Letters From Iwo Jima" is exceptional, well worth seeing.

There's no use pretending that Eastwood doesn't have a genuine gift for film directing. That said, I don't intend on seeing the sniper movie.

[Dawson Leery]

23. +1

[Fred Sanders]

10. He hides the fact the entire war was a lie, and the audience is in shock after with all that the gun porn

[KingCharlemagne]

15. The achievement of the Iraqi resistance in defeating us is arguably even greater than

that of the Vietnamese who had massive support from the USSR and People's Republic of China. The Iraqi resistance had to do it on their own.

[7962]

72. "defeating us"? Nice fantasy world you got there.

They're living the dream now, arent they?

[KingCharlemagne]

83. They drove us out. They occupy the battlefield and we don't. We failed to

secure any strategic gains and, arguably, strengthened Iran.

Please tell me how the U.S. was not defeated. (See also Vietnam.)

[RoccoRyg]

16. Makes me want to watch Starship Troopers again.

That movie is one big sci-fi parody of propaganda war films. It shows you everything to look for, such as lost loves, heroic sacrifices, ultra-nationalist television, weakling wartime opposition, etc.

It's funny how the original author, Robert Heinlein, was an ultra-right winger who really thought that kind of society was the right way to go. The movie mocks and pays homage to his vision perfectly.

[jeff47]

25. Probably should read the book.

Since the book is the opposite of what you claim.

It's a little like claiming Orwell loved surveillance states because of 1984.

[REP]

32. It does both mock and pay homage to the source material

The movie is satire - fierce in parts and campy in others - but at the same time, it does manage to pay homage of sorts to the dead-serious source material. Its ultimate conclusion and message is 180 degrees from Heinlein's (one reason why the movie works), but through many watchings, it's always struck me as the work of someone who loved the book as a kid, then grew up and really understood and disagreed with the message.

[Paladin]

27. A genuine cult classic.

It created some controversy when it came out, due to the Nazi overtones of the military. Neil Patrick Harris looks striking in his black SS-styled uniform.....

[glasshouses]

18. When that first bullet flies past your head you really don't give a shit about

your limited comprehension on why you are there.

Politics just seem to go out the window....know what I mean

[Dawgs]

22. And the same for Iraqis that were innocent but targeted as savages. n/t

[glasshouses]

74. That's why winning hearts and minds is always a failed strategy

And still to this day

[arcane1]

44. That's why we weren't greeted as liberators. We had to give them "Shock and Awe" aka "terrorism"

We were greeted as the invaders that we were.

[tularetom]

19. If Eastwood is trying to whitewash the Iraq clusterfuck

He made a piss poor choice of a character to use as his symbol. It's hard to humanize somebody who lies about shooting two guys at a gas station, about picking off dozens of American citizens from the top of the super dome, and who libels a fellow Seal to the extent that it costs his estate several million dollars.

A fake hero for a fake war. Sad that this is the best they could do.

[edhopper]

30. Yes

but most won't go beyond the movie and think this guy is a hero.

[PatSeg]

20. I've been successfully ignoring Clint Eastwood

for a long time now (before the republican convention). I hate the fact that if he puts his name on anything, it is automatically considered an Oscar contender. Though he has made some excellent films, his ego tends to get in the way far too often and he frequently gets far more credit than he has earned.

[Fearless]

21. Excuse me while I ask a chair

If I give a damn about him at all.


Nope. Thought so. Let him rot and his terrible movie with him..

[libdem4life]

56. Darn it...missed this reply. He was the idiot. Good answer.

[SoapBox]

26. Pukes, Baggers, Righties, Fundies....

They just make shit up and play it as truth.

Problem is, we have masses of mindless, STOOPID lemmings that can't begin to think for themselves and believe it.

[sailfla]

78. Unfortunately, we have a whole lot of idiots in this country

[ND-Dem]

31. "When a film venerates an American sniper...

When a film venerates an American sniper but portrays as sub-human the Iraqis whose country we were occupying...—it conveys a political message that is flat wrong."

= indeed.

and everyone knows it's true. The only way to get around that inconvenient truth is by lying and fictionalizing and using music and other tools for propagandistic purposes.

Eastwood's made a propaganda film for the US military. A clever one, but it's propaganda.

[OldRedneck]

34. Piss on the movie

I haven't seen it, won't see it, not even a little bit interested in it.

I served 28 years in the Army -- 1967 - 1995, including two tours in Vietnam, both in the bush. There's nothing glorious about war, sniping, bobby traps, ambushes, body bags, missing arms and legs, chests peeled open, tops of heads blown away, 19-yr-old kids crying for their mother with their last breath.

Clint was never there, that's why he celebrates it.

"War is at best barbarism. . . . Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell."
William T. Sherman


"It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it."
Robert E. Lee

[VWolf]

36. "War is sweet to those who haven't tasted it." — Erasmus n/t

[KingCharlemagne]

86. Lee made that comment to Longstreet as they stood on the heights at Fredericksburg,

watching Union troops be mowed down as they advanced uphill against fortified and prepared Confederate positions. Longstreet had some choice words to say about Lee after Appomattox and I refuse to venerate Lee any longer.

Have you ever read James Jones' From Here to Eternity (or seen the film version with Burt Lancaster and Montgomery Clift)? If you have not, I strongly recommend either or both. (Deborah Kerr and Donna Reed are also not hard on the eyes

[Lizzie Poppet]

39. Why would the film have any obligation whatsoever to that broader narrative?

It's a biographical film about an individual. It's not intended to be anything else, and if some viewers read broader political elements into it that happen to be historically inaccurate, then that fault likes with an insufficiently-informed viewer, not the film. They shouldn't be looking to entertainment-oriented movies for broad and balanced historical information. That's what actual historical sources are for.

For a film with a narrow perspective, as any film focused on a single individual's experience will inevitably be, to attempt to provide a remotely adequate historical overview would require a massive amount of screen time be devoted to such exposition. That would, obviously, completely destroy the film in terms of it being an effective story.

Does the film present a seriously skewed perspective on Iraqis, painting them as subhuman savages? Apparently it does. But the film's story is also told from the perspective of someone who believed exactly that, if his statements are accurate reflections of his views.

[FLPanhandle]

43. I'm not a fan of Clint as a person, but the man can direct a great movie.

Letter from Iwo Jima was a great war film.

I doubt I'll see American Sniper, but a good film doesn't have to be a lecture on politics, war, or focused on how the masses will react.

Man, never thought I'd be reduced to defending Eastwood....

[HappyMe]

49. Gran Torino was another.

I'm probably going to see this movie, as well as Selma, and The Gambler.

It isn't being billed as a documentary or a history of the Iraq war. It's one guy's story.

edit to add --

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6106899

[Happyhippychick]

47. I saw it. I liked it. Not everything in my life has to be a deep political experience.

Now I'm sure I'll catch a ton of crap.

I feel really sorry for those who are in constant outrage over every fucking thing. It's a movie. See it and enjoy it or don't.

[HappyMe]

50. I won't give you any shit.

The perpetual outrage gets old.

[Happyhippychick]

52. Maybe that's why we're both happy (screen names)?

[HappyMe]

55. Could be.

There's a time to get outraged, and this ain't one of them.

[whatchamacallit]

58. Exactly, why would anyone on a democratic site be outraged over

a blatant propaganda film from a republican douchebag, depicting a nutbar sniper killing everything in sight in a country that didn't attack us?

[HappyMe]

62. Yes, it is being billed as an accurate documentary

about Iraq.

Read this --

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6106899

[whatchamacallit]

63. As a fan, you're in good company

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6105268

[HappyMe]

65. A fan of what? Wars? Assholes?

Are you saying I am like those tweeting assholes?

If you are you couldn't be more fucking wrong. Sorry, I am not expressing the "appropriate" outrage.

[whatchamacallit]

66. A fan of the movie n/t

[HappyMe]

67. I haven't seen it yet.

I will be a fan or not after I see it. I prefer to do that, rather then jump on the knee jerk band wagon with others that haven't seen the movie.

Seems people should stick to Disney and stupid cat videos. Those are all the pretty formulaic and there's no need to see them before forming an opinion.

[Pholus]

48. There were TWO HUGE problems with the movie.

1) Clint seemingly can make only ONE kind of war movie -- the tried-and-true formula requires a "reluctant hero." The opening kill scene with the mother and child is meant to display the moral ambiguity that would be the basis of Kyle's PTSD but in the book, Chris Kyle never describes as much as a twinge of ambiguity. His lack of self-reflection is a large part of the reason he could be effective in his role. As a soldier in a war zone, an accidental kill of an innocent is a better result than losing a friend because you didn't shoot. But that makes for an unsympathetic character, so selling tickets requires a small change to the story.

2) Kyle's post-military exploits seem to involve him getting caught in lie after lie, most notably about supposedly dead carjackers, punching out Jesse Ventura and Katrina looters. I blame the violence and military worshiping subculture that rises up around guns for that. Kyle came back from Iraq a legend for good reason, but here he was just a regular guy unless he cashed in. Just play to the subculture and get a constant paycheck as long as he could keep getting his name mentioned. Yes, I am insinuating that functionally he was basically a Kardashian -- controversy ensures cash. The movie could not get into that of course, because the formula demands that "reluctant heroes" eventually find a peace. "Craft International" just isn't the kind of business a "reluctant hero" would create.

[JonLP24]

60. The kind of person that isn't into self-reflection

or has a twinge of ambiguity are usually sociopaths which I feel Kyle is based on the many lies, "n--" which he used to describe the looters, "savages", as well as the no self-reflection, etc.

I agree they certainly would make excellent snipers as well as lawyers & salesman due to their indifference to morality but since it isn't a sociopaths fault they're sociopaths so I can't blame him for that either, I think he is just who is though the violence & subculture can be blamed on sociopaths and/or apathy.

[libdem4life]

54. Wasn't he the Dude who had a "conversation/monologue" with a chair on National TV? n/t

[Agnosticsherbet]

57. Eastwood was makeing a movie based on a book writen by Kyle.

which itself was written from the POV of Kyle.

He wasn't makeing a documentary.

And we are talking about a guy who speaks to chairs.

[DesertDawg]

59. I think the title of the movie should be

American Liar, Tales from America's Biggest Bullshitter. Normally I respect the troops, but this clown was a typical Redneck loudmouth caught telling bullshit stories(Knocking out Jesse Ventura in California that never happened), going off of that whopper and the fact that actual Sniper badasses never brag about what they do(they have no need), and going after the fact this clown self pegged himself "the World's Deadliest Sniper" it's safe to say he was full of shit and overcompensating. Fuck him and fuck this bullshit movie.

[Blue_In_AK]

61. I'm not a big fan of war movies,

but I like mine more nuanced, like "Lone Survivor."

[7962]

68. The movie is about Kyle, not the war or the nonsense that led to it

No movie ever gets it all right. Even with Selma, many have criticized how LBJ was portrayed as being ambivalent about the civil rights movement, when records show he was supportive of it early on. Thats just the way it goes with the movies.

[Dawson Leery]

87. kick

[Cha]

88. KICK

[Ellipsis]

89. Eastwood was second choice to direct and Jason Hall wrote the script not Eastood

Ya got a problem? ...bitch at the writer.

After losing Steven Spielberg as director, Warners Bros. has acted quickly to find a director for “American Sniper” with Clint Eastwood in talks to helm the biopic starring Bradley Cooper.

Jason Hall penned the script for “Sniper” about a Navy SEAL recounting his military career that included more than 150 confirmed kills. Film is based on the book “American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History” by Chris Kyle, Scott McEwan and Jim DeFelice.

Cooper’s production company 22nd & Indiana Pictures and Andrew Lazar’s Mad Chance Productions optioned rights to the book a year ago.

Eastwood is in production on the adaptation of “Jersey Boys” and would jump to “American Sniper” once the musical finishes filming.


http://variety.com/2013/film/news/clint-eastwood-american-sniper-warners-1200585301/

[Enthusiast]

90. But it's the only war we have!!!

We have to celebrate the heroism! No matter how fucking twisted it is. You know, if we are to maintain this military culture (mentality) so we will be prepared for future war already being planned (2017).

If I'm not mistaken Eastwood made a movie about Grenada. FUCKING GRENADA! [URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]

Don't we think the CIA/American taxpayers funded the entire thing? Come on!

[valerief]

91. Clearly, Cooper is just another ho. Like Eastwood. Bought and paid for by the PTB. nt

[Bigredhunk]

92. I know it's not the case en masse

But the way this movie is doing at the box office and the way fans are reacting to it (A+ Cinemascore, raving to others), it feels like we're back in 2003. My friend is a teacher. She was telling her students and peers about "Selma" yesterday (MLK Jr Day) at school. Every time she brought it up, someone (student, peer) would bring up "Sniper" and they'd all start talking about that. It feels a lot like the "hoo rah" days up to/at the beginning of the Iraq invasion.

[lame54]

93. Another reviewer reviewing the movie he didn't see and not the movie he saw...

Godard said: "In order to criticize a movie, you have to make another movie."

Can't wait Peter Maass's interpretation of the Iraq war

[lame54]

94. How I'm going to ignore the critics and go see this movie

[gollygee]

95. Well this is a guy who debated a chair, and lost.

You can't expect much.

[Dawson Leery]

96. LOL!

He and Cooper (star of the "Luminary Masterwork" "The Hangover&quot are a perfect couple.