beginning of Wu Qiao's movie "American Sniper", a moral dilemma was thrown: how to make a murderer with blood on his hands look like a hero? At the personal level, this dilemma is the key to whether the American sniper Chris Kyle can be called a "hero"; at the national level, it is also the foundation of whether US national behavior can be called "justice". In fact, the whole film is just solving this problem.
Immediately afterwards, the director couldn’t wait to give a simple and rude answer, using the tongue of Father Chris to say: There are three kinds of people in the world, sheep, wolf and shepherd. Our family does not allow sheep, nor can they There are evil wolves, but when your family is bullied, you should fight back-protect your family and be a shepherd dog. What the father, who fits the image of an old tough guy in the United States, said is nothing more than a sentence: "If people do not offend me, I will not offend; if anyone offends me, I will offend." The film tries to attribute his later value orientation to the education he received from his father in his childhood through a few pens about Chris' childhood life. Then through two terrorist attacks — one of which is of course the 9/11 incident — tried to explain Chris’ later life direction: Chris had to go to the battlefield only to protect his homeland and eventually became a murderer in American history. Most of the snipers.
In fact, at this time, the movie has already changed its position, extending the creed of Chris' father from the personal level to the national level. Chris was spurred by terrorist incidents and joined the army, but he fought the Iraq War. This movie logic makes the Iraq War seem to be the United States’ last resort to fight terrorism to safeguard national interests. In the inexplicable words, the film whitewashed the Iraq war by the way, and Chris's Shepherd Dog Code became the incarnation of the American spirit.
Later, the film also made other attempts. For example, when Chris had to kill a child, he showed his struggle between a sense of mission and a sense of guilt. However, this can only prove that he is a person of conscience, but it cannot prove him. Is a hero. In fact, none of Chris's actions went beyond his own shepherd dog guidelines.
But after all, this is a story adapted from real events and history, and regardless of whether the purpose of the U.S. war in Iraq is really what the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Greenspan said-"largely for oil", it is certain that In any case, this much-maligned war cannot be called "just". I think the director Eastwood was aware of this problem, so he did not dare to openly raise the banner of "war on terrorism" in the film. Instead, use personal stories to try to explain state behavior. However, such a defense is actually the same as Bush’s red-mouthed and white-fanged accusation that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, and it is not very convincing.
I can’t help but compare the film directors Clint Eastwood and Chris Kyle. The film’s lack of in-depth thinking and self-intoxicating sense of justice are compared with the tough and dualistic appearance of Chris in the film. The opposite values and the image of stubborn passion are very similar. This is actually just another example of Hollywood’s personal heroism that has been tirelessly copying and pasting. Compared with the "wise generals" like the British "national" hero "Holmes", it seems that only the United States is still obsessed with this black-and-white image of a man with well-developed limbs.
A slightly more complicated character appeared in the film. Two weeks before the death of Chris’ comrade-in-arms on the battlefield, he expressed doubts and reflections on the war in a letter to his family. He suspected that these people who were praised as heroes, After the aura of patriotism fades, can it withstand the historical punishment? Chris simply regarded this reflection as weakness, believing that it was this suspicion that robbed him of his fighting spirit and killed him. In this way, the film cut off this budding thought.
In the latter part of the film, the plot develops over time and alternates between battlefield and family. Chris' character changes are more represented at home, and the sound of the battlefield follows him back home, preventing him from fully returning to reality. However, I gradually realized that the director's intention was not to show the psychological ravages of war, and eventually explained Chris' psychological problems as guilt that he could not save more comrades in. Throughout the film, the praise of Chris, the hero, has not left.
Since history cannot be arbitrarily tampered with, the film cannot match Chris with a heavyweight villain like Osama Bin Laden-after all, the death of Osama Bin Laden has nothing to do with Chris a dime-and has to bring in another legendary sharpshooter. Come and Chris have a great deal. The villain’s marksmanship is mentioned in the dialogue at the beginning of the film, but it is only for the sake of the legend of Chris in the latter part of the film.
Before watching this film, I didn't know anything about Chris Kyle's life and deeds. I didn't doubt that he was loyal to the United States. However, Chris's funeral scene at the end of the film did not make me emotional. As a movie, "American Sniper" has no more literal thinking about the word "patriotism". And Chris's personal story failed to escape the stereotype of personal heroism. The worst thing is that I think this film does what the film shouldn't do: it becomes a tool of national propaganda. "American Sniper" is a typical American movie; Chris Kyle, after all, can only be an American hero.
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