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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAn unrepentant whitewash of murder and occupation, American Sniper shouldn’t be up for any Oscars
Hollywood at War
An unrepentant whitewash of murder and occupation, American Sniper shouldnt be up for any Oscars tonight.
by Stephen Maher
Great art is always ambiguous. Rather than giving us answers, it forces us to ask new questions; complexity is its hallmark. None of this applies to American Sniper, a truly abhorrent film that cannot be confused with art, much less great art.
Yet I suspect that the already deafening praise the film has received will only grow as Chris Kyles image as a national war hero is amplified both by Bradley Coopers Oscar nomination and the ongoing trial of Kyles murderer, Eddie Routh, a veteran struggling with severe mental health problems who Kyle had reached out to after returning home.
When not articulated within hawkish narratives emphasizing the glory or necessity of war, the very real suffering of so many returning soldiers is largely framed within the familiar dovish critique of American imperialism repeated by American Sniper which casts the war as a misguided expenditure of our lives and resources.
My antipathy for American Sniper isnt an unthinking revulsion toward any film I perceive to be conservative. It is certainly possible for reactionary films to be so skillfully and intelligently constructed that they are great works, even if the way they deal with their subject matter and the conclusions they draw from it are revolting.
Consider, for example, many of Lars von Triers mind-bending but often misogynist films, such as Dogville; or Stanley Kubricks artful affirmation of the bourgeois family in Eyes Wide Shut; or John Fords Stagecoach, a film that glorifies the massacre of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, but which was so well technically executed that Orson Welles claimed to have seen it forty times while making Citizen Kane.
As in countless countries, and in countless wars, American Sniper attempts to construct a war hero for us to worship that is beyond politics. What we get instead is a hackneyed paean to brutish masculinity, and a film whose banality is lessened only by the shock of its whitewashing of the crimes of the American invasion and occupation of Iraq even as it adopts a dovish, critical attitude toward the war.
more: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/02/american-sniper-war-violence-oscars/
RoverSuswade
(641 posts)And launch a neo-neocon rush to war with Russia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Chad, Mexico.......................
....
you know.....USA! USA! USA!
hlthe2b
(102,297 posts)while I agree with your concerns and disgust at the Neocon exploitation in some horribly perverted sense of patriotism, it seems even Eastwood agrees to some extent that the focus of the movie was no "real" hero.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/eastwood-reacts-to-michael-moore-bill-mahers-american-sniper-criticism/
That said (and though I instinctively do hope it doesn't win), from an artistic point of view, I don't think a movie based on a truly flawed (or even horrendous figure) could not be crafted in such a way to earn an Oscar nod.
It is a complex issue and I do have to hope it doesn't win for reasons unrelated to the artistic value of the movie.
bigwillq
(72,790 posts)May win for sound.
onenote
(42,714 posts)No one expected sniper to win much of anything. and it didn't. Fact based reality isn't a bad place to visit.
BTW -- the fact it didn't win much doesn't mean it was a bad movie or an undeserving nominee anymore than the Imitation Game's failure to win much of anything means it was a bad movie or an under serving nominee.
RoverSuswade
(641 posts)I thought DUers were above that. This day started out so great for me and your insulting comment just ruined it. Thanks a lot.
onenote
(42,714 posts)I'm ignorant about certain subjects myself.
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)Her quote: "It's Swishy Tripe"
My quote: Pass the popcorn and a barf bag.
And this monstrosity is up for awards ???
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Initech
(100,081 posts)madokie
(51,076 posts)My war was just as wrong as these wars were/are.
There's no glory to be found in destroying a country and killing its people