American Sniper: A Decisive Movie by Clint Eastwood and Its Impact
War movies have an eternal market and hence seek applause irrespective of the sociopolitical situation of the nation. And this specific genre has received the best movies over the past few decades encapsulating the various aspects of struggle, victory, loss, and psychological reasons behind them. Among them deserves a special mention as it has fired actors on both the commercial scale as well as the critical side, is American Sniper Directed by Clint Eastwood.
A Career-defining Star for Bradley Cooper
American Sniper was released for masses in 2014 and thus became an essential milestone in the career of Bradley Cooper who was otherwise involved in a lot of comedic roles. He played Chris Kyle who was a U.S. Navy Seal sniper specializing in operations which main focus was to take out the most confirmed kills out of all US Military personnel. The movie was directed by Eastwood and produced by DreamWorks studios. His book serves as a background which gives the audience an idea about him being involved in the Iraq war and his mental disturbance post war during his civilian life.
Now, today, the viewer can watch this particular film on La Sexta at 10:30 p.m or stream it through Netflix.
American Sniper: A war depression for a changed vision of Iraq war
The Iraq war will always be remembered but thanks to American cinema slowly beginning to witness the change in perspective space the movie American Sniper rests at the right place and captures a time period which is remarkably at the peak of a story.
Movies like The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty examined the audience’s understanding of the war; its costs in the battlefront and the home front. However, Eastwood seems to have approached this differently in American Sniper stating it is a character driven biopic that he feels necessitates sympathizing with Kyle and his rationale.
Kyle’s battles are presented as absolutely central—his sense of mission, the warfare experience trauma, and the strain of being a soldier and a husband and father at the same time.
A Polarizing Execution
Though American Sniper went on to earn more than $547 million worldwide against a budget of just $60 million, which is close to ten times its budget, the movie has had controversies because of how it was made:
- Propaganda Allegations: Some people said that the film was one sided and focused on Americans killing all evil and showed what made Kyle go into war but did not explain much about the whole picture in Iraq.
- Plastic Baby Scene: Most viewers remember how an actor portrayed Kyle and held a baby doll with the horror of all things, ever since this clownish moment became a meme, many people began to see a once-run movie in a new light. This was however due to the perception that Eastwood rushed the making of the film.
- Eastwood’s Style in American Sniper: For the primary intention of the film American Sniper, which was to touch the softer aspect of a soldier’s life, was nowhere near the complexities captured in Eastwood’s/ writers’ previous works such as the Letters from Iwo Jima or Flags of Our Fathers.
Cultural and Cinematic Impact
There are controversies surrounding the film, American Sniper, however, the film can still be considered part of the American culture. Bradley Cooper credits American Sniper, that later saw him acting and directing A Star Is Born, and even mentoring him though he admits not liking Eastwood’s style which is clearly less is more.
The other thing that made it unforgettable in the area of war movies is that the film got immense box office collections as well as six nominations in the Academy awards including one for “Best Picture.” Nevertheless, its history is more so defined by its marketing rather than the economics involved.
Conclusion
It brings forward the issues virtue of narrative and the ethics of war, the role of cinema in depicting of history and the manipulation of public opinion. While it is easy to consider American Sniper a eulogy of the breast and praise it, the reality is quite different as many have understood it and find it excessively simplistic.