Hollywood is notorious for embellishing the truth for the sake of good storytelling. While the old saying might be that truth is often stranger than fiction, Hollywood has long chosen to forego portraying the whole truth, instead choosing to portray a truth closer to what they believe the audience will enjoy watching. American Sniper, while based on the memoirs of Chris Kyle, is a movie; there are inaccuracies in the way the film portrays many of the events that occurred in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Because the movie is based on a memoir, there may be even more inaccuracies. It is important to compare movies like American Sniper to the reality of war and current events, as films like these can give a relatively inaccurate image of war and politics if they are relied on completely for facts. Perhaps one of the most interesting parts of the film is the tagline that is designed to draw in the audience: in his memoir, Chris Kyle claims to be the most lethal sniper in the history of the United States (American Sniper).
Clint Eastwood, the director of American Sniper, had complete artistic control over the film in many ways. Kyle is dead, of course—killed in 2013 by a man named Eddie Ray Routh, and his death means that many of the questions that fans and others have about his core nature and the truth of the film will likely go unanswered forever. In the film, actor Bradley Cooper—the man chosen to portray Chris Kyle—portrays a man conflicted about his work and about his role in the war.
In reality, according to The Week UK, Kyle enjoyed his work. He excelled in his role as a sniper, and in his book, he writes: “I couldn’t give a flying **** about the Iraqis” (The Week UK). While Kyle is free to have his opinions about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, this does make the viewer wonder how much of the empathy that they are feeling for the conflicted character on the screen is real—and how much of that empathy is contrived for the sake of movie sales.
These are incredibly important things to ask oneself when viewing a movie like American Sniper, because the reality of that battlefield is not over. The images and the themes that are portrayed throughout the film show the American military in a very positive light, but the question remains regarding whether the United States is truly doing good in places like Iraq and Afghanistan—or whether the United States is just causing more chaos, disorder, and terror in the region. Films like American Sniper are meant to evoke emotion, but it is important that, as citizens, Americans ask themselves if their emotions and empathy are misplaced when viewing these heart wrenching scenes like the ones depicted in the film (Dockterman; American Sniper; Duckworth).
Perhaps one of the most interesting things about investigating the truths and fictions of American Sniper is discovering the difficulties associated with this particular film. Clint Eastwood, the director of the film, knew Chris Kyle quite well; he chose this man because he felt that Kyle had an extraordinary story. In many ways, Kyle does indeed have an extraordinary story. However, as an individual, it has recently come out that Kyle was exceptionally flawed and prone to lying; there is no way of knowing whether many of his statements were true (Vain).
The film glorifies the service of the American men and women in uniform, and there is no doubt that many of these individuals—who did not choose to be sent to war, and who did not start the war—are indeed heroes. However, there were thousands of Iraqis that fought alongside those American troops and risked their lives every day to be a part of rebuilding their country.
The film tends to portray the war as being black and white: there are good and bad people, and the divisions are very clear. While occasionally Kyle has to make a difficult decision, there is never any doubt that he is one of the “good guys.” In the war in Iraq, however, the situation is much more complicated than “good and bad.”
Perhaps one of the most significant failings of the film is how it portrays snipers as military personnel. Of course, Hollywood loves to glamorize snipers; they are the lone wolves of the military world, and their jobs are shrouded in secrecy, which makes them even more appealing as the subjects of films. However, Eastwood portrays a sniper’s role as very exciting and constantly interesting; in reality, snipers spend a lot of time waiting and a lot of time filling out paperwork (Duckworth). This would, of course, make for horrible television; however, there are ways to avoid telling a boring story about snipers while still telling a story that is accurate. The Week UK describes the sniper battles in the film as “complete fiction,” noting that the film has a tendency to “romanticize the gruesome drudgery of war” (The Week UK).
War is a destructive force, and American Sniper does not shy away from showing the destruction of war. The problem is not that the film shies away from showing the destruction that is commonly associated with war, but that the film has a tendency to make that destruction seem exciting, unavoidable, necessary and, for lack of better term, sexy. Clint Eastwood created a film in which the opposing sides each had their own snipers and there were battles of wits and bravery between the two sides (American Sniper). Because it is an American film, the Americans come out on top of the sniper battles; in reality, snipers might be well known, but they are not feared or talked about in the way they are in Eastwood’s fictionalization of the story (Vain).
Many have accused the film of having a pro-war agenda, and have denounced Eastwood for creating such a biased piece of media. Many critics have claimed that American Sniper is a work of fiction that presents itself as fact; however, viewers in the United States are savvy enough to know that Hollywood has a tendency to elaborate and embellish.
The problem is not the story of Chris Kyle: most probably realize that certain elements of the story have been added for dramatic effect (The Week UK). The problem arises for the film when it portrays the participation in the war itself as something positive and desirable. The film paints the Americans as good (albeit conflicted) and the Iraqis as bad; there is no room for nuance or the reality of a gray area in a film like this one, and it ignores the political realities of the situation in Iraq.
Eastwood glorifies a man that perhaps is not the best example of everything that an American should be. As a sniper, Kyle necessarily had to divorce himself from his emotions, and the resulting individual is not one that comes across in a positive light in his memoirs. There are indeed Iraqis fighting against the Americans in Iraq, but it is fundamentally important to note that for a very long time, being an Iraqi fighting for the American troops was a death sentence. Even today, the political situation is incredibly tenuous for those who are working for the new government in Iraq, and the life of a dissenter is incredibly dangerous (Vain).
There are real risks associated with films like American Sniper. This does not mean that these films should not be made, or that Eastwood was wrong to create his film in the way he did; as the artistic director of the film, he is of course free to portray the characters of his film in any way he chooses. However, he chose to portray a memoir. In that memoir, Kyle stretched the truth to the breaking point; Eastwood stretched the truth much further, taking the basic structure of Kyle’s time in Iraq and building a major motion picture. He painted the man as a conflicted hero in search of redemption after the war, but Kyle was not conflicted about his role in the way Eastwood demonstrated, nor was his experience in the war very similar to what Eastwood portrays.
Works Cited
American Sniper. Hollywood: Clint Eastwood, 2014. DVD.
Dockterman, Eliana. "The True Story Behind American Sniper". TIME.com. N. p., 2015. Web. 25 Feb. 2016. http://time.com/3672295/american-sniper-fact-check/
Duckworth, Courtney. "How Accurate Is American Sniper? We’Ve Separated Fact From Fiction.". N. p., 2016. Web. 25 Feb. 2016. http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/01/23/american_sniper_fact_vs_fiction_how_accurate_is_the_chris_kyle_movie.html
The Week UK,. "Chris Kyle: Five Things American Sniper Gets Wrong". N. p., 2016. Web. 25 Feb. 2016. http://www.theweek.co.uk/62133/chris-kyle-five-things-american-sniper-gets-wrong
Vain, Madison. "Fact-Checking The Film: 'American Sniper'". N. p., 2016. Web. 25 Feb. 2016. http://www.ew.com/article/2015/01/21/fact-checking-american-sniper
