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Topic: American Sniper

Dave Macaulay
Film God

Posts: 2321
From: Toronto, Canada
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 02-24-2015 08:03 AM

I can appreciate this is well done propaganda but it looks a lot like Heartbreak Ridge II to me.
The film demonizes the Iraqi populace and glorifies the US invaders. The "good" Iraqi is included only to have a scene where the "bad" one can show sadistic evil.
Since it's loosely based on a true story, the ending is a bit sudden and disappointing. His death is still in court (murder trial) so maybe they couldn't present any version of it. Kyle may have finally been a better husband and father after discharge but he seems to have really been a fool - he started a business "helping" vets with PTSD and, amazingly, thought taking them to a live firing range was therapeutic... the PTSD affected vet who killed him appears to have (unsurprisingly) freaked out into a flashback and started shooting whatever enemies he was imagining.
There may be a worse place to take someone like that - hand him a loaded rifle and start shooting beside him - but I can't think of one.
Every soldier I have spoken to hates snipers - except for their side's of course. Hiding and killing people who can't see you doesn't quite add up to "hero" for me.
Anyway, technically good movie with good sound, I heard it in Imax "immersive" sound.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 02-24-2015 12:50 PM

While lots of people have applied their own political spin to their interpretation of American Sniper, I don't think the movie really qualifies as propaganda. It shows plenty of horrible things about war, including the main character having to do things that are very unflattering to any "hero" archetype.

quote: Dave Macaulay
Kyle may have finally been a better husband and father after discharge but he seems to have really been a fool - he started a business "helping" vets with PTSD and, amazingly, thought taking them to a live firing range was therapeutic... the PTSD affected vet who killed him appears to have (unsurprisingly) freaked out into a flashback and started shooting whatever enemies he was imagining.

At the very least Kyle and his friend were naive and perhaps cavalier about taking someone dealing with PTSD to a gun range. I know a couple people struggling with PTSD. The sounds of gunfire and even fireworks are the last things they need to be hearing, especially if the condition is not under control. Not everyone thinks PTSD is a serious, legitimate medical/psychological problem. Some people have the attitude a veteran suffering from PTSD can just pick themselves up, "be a man" and get over it at will.

With that being said, other accounts of this double murder have suggested the killer acted deliberately. Chris Kyle owned a really nice pickup truck and may have been murdered over it.

quote: Dave Macaulay
Every soldier I have spoken to hates snipers - except for their side's of course. Hiding and killing people who can't see you doesn't quite add up to "hero" for me.

While it may seem morally repugnant to deliberatly pick off an unsuspecting enemy soldier, any arguments suggesting other forms of warfare are morally superior fall apart quickly when examining the details and end results.

If our military wants to eliminate a "bad guy" enemy target they can do it using a number of different methods. They can have a sniper surgically target that bad guy with just one bullet and know without a doubt if the bad guy was eliminated. Or they could drop a bomb on a building where the bad guy is hiding, possibly never knowing for certain if the bad guy was eliminated, but knowing without a doubt other people not intended as targets, such as civilians, would probably be killed in the bombing. In any method used the intention is still there to kill that bad guy. Sniper warfare just gets the job done with the least amount of collateral damage.

Enemy deaths that come from more conventional forms of warfare (like dropped bombs, missiles, group military operations, etc.) may seem incidental on the surface, but there really is no moral difference between those actions and those of a sniper. The enemy is being targeted either way; the difference is some methods are more focused and specific than others. Snipers are also not the only ones deliberately placing a reticle on an enemy target and pulling the trigger. A "grunt" on the field does it with his rifle. A gunner on a helicopter does it with a 20mm cannon. A drone pilot does it looking at a computer screen. In most cases the enemy won't even know what hit him. The moral salvation in all of this is knowing that enemy being targeted wants to kill you or your fellow soldiers.

Here is why I could argue snipers like Chris Kyle are heroes: they can actually save lives.

Sniper warfare is a very powerful psychological tool. It can pin down and demoralize an enemy with a minimal loss of life and bullets spent. One of the reasons why American and British snipers were deployed in Iraq was to counter insurgent efforts of planting Improvised Explosive Devices along key roadways used by our coalition troops. Insurgents weren't quite so eager to plant remote control bombs once they knew there was a chance they could take a .50 caliber bullet through the skull from a mile away in the process.

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Terry Lynn-Stevens
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1081
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2012

posted 02-24-2015 10:31 PM

quote: Dave Macaulay
I can appreciate this is well done propaganda but it looks a lot like Heartbreak Ridge II to me.
The film demonizes the Iraqi populace and glorifies the US invaders. The "good" Iraqi is included only to have a scene where the "bad" one can show sadistic evil.

And that is beauty of this movie, those who "have" seen it have drawn different conclusions. I came to the conclusion that it was a tragedy for every person involved in the whole Iraq War. I did not find it to be well done propaganda at all, although a friend of mine tonight mentioned that he felt the same way as you.

quote: Dave Macaulay
I heard it in Imax "immersive" sound.

Great choice [thumbsup]

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Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1400
From: Davie, FL, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 02-25-2015 05:58 AM

quote: Dave Macaulay
I can appreciate this is well done propaganda

Bobby's post above was great but I wanted to add a little to it. Before you (and others) make this statement about this movie you need to learn the definition of "propaganda."

Propaganda is "information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view."

What political cause or point of view is promoted by "American Sniper?" The answer is none. It doesn't make a case for the US being in Iraq. It doesn't make a case in favor of war in general.

What made the movie great is that it just showed what was happening, good and bad, in the war in general and to Chris Kyle specifically.

To echo Bobby's point about snipers. The whole concept of morally correct killing of enemy soldiers is ludicrous. The pre-Revolutionary War method of lining up on the battlefield like gentleman and shooting at each other was retarded. The goal of a war is to kill as many enemy soldiers as possible while killing and injuring as few civilians as possible until the enemy surrenders. Snipers help to achieve that goal.

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Pravin Ratnam
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 844
From: Atlanta, GA,USA
Registered: Sep 2002

posted 02-25-2015 09:50 AM

Exactly, a Sniper's way of shooting the enemy is valid. It's not devoid of danger. snipers get killed. We aren't talking about snipers in civilian buildings in a peaceful zone taking out civilians.

I thought the movie was above average but not great and outlined my criticisms in my prior post. But this movie being propaganda isn't one of them. The movie does nothing to spread propaganda about the war. The war is just the backdrop. They even have a scene where Chris Kyle's brother and another scene where another soldier doesn't believe in the war.

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 02-25-2015 01:29 PM

"Propaganda" is a highly loaded term which, whatever its formal dictionary definition, implies to most people an organized and systematic attempt to manipulate people into supporting an action, viewpoint or policy that is not necessarily in their interest, without them knowing that they are being manipulated, and usually done by government, military or big business type agencies. Say the word to the average citizen and (s)he'll immediately think of Goebbels. It has fundamentally negative connotations, and probably always will.

Jowett and O'Donnell suggest that "persuasion" is probably a more useful way of describing movies like this one. I would suggest that American Sniper probably does have an ideological agenda, which is to make its audience feel positively about the US armed forces in general and that, in spite of all the criticism that has been voiced about the Iraq war, some good did come of it.

But I don't think there's anything underhand or deceptive about the way that agenda is communicated: Clint Eastwood's politics are well known and he makes no secret of them, and no attempt is being made to conceal who made this movie and why.

That is why Seth Rogan likening it to Nazi propaganda is so incredibly stupid. Goebbels went to great lengths to hide the political message behind a cloak of neutral-looking entertainment in about 99.5% of the films made under his leadership of the Nazi studios. You would need a history degree now to decode the propaganda elements of most of them (typical example from 1937) - the rebellious character who defies leadership meets a sticky end, the woman who has an affair and breaks up the marriage of a blonde, blue-eyed couple is dark-haired and has an eastern European accent and a Jewish-sounding name, that sort of thing.

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Terry Lynn-Stevens
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1081
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2012

posted 02-25-2015 02:49 PM

quote: Leo Enticknap
That is why Seth Rogan likening it to Nazi propaganda is so incredibly stupid.

Seth Rogen did not even see the movie.

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