The Soldiers On The Front Line In War & Their Families – American Sniper, The Movie

The New Yorker

Here is a one-sentence review of “American Sniper”: the martial virtues are so precious, rare, and fragile that they should be sent into combat only with the greatest caution.

Clint Eastwood’s new film is political in the highest sense of the word. He dramatizes the use and abuse of state power in the light of great philosophical ideas. These ideas illuminate the drama not as if from afar but from within; they aren’t imposed on the drama but arise spontaneously from Eastwood’s contemplation of people and events—and they find echoes throughout his career.

“American Sniper” is a movie of violent action—but its action is surrounded by a terrible stillness. Its story of war contains valor and horror—the destructive and self-destructive conflicts that are intrinsic to a person endowed with a warrior’s noble nature. As such, it’s a cinematic tragedy in the deepest and most classical sense of the term. Eastwood considers recent events with a fierce anger even as he considers the universal span of human experience with an Olympian ruefulness.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/american-sniper-takes-apart-myth-american-warrior