American Sniper

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Clarissa

January 19, 2015

It’s hilarious that the people who are freaking out about American Sniper and writing screeds on how evil it is are so often the same ones who loved Imitation Game. Both movies are about exactly the same thing: the transformation of warfare and the changing discourses on war. The protagonists are tortured by the same questions arising from the same power to kill from a distance when your victim doesn’t know you exist and might have done nothing wrong whatsoever.

War is leaving the realm of massification and is becoming individualized. That’s what these movies are about.

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16 responses to “American Sniper”

musteryou

January 19, 2015

The correct attitude to art or to anything produced as a book is not to argue that was is contained therein is “evil”, for this reveals an inability to distinguish between reality and art/movies. Art — books and movies — are not reality but are capable of leading you to raise questions about reality. You are not meant to gobble it and make it a part of your fibre in the same way that you internalize the notion that there are terrorist controlled “no go” zones in London and Paris. Art is not fries and it is not KFC. You can’t grow raving on at people, “I wanted to grow up, but not in this way that you are making me do!” It’s just fucking art. It’s not making you do anything.

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1. Clarissa
  
  January 19, 2015
  
  If only more people understood this, my job would be much easier. 🙂 The radical idea that a work of art is simply what you choose to make of it is inaccessible to many people. They assign their own feelings to a work of art, then get scared of having such feelings and hurry to condemn the work. And then do the same thing allover again. And again. And the entire time they are totally convinced that they are engaging with art instead of contemplating their own navels.
  
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  1. musteryou
    
    January 19, 2015
    
    Perhaps they ought to be a bit scared of having unused to or exotic feelings. If their lives have been pretty flat or morally prescribed, a flood of unusual or unexpected emotion can be frightening. I do find that there are some works that I have to prepare myself for, so that I am fresh and alert when I read them, because the emotional load behind the language is potentially intense. In the end it is as Nietzsche said, one cannot get out of a book what is not already present in the structure of one’s beings. Book revel us to ourselves.
    
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Stringer Bell

January 19, 2015

I’m missing this week’s encyclopedia so I’ll just put this here:

http://pando.com/2015/01/19/the-war-nerd-getting-women-warriors-wrong/

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1. Clarissa
  
  January 19, 2015
  
  I’m writing it right now, actually.
  
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  1. Stringer Bell
    
    January 19, 2015
    
    Ah, nice. Anyway, you’ll like this one.
    
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musteryou

January 19, 2015

I’m reading a book right now about terrorist activity in Rho/Zim. I hope people do not take offence to the terminology, but that is used by book, and one has to use some terminology or other to indicate the subject matter. It’s really about war in the raw. When people complain that very lightweight stuff they encounter in popular culture is offence, they indicate they haven’t tried this ganja. It’s really a bit too wild.

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Dan

January 21, 2015

It’s true people are probably overlooking the shared theme of warfare becoming more individualized, and it’s true people need to distinguish between a character being “evil” and the work that character is in being “evil”, but there are other reasons to approve of one movie but not the other. For one, U.S./British involvement in World War II is a much easier to justify than the operations in Iraq. The same goes for the characters themselves. People may be unfairly harsh on Chris Kyle because of rumors and controversy about his personality, but his foremost achievement was his number of kills, whereas Alan Turing was an exceptionally admirable person, especially outside of his wartime contributions. Therefore, making films that put those conflicts and characters in a somewhat favorable light would be seen as innocuous in the Imitation Game and suspicious in the American Sniper (hence the propaganda claims).

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1. Clarissa
  
  January 21, 2015
  “People may be unfairly harsh on Chris Kyle because of rumors and controversy about his personality, but his foremost achievement was his number of kills, whereas Alan Turing was an exceptionally admirable person, especially outside of his wartime contributions.”
  
  Have you seen the movie, though? The whole point of the film is that Turing starts making decisions to let civilians, refugees, and British soldiers be killed. There is a very poignant scene where he lets the brother of his co-worker die in spite of the co-worker’s pleadings. It’s not the part of him killing Nazis (which doesn’t even appear in the film) that is disturbing. It’s about Turing looking on the deaths of civilians in a way that is very similar for today’s drone operators.
  
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  1. Dan
    
    January 21, 2015
    
    I have seen it and I disagree that that was the whole point of the movie. I also disagree that that was even the point of that scene. That scene was very poignant and did explain the historical fact that, after breaking Enigma, the Allies had to make calculated decisions as to which decoded messages they could act as to not arouse German suspicions that Enigma had been broken. However, it did not actually happen. It was just an easy movie way to explain the fact that Turing’s work had to be kept secret, which is a much more integral aspect of the film than the wartime decisions of Allied generals. This was a biopic– the focus is on Turing more than any incidental allusions to the morality of modern wartime decisions. The fact that Turing’s efforts had to be kept secret is actually ties into one of the starkest differences between the Imitation Game and American Sniper. Whereas, Kyle was a decorated solider who was able to write a book and have a movie based on him in a couple years, Turing was not recognized for his efforts until many decades later, after which he had committed suicide because of the persecution by his own government.
    
    But even if you disagree on that, these movies do not boil down to a single scene or theme. The idea that “since the movies share a single similar theme, everyone who speaks out against one should speak out against the other” does not make sense to me.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      January 21, 2015
      
      Of course, everybody is entitled to their reading of absolutely any text but it is surprising to me that anybody would see Imitation Game as a biopic. Turing is very pointedly presented as a collection of stereotypes whose life begins and ends with breaking a code.
      
      Of course, you are absolutely right in that this movie has nothing to do with history. The phrase “We will break the code and win the war” that is central enough to make it into every trailer makes it obvious that this is not about history at all. Turing did not “win the war” or have any impact on it whatsoever. But the Turings of the future will be winning and losing wars. And that’s why the movie is interesting. Why watch it otherwise? There is zero character development, a very weak plot, no romantic line, and many stereotypes about autistics that we’ve all seen a thousand times.
      
      As for secrecy, there isn’t any in the movie. Everybody knows everything about everybody else but doesn’t care much. Which is also decidedly a feature of 2015, not 1943.
      
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      1. Dan
        
        January 21, 2015
        
        I understand you dislike the movie, but still don’t understand why it’s laughable for others to enjoy it while not enjoying American Sniper. The reasons you list as to why the Imitation Game was a bad movie are not the reasons people are speaking out against American Sniper.
        
        Also, saying Turing had no impact on the war is entirely wrong. While I agree his portrayal left something to be desired, it seems that you are the one stereotyping Turing as some equivalent to a drone operator. He was an incredible man, and I feel like what you see as his “life begins and ends with breaking a code”, I see as fierce work ethic and exceptional persistence, which the film portrayed well. His efforts during World War II pale in comparison to the contributions he made to computer science and mathematics, many of which allowed us to be sitting here discussing the movie about him.
        
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        Clarissa
        
        January 21, 2015
        
        I totally loved the movie. I think that’s clear from my review.
        
        You have got to understand that I’m not discussing “Turing the real person” here. I’m discussing “Turing the movie chatacter.” And these are two entirely different creatures from two entirely different universes.
        
        Just like Kyle from the movie, Kyle from the book, and Kyle in reality are 3 very different entities.
        
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Stille (@aperfectbalance)

January 21, 2015

I’m pretty sure people aren’t even paying attention to the films themselves – rather, they’re identifying with the archetypes closest to them and loathing the ones farther from them while not even paying attention to the fact that both said archetypes are used to promote the same precise message.

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1. Clarissa
  
  January 21, 2015
  
  Exactly. We could see something very interesting if we stepped away from party allegiances for a moment. But everything is just an opportunity to yell out the same old slogans. Nothing is food for thought.
  
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  1. Stille (@aperfectbalance)
    
    January 21, 2015
    
    I’ve seen neither movie (the sniper one seemed boring and patriotistic and I deeply dislike the actor playing adult Turing in The Imitation Game) but I’m very glad you did so you could tell me the two movies have the same vision of war. Wonder what’s the point of Democrat vs Republican in the US now
    
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