The movie beings with the recitation of “Allahu Akbar” from a mosque in Fallujah (The Iraqi scenes were filmed in Morocco.) in the background, which is an Islamic phrase meaning “God is the greatest”. The American soldiers are marching in a city in Pakistan where the city is dead and ruined. Chris Kyle, who is a sniper, is lying on a rooftop and spots out a woman and a child what seems to holding a grained. Kyle has the permission to kill the women and child and so he does. His teammates are congratulating him for the killing.
The movie sends a message were they are saying that the only reason why men like Chris Kyle killed civilians is because they were trying to kill them, so in this case it´s ok for them to “protect” themselves. The presentation
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The important data points are Kyle’s escalating kill counts in those places, which soon earn him the honorific of “The Legend.” The dead Iraqis lie flat, literally and metaphorically, like images in a video game, where they are slain, and we hear no one weep for them, with the exception of “The Sheikh” whose screaming daughter runs to his corpse. The American dead are pulled at great risk from the battleground, wept over, accompanied in their flag-covered coffins in flights home, laid to rest in dramatic beautiful ceremonies, remembered.
The American dead were persons, and they count. The Iraqi dead were objects in a sniper’s scope, and they are counted. That in a nutshell is the message of “American Sniper.”
How Chris Kyle and hundreds of thousands of other, mostly very young Americans came to invade and occupy, smash doors and faces and artworks and hearts, wound and be wounded, kill and be killed in Iraq -- for what politics, for whose profits -- cannot be touched upon in “American Sniper.” Because to do so would be to move the narrative away from the isolated, tragic white male, that hoary old trope of Western Civ, toward something more politically and historically informed, and much less of a money maker and “hit.”
In war propaganda, a huge genre in which “American Sniper” stands as a lavishly funded, high-production-values example, fictional narratives borrow
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We should condemn this kind of encouragement and take things seriously. We should talk about how the war did not benefit anyone. We should discuss how to avoid these kinds of situation and try to reach for diplomatic solution for future peace between the countries. You do not go to a solider and say “Hey good job on killing 255 people, keep up with the good work and you might break the record”. Killing people in a war no matter what religion or ethnicity does not make you a hero or villain, only a man following orders. I get it that people are trying to protect their country, but I don´t get why you have to go to another country and kill their people. Is that not
In “The Thematic Paradigm,” University of Florida professor of film studies, Robert Ray, defines two types of heroes pervading American films, the outlaw hero and the official hero. Often the two types are merged in a reconciliatory pattern, he argues. In fact, this
In Liam O'Flaherty's "The Sniper," all of these. are brought to an acute reality in a single war-torn city. Strong cerebral convictions and opposing philosophies, due to which people want to destroy the seemingly “wrong” plague this world and are the ones who are the ones who are the main reason for the plight. To aid in his creation of such emotional conflict, turmoil and plight, the author has portrayed the sniper as a very controversial character in the story. This story is oriented around one character in the Civil War which he should not even be in as he is. mentioned to be a “student” in the story.
John Wade left America a human being, yet came back a human killer. His months in Vietnam were filled with bloodshed and human atrocity, and from this, no man could feasibly return the same person. Yet beneath what John endured throughout the war, he suffered many unkindness’ and tragedies that shaped him into adulthood. It was not only the war that made John Wade, but it was John Wade’s existence; his whole life that made him who he was.
Murder is a reprobate action that is an inevitable part of war. It forces humans into immoral acts, which can manifest in the forms such as shooting or close combat. The life of a soldier is ultimately decided from the killer, whether or not he follows through with his actions. In the short stories The Sniper by Liam O'Flaherty and Just Lather, That's All by Hernando Téllez, the killer must decide the fate of their victims under circumstantial constraints. The two story explore the difference between killing at a close proximity compared to killing at a distance, and how they affect the killer's final decision.
His quick thinking and desperate attempts to avoid an intricate situation ends with him killing his enemy, but the consequence is later revealed at the end of the short story. O’Flaherty writes, “Then the sniper turned over the dead body and looked into his brother’s face” (4). In other words, the enemy that the Republican sniper shoots at the end of the passage was not only his enemy, but his brother. The action of killing his brother shows that the Republican sniper is to blame because he takes action, without much thought, and does not consider that he is shooting his own flesh and blood. The Free Stater sniper is utterly the same as the Republican sniper because he views his enemy the exact same way. He does not ruminate on whether his enemy lives a different life outside of the war. Another sentence that is prominent in showing the mindset of the snipers wanting to create bloodshed from each other is, “ He must kill that enemy…” (3). O’Flaherty writes this to showcase the Republican sniper’s thoughts and feelings through his elaborate plan to assassinate the opposing sniper. The Republican sniper merely deliberates on how he will eliminate his
As we saw earlier, both authors of both stories were born in different places and did many things. “The Sniper” sets in Dublin, Ireland, during a time of a bitter civil war. It was a war between the Republicans, which wanted Ireland to become ...
Fussell states, “If you’ve been in combat more than ten minutes, you know that it is about survival, and it’s about killing in order to survive.” While most people have read or seen news reports on war, unless they were in a situation that Fussell just stated, it is impossible to know how it feels to have to kill someone in order to survive; or have the fear that you may be
... out of a 1950s woman's film. The melodramatic influences of the film continue to manifest themselves in the newer release, just as Apocalypse Now continues to influence the epic movies of contemporary filmmakers. The unison of operatic spectacle and personal conflict spawned an original genre in the 1970s that remains an effective method of addressing social concerns. As we enter another period of political unrest and social change, it is likely that a new wave of melodramatic films is beginning to form on the horizon; there are certainly parallels between a government that declares war on terrorism and the U.S. army in Vietnam, who "knew everything about military tactics, but nothing about where they were or who the enemy was" (Cowie 143). From Conrad to Coppola, nuclear family to nuclear terrorism; never get off the boat, unless you're willing to go all the way.
The mood of the story is dark and weary. In this scene the sky is gloomy and there are Republican and Free Starter soldiers fighting in the Irish Civil war, “The long June twilight faded into the night. Dublin lay enveloped in darkness but for the dim light of the moon that shone through the fleecy clouds.. machine guns and rifles broke the silence of the night, spasmodically” (O’Flaherty 1). Although the mood of the story is creepy and dim for the most part, it is silent with the sudden sounds of guns firing. As the story progresses, the sniper’s emotions begin reflecting on his actions. He begins to feel guilt and remorse for killing someone and the mood shifts to tension and violence.
On the way there, Kyle and Littlefield both noticed the tension in the air. “Kyle texted Littlefield, "This dude is straight up nuts." Littlefield responded, "Watch my six", military slang meaning "watch my back". (Huffington Post 2015) Upon arrival of the shooting range, they went out to the targets, Chris handed out the guns, and he took a step forward to where Littlefield was standing close by. Doing so, routh pulls the trigger and makes six shots to Chris's head, back, chest, and hand and takes seven to Chads. Kyle was killed with a pistol and Littlefield was killed with a 9mm handgun, both guns belonged to Kyle. Chris and Chad were both reportedly carrying handguns in holsters on their hips, but both had not been touched when police arrived to the scene. Routh stole Chris Kyles truck and fled to a nearby Taco Bell drive thru. No sane person would go to Taco Bell after killing someone. No one had knowledge of the remote shooting until after Routh went to his sister's house, where she then called
“One man’s dream is another man’s nightmare”, and perhaps one nation’s war is a potential Hollywood movie. While many Hollywood filmmakers have deemed it their true calling to present the war topic to the public in creating pictures which, according to McCrisken and Pepper, allow them to “critically engage with complicated questions about what constitutes ‘America’ domestically and internationally in the post-Cold War world.” A subject which leaves room for little to no debate is the perception that Hollywood directors, along with their pedagogical and informative topics, usually resort to films in order to convey messages and inform their viewers of the “bigger picture” they might seem to have glanced so quickly at. Such is the case with the two high-profile war movies, which are the subject of debate in this thesis, Oliver Stone’s Platoon (1986) and David Russell’s Three Kings (1999). Upon their release, with the emphasis on the former, they have both created quite a buzz which attracted the attention of many historians and created controversy which would be put under the microscope and thus promoting historical inquiry which the Americans would soon want to unravel (McCrisken & Pepper, 2005). In order to better understand the topic at hand, it is of extreme importance to tackle the perceived motive behind the advancements of the American army in the Vietnam War, and their involvement in the Gulf War. (thesis statement here?)
King, Rosemary. "O'Brien's 'How to Tell a True War Story.'" The Explicator. 57.3 (1999): 182. Expanded Academic ASAP.
Unlike the WWII era, the Vietnam War brought realism into literature and film. There were no heroic movies of men fighting in Vietnam. Men could no longer shoot fifty enemy combatants on top of a tank without being hurt. Instead, popular culture brought a realistic view of war, death, pain, and destruction. Author Tim O’Brien, like many war veterans, struggled with his Vietnam experience and expressed them through writing. Tim O’Brien exposed the truth behind war stories because he shows the difference between WWII romanticism and Vietnam realism.
In “The Sniper” the conflict is man vs man, which means main character is tasked with killing his enemy, but it proves to be quite a challenge. Even though there were many challenges the sniper followed through with his job and persevered even after he was shot in the arm. Wanting to kill his enemy, stay alive, and be one step closer to ending the war was his main goals. Being brave, he took off his hat, placed it on his gun, and raised it above the edge of the roof. Instantly the enemy shot at it and the sniper, pretending to be dead, waited until the enemy got up for him to shoot him. He did some quick thinking and, with determination, handled the conflict quite well.
King, Rosemary. "O'Brien's 'How to Tell a True War Story.'" The Explicator. 57.3 (1999): 182. Expanded Academic ASAP.