In the midst of my shameful weekend movie binge, I finally watched “American Sniper”.
Actually, this one warrants my one-shame-free pass. I mean, I had to watch it… I read the book and in my culture, it’s a sin not to compare to two things. It’s even worse of a sin to writer-kind if you do watch – to not write about it after – ya know, to bring the whole “literature, film about the literature, literature about film about the literature” process full circle (what’s next? Someone makes a short about this blog thereby reinforcing my narcissistic delusions of grandeur?)
Moving on:
We’ll start with this: sometimes everyone’s advice is wrong.
In this case, the wrong advice from everyone is “Read the book first!” That’s what they always say, right? I dunno. Maybe it’ll work out better for you; but I spent a lot of the film in utter confusion despite having followed that advice. For the first ten minutes, I felt like I was watching a man’s spliced up life in fastforward mode. The remainder, I spent stirring in my own luke warm feelings about it. Why did an amazing performance by Cooper + Miller = such a blasé reaction? Why did reading the book first ultimately just leave me feeling internally nitpicky? My mind was going a mile a minute with all the lost gems: “They don’t show him setting up his sniper hide and throwing over the baby crib with a dismantled door for a flat surface!” or “I feel like there should be a voiceover explaining the main facets of sniping you learn at school…” or “they should have added in the BUD/S bell to show the quitters ringing it” or “they didn’t show the bit where he suddenly couldn’t shoot because he’d learned with tobacco in his mouth and now its absence was throwing his aim game off”) I get a little upset even thinking of it because I was expecting at least some of these stand-out things to make it into the film.
(My reaction too, Sienna. But you still look so sexy that it’s vexing. Do you even age?)
After ruminating on this for a while (and trying to measure my disappointment against other recent adaptations I’ve watched – like how Franco’s “Child of God” was a perfect visual replica of the literary version) I realized… I couldn’t compare. At least not to a work of fiction when this is a (probably, mostly) true story. When you’re talking about the disparity between the portrayal of somebody’s life through a Tinseltown filter versus their in-their-own-words novel account of it… it’s natural apples versus GMO oranges. Not to mention that – in real life – he was murdered before the film was released (obviously; if they put it in the movie). That means that if there was any final say he might’ve had about the final cut, we’ll never know for sure. He was all in for the making of it, but maybe after seeing how it added up, he’d have liked it as much as Zuck did The Social Network.
But the movie wasn’t horrible on its own. I won’t say that. I can’t, because I’m biased having an affinity for the readable version. I suppose it’s just that if you have read the book, it feels like a really watered down account of a great (albeit, according to some, hyperbolic) story. Not because of some patriotism or “he’s a hero” feeling I have for Mr. Kyle – but because the book was that captivating in its battle recollections. Maybe I was just expecting more of a character study – perhaps with interjected narration and a little less of the love story. In fact, if you wanna do classic Hollywood romance, they could’ve taken a tip from Nick Sparks – have all these interjected retrospective notes from Taya and Chris throughout the movie and then toward the end, you catch up with them and they’re being interviewed by the editor for the book. Then – when we’re back in present mode – is when he dies at the hands of a brother in arms he was trying to help. They do say a subtle version of that in the abrupt ending provided. But going more into that would truly put the spotlight on something important about this whole story: vets coming home from war. And how much damage these dudes return with. Chris. His buddy Biggles. Even the marine that shot Chris. All of them are examples. Just because you don’t die in combat doesn’t mean there isn’t an extended battlefield that follows you home. Maybe that’s where the BUD/S “quitter bell” would come back in as an ironic zingy one liner toward the end to spotlight PTSD: “In war, you can’t ring a bell to quit and go home. And once home, you can’t un-ring the bell of what you saw there.”
(Not when this’s your daily grind.)
I’d carry on with how this felt more like the longest trailer ever than an actual movie based on the book, but I won’t. Because it wasn’t bad on its own for what it was meant to be: a film about a sniper that you can take your girlfriend to see because it’s been romantically augmented. The performances weren’t bad. Bradley made a convincing transformation and Sienna stuns as usual. I suppose the disappointment was simiply akin to how unseasoned food tastes like a pissed-in prison meal when you’re used to gourmet. I wanted more of that same brain flavor from the paperback. That said, for all I know, Book Kyle may have had just as much artifice woven into himself as movie Cooper’s Kyle did when they lost him a bit in cinematic translation.
My final vote? This isn’t a “read the book first” kindofa situation.
It’s more of a “read the book” or “see the movie” kinda story.
That or read the book after – that way at least you won’t end on a disappointed note.
Next on Cin Binge: “Interstellar”