Jesus was a pacifist. So the church has struggled with war
for centuries. The movie American Sniper has become a point of contention. It
seems to permit more than a bit of a projection for those who supported the war
in Iraq
and those who opposed it. We read a lot into it based on our preconceptions
about the war. Second, it continues the
issue of looking at private and public life. Third, it continues our difficulty
with the post modern blurring of fact and fiction. I frankly don’t grasp those
who expect a movie to be a documentary.
This is perhaps the best-made film by a director in his
eighties. Some of the scenes are shown from Kyle’s point of view, and that
tends to build identification with his character. One feels the deadly strain
of close quarter’s urban combat. Lots of cross cutting and editing build
momentum in the combat scenes, and the scenes move at a crawl when he is
struggling to make a decision to fire. It highlights the limitations placed on
troops in a situation such as Iraq
with no clear objectives or tactics for one to declare victory. In other words,
the film shows savagery on all sides.
I frankly don’t grasp the complaint that movies should be
documentaries. It seems we now go into the theater with the expectation that
our opinions need to be confirmed to make them affirmed. Some think it
glamorizes war with its sniper hero. For me, the movie depicts the terrors and
horrors of war and its aftermath. Rita Nakashima Brock runs a program in Texas dealing with the
“moral injury” of those in war who continue to find their ethical compass
disoriented. Kyle is shown making decisions about killing a woman or a child if
they pose a threat to American soldiers. We want a match between public and
private behavior and motives. That is not the case frequently. Pure heroes are
rare beings. At any rate, we enter some murky waters trying to isolate his
actual viewpoints and those presented in the movie. It may be based on his
book, but any movie takes dramatic license to present its story. For that mater,
maybe many new outlets should place the statement, “based on actual events”
before their broadcasts.
It renewed my fury at those who seem so willing to send
young men and women to die but want to pinch pennies for their acclimation to
civilian life upon returning. Part of this is our steadfast refusal to see
mental and emotional injury fully. We continue to want to blame the victim for
lack of will power or strength. When Kyle’s therapist tells him that the VA had
lots of people who needed saving, he pointed to a huge number of people wounded
in body, mind, and spirit. The very capacity to \wall off emotions in wartime can
come back to haunt the returning vet. Yet, the movie shows the obvious pain and
despair of many of the returning vets, including the seeming super-human Kyle
himself. The all-volunteer force has tamped down protest, as the military does
not represent a fuller cross-section of the country.
I thought it showed the immense strain that deployments,
especially multiple deployments, take on a family. The stress of joining one’s
comrades in arms collides with the guilt of leaving family. The family resents
the deployment, even as they honor the obvious risk and sacrifice made in our
relatively new volunteer armed forces. It is a fearsome existence to dread
every phone call, every knock on the door.
At their best, movies open eyes to new perspectives.
American Sniper takes aim at the welter of responses to the long war in Iraq and the
longer battle for restoring the lives of those who have borne the weight of
war.
No comments:
Post a Comment