Who has seen American Sniper?

[Owledge]

It's weird: There's a new movie - American Sniper.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2179136
People keep ranting how it's US military glorification or something. But it's directed by Clint Eastwood. Now allegedly he is quite right-wing, but then I also remember him directing that movie duo about Pearl Harbor, first on US side, then Jap side, so showing both sides.
I could imagine though that this is a case of hindsight-always-20/20 and that he doesn't see the similarities between past and present warfare.
I am tempted to watch the movie just to find out, because the reviews I could find are useless in this regards, because conflicting. But I'd hate it if it DID have ambiguous messages and I paid for something like that.

So can you give me your view on that that clarifies this uncertainty? Is this a movie that points out the negative sides of warfare in general but glorifies the nationalistic propaganda story of the (troubled but) hero soldier? Is this movie conveying a message of the likes of "We need to take good care of our brave men, they're fighting against evil terrorists."? Or does it seem like a legit anti-war movie that shows the horrors of the folly and only depicts all the glory and pathos in order to portray the situation realistically?

Edited January 25, 2015 by Owledge

[Astral Monk]

its absolutely not an anti-war movie. It pays pathetic lip service to dissent, like half a scene. Just the same as many US war movies about the middle east in the last 10 yr---vets get ptsd, trouble at home, comradery, lets go boys and salute fallen Jimmy etc.

 

Not agreat movie by any means, not sure why theres oscar buzz. For me the story wasnt impactful, cinematically.

 

8)

[Owledge]

It pays pathetic lip service to dissent, like half a scene.

Sounds like that other movie about hostage rescue in Iran, where, AFAIK, they gave a brief intro revealing the US misdeeds and then the rest was all like 'But that just for context, what matters now is the heroic acts of our CIA agents.' (And even that being an insult to the Canadians who actually did the main work.)

[ralis]

It is trying to make a hero of this guy fighting an illegal war. No hero whatsoever! The gun toting pro war crowd loves it.

 

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com

"I don't give a fuck it's your house": American Sniper's Failure

[silent thunder]

oh.

another war movie.

 

oh yay.

[soaring crane]

It is trying to make a hero of this guy fighting an illegal war. No hero whatsoever! The gun toting pro war crowd loves it.

 

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com

"I don't give a fuck it's your house": American Sniper's Failure

Woot!

[silent thunder]

fucking war...

 

the fucktards that start wars, don't fight in them, they profit from them...

 

 

here's a gun, now get on this plane and fly over to (_____).

now kill people that you have never met

because you are told to

 

war is killing people you've never met, to make some rich, fat guy, richer.

[ralis]

Just read where Eastwood is claiming it is an anti war movie.

[soaring crane]

I'm hoping he's just trolling the chest thumpers.

[Owledge]

I suspect he might have tried so much to make it a balanced movie that he forgot that the truth isn't balanced at all.

[ralis]

This is indicative of abject stupidity,

 

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/gop-rep-eastwoods-movie-is-very-accurate-and-youth-of-america-need-examples-like-chris-kyle/

 

 

 

Rep. Adam Kitzinger (R-IL) on Sunday declared that Chris Kyle, the Navy SEAL sniper who set a record for killing the most people, should be a role model for children in the United States.

Edited January 26, 2015 by ralis

[Owledge]

This is indicative of abject stupidity,

 

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/gop-rep-eastwoods-movie-is-very-accurate-and-youth-of-america-need-examples-like-chris-kyle/

A bunch of people jerking each other off. The host adding a necessary disclaimer of loyalty that he is not a traitor to the glory of their beloved empire.

USA is so damn similar to the Roman empire. Well, who did expect anything else? Just look at what architecture and symbology the government has been donning all the time.

[joeblast]

"The fact that the leaders of their country betrayed them in the most elemental way possible never enters the equation."

 

I knew this about it without know much of anything about it

[Astral Monk]

 

war is killing people you've never met, to make some rich, fat guy, richer.

absolutely. And the fat guys on both sides get together after and have a laugh how they played the masses. Again.

 

8)

[ralis]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026141727

 

 

Former Marine on Chris Kyle, American Sniper, and Social Implications

 

 

Former Marine on Chris Kyle, American Sniper, and Social Implications
Posted on January 27, 2015 by Robert Barsocchini

Ross Caputi, a former marine who participated in the US’s second siege of Fallujah, writes that the reason the American Sniper book and film have been so successful is that they “tell us exactly what we want to hear”: that US America is “benevolent” and “righteous”. That, he says, is why the book and film are so popular; their popularity speaks volumes about US society, and signals more danger ahead for the rest of the world.



The killings for which Chris Kyle is idolized, Caputi notes, were perpetrated during his participation in the second US siege of Fallujah, which Caputi, from firsthand knowledge, calls an “atrocity”.

Specifically of the siege, Caputi notes:

“All military aged males were forced to stay within the city limits of Fallujah” (while women and children were warned to flee through the desert on foot)

“…an estimated 50,000 civilians were trapped in (Fallujah) during this month long siege without water” (since the US had cut off water and electricity to the city)

“…almost no effort was taken to make a distinction between civilian men and combatants. In fact, in many instances civilians and combatants were deliberately conflated.”

“The US did not treat military action (against Fallujah) as a last resort. The peace negotiations with the leadership in Fallujah were canceled by the US.”

“(The US) killed between 4,000 to 6,000 civilians, displaced 200,000, and may have created an epidemic of birth defects and cancers“

“(The siege was) conducted with indiscriminate tactics and weapons, like the use of reconnaissance-by-fire, white phosphorous, and the bombing of residential neighborhoods. The main hospital was also treated as a military target.”

.........

The US invasion of Iraq, Caputi concludes, was “the imposition of a political and economic project against the will of the majority of Iraqis. … We had no right to invade a sovereign nation, occupy it against the will of the majority of its citizens, and patrol their streets.”


MORE (Plus Links to all the points above):
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/01/former-marine-chris-kyle-american-sniper-social-implications.html

Edited January 27, 2015 by ralis

[Owledge]

After I've read about Eastwood's quite extreme stance towards Michael Moore, involving passive aggression, thinly veiled threats, the picture gets quite clear. Eastwood sees himself as a patriotic GOP guy with anti-warish filmmaking as a personal hobby. It's a troubling cognitive dissonance. He's a dinosaur. Someone who believes that those who caused the problems should solve them without changing their mindset. Anti-war yes, but only in the good old republican patriotic way. Hah.

 

http://www.salon.com/2015/01/26/american_snipers_biggest_lie_clint_eastwood_has_a_delusional_fox_news_problem/

Edited January 27, 2015 by Owledge

[ralis]

The Ross Caputi film mentioned in my last post. I haven't watched it yet.

 

http://vimeo.com/80051615

[ralis]

Scathing commentary on the movie as well as the deep rooted problems in American society.

 

 

http://www.alternet.org/culture/chris-hedges-american-sniper-caters-deep-sickness-rippling-through-society

 

Chris Hedges: 'American Sniper' Caters to a Deep Sickness Rippling Through Society

 

A few quotes from the article.

 

 

 

American Sniper” lionizes the most despicable aspects of U.S. society—the gun culture, the blind adoration of the military, the belief that we have an innate right as a “Christian” nation to exterminate the “lesser breeds” of the earth, a grotesque hypermasculinity that banishes compassion and pity, a denial of inconvenient facts and historical truth, and a belittling of critical thinking and artistic expression. Many Americans, especially white Americans trapped in a stagnant economy and a dysfunctional political system, yearn for the supposed moral renewal and rigid, militarized control the movie venerates. These passions, if realized, will extinguish what is left of our now-anemic open society.

 

 

 

“They use violence to prey on people,” the father goes on. “They’re the wolves. Then there are those blessed with the gift of aggression and an overpowering need to protect the flock. They are a rare breed who live to confront the wolf. They are the sheepdog. We’re not raising any sheep in this family.”

The father lashes his belt against the dining room table.

“I will whup your ass if you turn into a wolf,” he says to his two sons. “We protect our own. If someone tries to fight you, tries to bully your little brother, you have my permission to finish it.”

 

 

Hedges final summation of the book and movie.

 

 

The culture of war banishes the capacity for pity. It glorifies self-sacrifice and death. It sees pain, ritual humiliation and violence as part of an initiation into manhood. Brutal hazing, as Kyle noted in his book, was an integral part of becoming a Navy SEAL. New SEALs would be held down and choked by senior members of the platoon until they passed out. The culture of war idealizes only the warrior. It belittles those who do not exhibit the warrior’s “manly” virtues. It places a premium on obedience and loyalty. It punishes those who engage in independent thought and demands total conformity. It elevates cruelty and killing to a virtue. This culture, once it infects wider society, destroys all that makes the heights of human civilization and democracy possible. The capacity for empathy, the cultivation of wisdom and understanding, the tolerance and respect for difference and even love are ruthlessly crushed. The innate barbarity that war and violence breed is justified by a saccharine sentimentality about the nation, the flag and a perverted Christianity that blesses its armed crusaders. This sentimentality, as Baldwin wrote, masks a terrifying numbness. It fosters an unchecked narcissism. Facts and historical truths, when they do not fit into the mythic vision of the nation and the tribe, are discarded. Dissent becomes treason. All opponents are godless and subhuman. “American Sniper” caters to a deep sickness rippling through our society. It holds up the dangerous belief that we can recover our equilibrium and our lost glory by embracing an American fascism.

Edited January 30, 2015 by ralis

[dust]

I would "like" that, but... fuck. Too scary.

[Owledge]

Wow, until I did more reading now, I wasn't aware that the movie is based on an actual person, and on his autobiographical book ... and that the movie made him appear nicer and less of a total sociopath than he actually was.

I also believe it was no conicidence that American Sniper came to cinema on MLK day, along the movie Selma about him. Yet another distraction-from-truth operation.

Edited January 31, 2015 by Owledge

[taoismtaoism]

I thought the movie was quite good. I didn't like the ending though.

[ralis]

I thought the movie was quite good. I didn't like the ending though.

 

Please explain what was good about it.

[dogson]

Anti-War is still getting people focused on war. This is a movie about someone who kills people, released on Christmas day. The message is very clear.

[Apech]

Watched this film and there was not much to it really. So it'll probably get Oscars. It left me feeling desperately sorry for anyone who was killed or maimed in that conflict. Disgusting waste. But that was not the film's purpose as it seemed just to want to celebrate the strong silent type (Mr. Eastwood himself probably).