Another Fistful: the American Sniper Franchise and Clint Eastwood’s Post-9/11 American War Film as Neo-Western
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Authors
Buchanan, David
Issue Date
2018
Type
Book chapter
Language
en_US
Keywords
Alternative Title
The Films of Clint Eastwood: Critical Perspectives
Chapter Ten. Another Fistful by David Buchanan
Chapter Ten. Another Fistful by David Buchanan
Abstract
Another Fistful The American Sniper Franchise and Clint Eastwood’s Post-9/11 American War Film as Neo-Western David Buchanan M uch has been said about the American Sniper franchise that Chris Kyle, Clint Eastwood, Jason Hall, and Bradley Cooper ushered into cultural significance in 2014. Yes, Kyle’s service as a Navy SEAL began and concluded far before his “autobiography” (a book cowritten with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice) appeared in 2012, but the book, the lies Kyle told about Jesse Ventura, the extra Silver Star he dishonestly claimed, and the murder that ended his life all make Chris Kyle a troubling icon for America’s post-9/11 wars. What is it about Kyle’s particular war experience and the manner in which he reflected on that experience that led to the franchise’s massive popularity, a popularity that exploded when Eastwood ’s film version of Kyle’s book appeared? The answer is troubling and elusive, but the debate that circles the American Sniper franchise is an important one, for the debate is about so much more than Chris Kyle. Not only does the franchise force many to consider the manner in which Americans care for and memorialize veterans, but it also asks us all to ponder the way military members conceive an enemy he or she is asked to kill on our behalf. At a minimum, Chris Kyle’s story and 170 David Buchanan the way Eastwood tells it forced many civilians, for the first time, to form and express opinions about a war that, in 2014, had become so easy to forget. As far as Eastwood’s film is concerned, however, the debate about American Sniper typically surrounds the dueling issues of authenticity, historiography , and the political moment that Kyle presents in his book and that Eastwood adapts to film. Sophia A. McClennen best summarizes the basic offensiveness of the American Sniper film. She writes: The logic of war is completely unquestioned, making this the most simplistic war film we have seen nominated for an Oscar in decades. But the fact that the film has no nuance, no context and no subtlety should not surprise us. . . . This is a movie that’s not just about a sniper, but also about an attitude that threatens to destroy any chance in our nation for political compromise and productive debate. And that’s what makes this movie really disturbing. And disturbing it most certainly is. Both the book and the movie focus on Kyle’s life before and during his service in Iraq, deployments that allowed this exceptionally effective and unapologetic Navy SEAL to amass a total of 160 confirmed kills as a sniper. So McClennen is right to say that the movie is disturbing. That phrase alone—160 confirmed kills as a sniper—should be enough to disturb anyone. But, since the movie appeared, one thing has become fairly clear about the debates that circle Chris Kyle and the movie Jason Hall (the screenwriter) and Clint Eastwood ushered into existence: what disturbs one American doesn’t always necessarily disturb any others. Indeed, some people aren’t disturbed at all by the puritanical savage/civilian binary that Kyle explicitly invokes in his book, a binary he puts to good use as he justifies, defends, explains, and compartmentalizes the actions he took as a sniper. Here is Kyle in his book: Savage, despicable evil. That’s what we were fighting in Iraq. That’s why a lot of people, myself included, called the enemy “savages.” There really was no other way to describe what we encountered there. People ask me all the time, “How many people have you killed?” My standard response is, “Does the answer make me less, or more, of a man?” [104.3.77.79] Project MUSE (2024-09-11 14:26 GMT) 171 Another Fistful The number is not important to me. I only wish I had killed more. Not for bragging rights, but because I believe the world is a better place without savages out there taking American lives. (4) It is important for Kyle that he maintains this binary, and his repeated utterance of such a Manichaean world view is sufficient fodder for most critics to, as Alex Trimble Young writes, “discredit the film’s humanization of Kyle” and thereby “neglect the nuances of its plot and camera work.” Translating unvarnished reportage into nuanced art is a difficult feat, so Young is...
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Publisher
University of New Mexico Press