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Cole posted:So you don't agree that movies should be made the way the person making them wants them to be? Kind of robbing people of their creativity with that mindset. Absolutely, then when the movie is finished I get to watch it and form an opinion on it. Then I can share that opinion with others if I feel like it. This is a simple dynamic that has been working for as long as art has existed.
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Mar 3, 2015 20:32
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Basebf555 posted:So you've never had a criticism of any movie you've ever seen? Of course I have, but I haven't said that the director should have made a completely different movie because I didn't like the one he made. Making fun of technical stuff like bad lighting, poor acting, those are things that warrant criticism. But saying "this entire story should have been this story instead" is pretty stupid and quite literally undercuts any director who made a movie in the vision he wanted to. Trying to turn X into Y is not a criticism, it's just unrealistic and pretentious.
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Mar 3, 2015 20:34
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Cole posted:Of course I have, but I haven't said that the director should have made a completely different movie because I didn't like the one he made. Making fun of technical stuff like bad lighting, poor acting, those are things that warrant criticism. But saying "this entire story should have been this story instead" is pretty stupid and quite literally undercuts any director who made a movie in the vision he wanted to. Filmmakers who make movies that deal with politically charged, very recent real-life events don't get to dismiss criticism by just saying "well that's not the movie I wanted to make." When you deal in actual, real history there is an expectation that something close to the truth will be presented. If that had been done in this case the movie would have been much different, and I think that's a legitimate criticism. Its not the same thing, for instance, as someone saying they wish Prometheus was just a straight-up sequel to Alien. The "history" of Alien is made up by Ridley Scott in his head, there's no objective truth to compare it to so he is the ultimate authority there.
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Mar 3, 2015 20:45
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Basebf555 posted:When you deal in actual, real history there is an expectation that something close to the truth will be presented. Were you one of the ones defending Hurt Locker? Because that is 1000x more inaccurate than American Sniper.
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Mar 3, 2015 20:51
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Cole posted:Were you one of the ones defending Hurt Locker? Because that is 1000x more inaccurate than American Sniper. Absolutely not, I'm aware of the inaccuracies of Hurt Locker and I do think it hurts the movie as a whole. The inaccuracies in Hurt Locker tend to be more on the tactical side of things, however, and not in how it presents the inner workings of the main characters mind. The main character in Hurt Locker is fictional. Still a missed opportunity though, as most war movies these days are. Basebf555 fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Mar 3, 2015 |
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Mar 3, 2015 20:53
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socketwrencher posted:Women and children are casualties of war. My point is that this supposedly pro-war movie highlights this horrifying aspect. I think it's significant. It's not that horrifying if the movie goes out of it's way to paint shooting children as necessary and justified, though.
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Mar 3, 2015 20:58
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The Hurt Locker and American Sniper were not documentaries and debating their accuracy to real history misses the point. They were symbolic works expressing ideological positions. Any sort of objective truth to be had from them comes from a reading of the film and reading Chris Kyle as a sanitized monster (an aberration) is the more harmful example.
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Mar 3, 2015 21:27
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Danger posted:The Hurt Locker and American Sniper were not documentaries and debating their accuracy to real history misses the point. Yeah, the poster sure screamed symbolism 
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Mar 3, 2015 21:31
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Sentient Data posted:Yeah, the poster sure screamed symbolism It sure does!
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Mar 3, 2015 21:36
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Mormon Star Wars posted:It's not that horrifying if the movie goes out of it's way to paint shooting children as necessary and justified, though. Sometimes it is justified though. If a child is carrying a bomb (in the novel he had an AK) and trying to take out a platoon of troops (which, when I deployed, numbered no less than 12 people for 90% of patrols), what are you supposed to do? He did his job exactly how he was supposed to do, and regardless of your stance on the accuracy of the movie, it's one of the more realistic events depicted.
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Mar 3, 2015 21:37
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Cole posted:Sometimes it is justified though. If a child is carrying a bomb (in the novel he had an AK) and trying to take out a platoon of troops (which, when I deployed, numbered no less than 12 people for 90% of patrols), what are you supposed to do? Here's a question: what do you think is being done there?
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Mar 3, 2015 21:39
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Sentient Data posted:Yeah, the poster sure screamed symbolism Well, I'm talking about the film 'American Sniper', a creative work by Clint Eastwood, not the marketing material; but yes they certainly are rife with their own symbolic messages but should be read in context as supplemental material and not necessarily color your own strict reading of the film.
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Mar 3, 2015 21:39
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Here's a question: what do you think is being done there? In what regard?
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Mar 3, 2015 21:39
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Cole posted:In what regard? Why does it end with "well, it's what they're trained to do". I think that's what a lot of people are wondering about. I wouldn't have thought "I go where they tell me to go and shoot who they tell me to shoot" was such a powerful story this day and age, but here we are. HUNDU THE BEAST GOD fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Mar 3, 2015 |
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Mar 3, 2015 21:43
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Why does it end with "well, it's what they're trained to do". I think that's what a lot of people are wondering about. I'm not sure I'm understanding what you are asking. What do I think is being done where? In the movie? In this thread?
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Mar 3, 2015 21:45
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Why does it end with "well, it's what they're trained to do". Befehl ist Befehl. Not like a Godwin can take this train any farther off the rails
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Mar 3, 2015 21:46
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Cole posted:I'm not sure I'm understanding what you are asking. Both. It's where the movie clams up and where you most vociferously defend it.
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Mar 3, 2015 21:47
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Both. It's where the movie clams up and where you most vociferously defend it. In the movie he shot a kid to save a platoon. Had he not pulled the trigger either 1) someone else would have or 2) a lot of people would have died.
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Mar 3, 2015 21:48
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Cole posted:Sometimes it is justified though. If a child is carrying a bomb (in the novel he had an AK) and trying to take out a platoon of troops (which, when I deployed, numbered no less than 12 people for 90% of patrols), what are you supposed to do? Yes, which is exactly why it's not horrifying in the context of the movie. In the movie, Iraqi children really are evil, so it's not horrifying to shoot them. That is why trying to say "It's depicting the horror of women and children dying in war" because he shoots a child is misleading. edit: Notice that the drama in the scene where he is deciding to shoot the child isn't whether or not shooting a child in that scene is justified, it's whether The Man will punish him unjustly for doing what he has to do. Mormon Star Wars fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Mar 3, 2015 |
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Mar 3, 2015 21:50
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Basebf555 posted:For me that would have been worth the risk in order to have a chance at showing what our foreign policy and militaristic culture does to our troops. By shying away from the monstrousness of the real Kyle the film becomes a cop-out, the "war is dehumanizing" message has been done to death and is trite at this point. I want to see a film about how we as a country are creating monsters and setting them loose on our "enemies". This movie, considering who Kyle was and what he wrote in his book, had the opportunity to be that movie and it isn't, so that is very disappointing. Fair enough. Maybe something like Inglorious Bastards set in the Middle East post 9/11? I just think it's very easy for an audience to distance themselves from monsters because they themselves are not like that (or at least don't think of themselves that way). It would certainly seem to make it harder to get an audience to care about what happens to soldiers like that (PTSD, drug use, depression, inability to connect with family/friends/reality, etc.). You seem to be saying that the value of the hypothetical movie you describe would be to wake people up and get them to rethink U.S. foreign policy and the politics behind military intervention. I think some might take that away from such a movie, while some might take the same thing away from American Sniper. I also think that some would enjoy a movie like you describe even more than they enjoyed American Sniper, as it would be like putting Wolverine in military gear and turning him loose in Iraq. Most, I believe, won't have their opinions changed regardless, and those opinions were not formed by movies. And that's the bigger issue. I'm only bringing this up because people are expanding the impact and effect of this movie beyond its place as just a movie. I hope those people are as dedicated to denouncing the propaganda being pumped out by the mainstream media- that's the marketing we should be concerned about- and promoting alternative media sources to their friends, family and people they chat with online. The impact of the media so overwhelmingly dwarfs the impact of a movie it's not even funny.
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Mar 3, 2015 21:53
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Cole posted:In the movie he shot a kid to save a platoon. Had he not pulled the trigger either 1) someone else would have or 2) a lot of people would have died. Alright, well, sometimes you have to shoot a child. To anyone else who isn't looking at this situation down a funnel, they might have some other questions. Why does the film not have any questions other than "how's it feel to shoot a child"?
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Mar 3, 2015 21:53
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Mormon Star Wars posted:It's not that horrifying if the movie goes out of it's way to paint shooting children as necessary and justified, though. Were you horrified by it?
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Mar 3, 2015 21:54
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Mormon Star Wars posted:Yes, which is exactly why it's not horrifying in the context of the movie. In the movie, Iraqi children really are evil, so it's not horrifying to shoot them. That is why trying to say "It's depicting the horror of women and children dying in war" because he shoots a child is misleading. You're right, he was cheering and popped a bottle of bubbly when he shot the kid.
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Mar 3, 2015 21:57
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Alright, well, sometimes you have to shoot a child. To anyone else who isn't looking at this situation down a funnel, they might have some other questions. Why does the film not have any questions other than "how's it feel to shoot a child"? When he saw his brother visibly shaken by what had happened, he began questioning everything himself. He decided he wanted to beat the poo poo out of a dog in one scene. He neglected his pregnant wife, and continued to neglect her and their baby throughout. He was visibly uncomfortable when someone was thanking him for saving their life. The movie asks plenty of questions. Why did he go to Iraq? Strictly from the movie's point of view, he joined because of 9/11, which got him sent to Iraq.
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Mar 3, 2015 21:58
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Ah, visibly uncomfortable. Subtle, powerful stuff!
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Mar 3, 2015 22:02
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Ah, visibly uncomfortable. Subtle, powerful stuff! It actually is.. sorry you need flashing neon lights to tell you things.
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Mar 3, 2015 22:03
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Not everyone is Upham from Saving private Ryan
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Mar 3, 2015 22:17
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Cole posted:I think we are in agreement that this movie isn't as pro-war as this thread is making it out to be. Yes we are.
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Mar 3, 2015 22:18
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Reading the film's Kyle as sanitized, not-monstrous enough, is the more insidious position. If Kyle is monstrous, it is not because he is some psychopathic aberration within our humanitarian liberal democracy but as the necessary outcome of it's own psychopathic logic. The conclusion must be that if he is monstrous it is because Western liberal democracy is monstrous and Kyle is the natural extension of it's symbolic law. Compare the character to Zizek's reading of Col. Kurtz: "Kurtz was a perfect soldier - as such, through his over -identification with the military power system, he turned into the excess which the system has to eliminate. The ultimate horizon of Apocalypse Now is this insight into how Power generates its own excess which it has to annihilate in an operation which has to imitate what it fights (Willard's mission to kill Kurtz is non-existent for the official record, "it never happened," as the general who briefs Willard points out). We thereby enter the domain of secret operations, of what the Power does without ever admitting it." Link. Danger fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Mar 3, 2015 |
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Mar 3, 2015 22:18
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Cole posted:You're right, he was cheering and popped a bottle of bubbly when he shot the kid. When he was getting ready to shoot, they didn't say "If you get this wrong, you will have killed an innocent." They said "If you get this wrong, they'll send you to leavenworth." Even if the kid was innocent, it would have been okay for Kyle to shoot him in the reality of the movie - the moral problem of the scene is that the faceless government (which doesn't understand the reality of the situation on the ground) will send him to a place of torment for arbitrary and unjustified reasons such as "he shot an innocent."
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Mar 3, 2015 22:22
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Cole posted:Sometimes it is justified though. If a child is carrying a bomb (in the novel he had an AK) and trying to take out a platoon of troops (which, when I deployed, numbered no less than 12 people for 90% of patrols), what are you supposed to do? What led Christ Kyle to the point where he finds himself looking down the scope of a rifle, considering whether or not it is necessary to shoot a child? That's the issue that I was hoping the movie would tackle. To just say "its war, sometimes shooting people is necessary" and leave it at that is lazy and says absolutely nothing new or interesting. If we've gotten ourselves into a situation where every person in an occupied city is to be regarded as an "enemy", poo poo is already hosed before any of our guys fire a shot. American Sniper ignores all that and just expects you to assume our troops are there for legitimate reasons and that the "enemy" is really an enemy. Well most people have realized that what happened there isn't even close to that simple and a movie that pretends otherwise is going to draw criticism on those grounds alone.
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Mar 3, 2015 22:30
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Basebf555 posted:What led Christ Kyle to the point where he finds himself looking down the scope of a rifle In the movie? 9/11. It's why the 9/11 footage was shown, to give him motive for joining the military. Which, given the events, is not a bad reason to join the military. Once you are in, you are not responsible for where you get deployed. Mormon Star Wars posted:When he was getting ready to shoot, they didn't say "If you get this wrong, you will have killed an innocent." They said "If you get this wrong, they'll send you to leavenworth." Even if the kid was innocent, it would have been okay for Kyle to shoot him in the reality of the movie - the moral problem of the scene is that the faceless government (which doesn't understand the reality of the situation on the ground) will send him to a place of torment for arbitrary and unjustified reasons such as "he shot an innocent." This is a pretty accurate exchange of how troops talk about things though. So why is it bad that it was presented in that way? Literally nobody is innocent in the minds of troops given the climate they were in and the things they were told about the area, so why would they change the dialogue to negate what the actual mindset was? Again, the movie shows him joining up because of 9/11. It is not his fault the people in charge sent him somewhere that had nothing to do with 9/11.
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Mar 3, 2015 22:34
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Basebf555 posted:To just say "its war, sometimes shooting people is necessary" and leave it at that is lazy and says absolutely nothing new or interesting. So what do you want them to do? Depict some bullshit stance on the subject? Because people are arguing about how this movie is bullshit propaganda, but you're asking to change the climate of war to some bullshit propaganda by not showing the actual climate of the war. He has zero, absolutely loving ZERO concern for why he is where he is. It is stated over and over and over and over again that he is concerned with protecting ground troops, and that is it. quote != edit
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Mar 3, 2015 22:36
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Cole posted:Literally nobody is innocent in the minds of troops given the climate they were in... You are right, and the Leavenworth line underlines this; the correct course is to lay bare this universal conclusion that nobody is innocent and that Kyle is committing murder.
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Mar 3, 2015 22:40
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Danger posted:You are right, and the Leavenworth line underlines this; the correct course is to lay bare this universal conclusion that nobody is innocent and that Kyle is committing murder. That isn't an issue with Chris Kyle though. That is an issue with the politics that put him there, which he had no concern for, which means it would be silly to devote any portion of a movie about Chris Kyle to something Chris Kyle didn't really know poo poo about. "A movie about Chris Kyle where we talk about stuff Chris Kyle has no knowledge of... coming to a theater near you..."
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Mar 3, 2015 22:42
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The movie's not about Chris Kyle, that's been established. It's about American Sniper.
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Mar 3, 2015 22:44
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Basebf555 posted:What led Christ Kyle to the point where he finds himself looking down the scope of a rifle, considering whether or not it is necessary to shoot a child? That's the issue that I was hoping the movie would tackle. To just say "its war, sometimes shooting people is necessary" and leave it at that is lazy and says absolutely nothing new or interesting. I thought the movie did tackle that issue. In combat, it may be necessary to shoot a child, and the fact that it's not new or interesting is irrelevant. What it does is raise the stakes when determining if combat is justified. That's the question: Is combat justified. Because I think just about everyone believes that it sometimes is, and when it is the suffering and death is an unfortunate part of it. But when it's not justified, well, maybe we better reevaluate what we're doing. American Sniper doesn't tell us whether the war in Iraq is justified or not. It wants us to ask that question ourselves.
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Mar 3, 2015 22:45
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:The movie's not about Chris Kyle, that's been established. It's about American Sniper. ok u got me Bradley Cooper's name was American Sniper in the movie. U right.
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Mar 3, 2015 22:46
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Cole posted:That isn't an issue with Chris Kyle though. That is an issue with the politics that put him there, which he had no concern for, which means it would be silly to devote any portion of a movie about Chris Kyle to something Chris Kyle didn't really know poo poo about. Cole posted:Not really. And even if it did, Chris Kyle the person is not the Chris Kyle portrayed in the movie (right?), so knowing about the real guy doesn't make a difference other than the fact that, if you did find out about the real Kyle, you would know not to take "based on" so seriously.
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Mar 3, 2015 22:48
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It is, except when it isn't. Don't pay attention to Kyle's self reporting, the sawed-off, stoic movie version is the real version of him.
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Mar 3, 2015 22:49
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