American Sniper and Birdman: A Tale of Two Movies
The marketing tagline on IMDb is “Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle’s pinpoint accuracy saves countless lives on the battlefield and turns him into a legend”—that makes it sound like American Sniper is a heroic, thrilling ride with a hero fighting for worthwhile values that are hard to obtain, action sequences, and an inner growth of character. The trouble is—it is not even close.
Much has already been made of the historical inaccuracies in American Sniper, and as to whether he was in fact a hero. As a principle, it is imperative that a screenwriter does seek to play around with non-essentials in order to make the fictional story inspiring and thrilling, Just as important, in the case of a true story, is to keep the essentials intact. Some things obviously are one or the other; many require judgment calls that can go either way. Hold that thought; spoilers ahead.
All that Clint Eastwood and Jason Hall (the screenwriter) have given us is a video game of a gun battle between two snipers. A legitimate question is—Is this good enough to be called a movie?
A basic rule of fiction writing is to create increasing jeopardy. In The Imitation Game, genius inventor Alan Turing is dramatized as socially inept, which facilitates a logical consequence—he alienates himself from his fellow workers, whom he later needs to win over. He is gay and lives in a world that incarcerates homosexuals—that part is true. But were he to discover a spy in their midst that knows his secret? It adds to the conflict. What if we wrote that the funding for the project was threatened with a deadline that never was? More obstacles.
The audience knows that the team will win. What they do not is the how. As long as we create a mini-victory, in unfurling the how, that is unpredictable—we have created the right emotional path, the rollercoaster ride that mythology works off to render a lesson deep inside the human emotional psyche. End the ride with perfection, and you have what Aristotle called “katharsis”—the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions, especially through certain kinds of art, as tragedy (meaning serious, as against lighthearted work) or music. Only the highest form of a work of art achieves a cathartic outcome, and clearly, depending on your emotional state of mind, and sense of life, certain works will move you repeatedly, and some never will—to each his own.
Even the pure fiction storyteller is not truly a Master of the Universe. Whether he writes Avatar or Groundhog Day, he must construct his make-believe universe to be internally consistent—rules cannot change from one day to the next. To enhance the authenticity, however, the mimicry should be true-to-life in its context, i.e. stories are about a specific time and a place, and the emotional transportation of your audience is made easier the truer you are to the time and place you speak of. Hence, the attention to detail—in Titanic as well as The Counterfeiters—constructs artistic authenticity, which makes the audience get on the emotional rollercoaster.
The already-great difficulty in achieving a structurally correct plot form is magnified when attempting to adapt a true story. Real life does not flow in a form suited for drama; what should be sacrificed—the truth or the artistic truth (i.e. the inspiration)? The adaptation storyteller’s room for maneuvering inside the artistic reality is doubly constrained.
The minute we think the story feels unauthentic, that it is fake—we are off the rollercoaster.
Chris Kyle, the “American Sniper,” starts off as a simpleton cowboy in Texas, coached by his old man to serve God, Country, and Family. He “wakes up” at age 30 and suddenly enlists in the Navy. The triggering incident is a news item about a U.S. embassy bombing. Say what—the most important scene in the movie is a news item?
Then Chris meets a lady in a bar, who will never even date a Marine; he flirts with her. Suddenly, they are married. One day, they are watching TV and live coverage of 9/11 comes on the air. She, with whom we have no connection, cries. Even his POV is centered on the TV, not her. Then suddenly, he is deployed to Iraq. Authenticity—where art thou? Anyone watching this movie will bet that the story is fake, unless they know otherwise.
Of all the details to not mess up, the 9/11 to Iraq sequence needed a better explanation, even school children in Morocco or Zambia know that 9/11 did not directly lead to Iraq.
In replicating a true story, how did we lose the feel of authenticity? Because true story takes years, replicating the important bits in dramatic form needs a logical structure, which the mind can attach itself to—a sequence of events in which the next one necessarily follows from the previous. The sequence must be held together by one overriding desire of the main character. It ends when the desire is either accomplished, or becomes permanently unachievable, or internal growth renders the desire meaningless. It is to make sense of the desire, that we need a little backstory. Then we need a catalyst that creates the desire that will serve as the spine of the story. Kyle’s catalyst could have been—he is in one of the twin towers, with a beloved friend; he survives, but loses the friend—but it cannot be; the historians would cane Clint Eastwood.
The TV news bulletin is too simple to warrant our emotional connection. We are not on the ride. Catharsis is impossible. In any event, Kyle gets what he wants quickly; he gets to serve. After that, on each of his four tours, he kills some strangers, and in between tours, he is at home, a zombie while his wife cries that he is there, but not there. This sequence repeats.
Halfway through the movie, Kyle gets a new objective—to kill “their” sniper—this antagonist has no depth of character, no family, no history, no allegiance (just insurgency), no mannerisms, no eccentricity. He does not even have a name—but who needs a name, when Kyle is depicted as not knowing the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan? The God, Country, Family simpleton refers to all of “them” only as “savages” or “motherfuckers.” The regiment captain, one added layer of sophistication there, drops the mother out of it—“Now go get those fuckers.”
If Eastwood was trying to convey a “better” image of conservative-voting patriots, an image devoid of the moral ambiguity that plagues this Administration, he fails miserably at creating a erudite image, albeit not one devoid of moral ambiguity—I have to agree with Salon here.
Instead, we have an image with a simplistic morality of us versus an undefined “them.” All that Clint Eastwood and Jason Hall (the screenwriter) have given us is a video game of a gun battle between two snipers. A legitimate question is—Is this good enough to be called a movie? I have to agree with this headline by Rolling Stone—“’American Sniper’ Is Almost Too Dumb to Criticize.”
The exploits of the brave Chris Kyle deserve to be honored. I wish they had just made a reenactment documentary instead. Documentaries can be much more gripping than badly made films. It does not feel real that the man, who produced Trouble with the Curve, and directed Million Dollar Baby, Changeling, and Gran Torino, has directed a video game. It does not ring true that Bradley Cooper, who brought us to tears in Silver Linings Playbook, is unable to reproduce his craft, caught in a web of pedestrian zombie faces with nothing to aim for.
Years ago, when I first read The Godfather as a teenager, I could have bet my house that Mario Puzo, the author, was at least ex-Mafia, if not a Don himself. Thank god, I didn’t have a house then. Well-structured stories with attention to detail feel authentic.
RIP Chris Kyle, you deserved better than incompetent art.
Now read this blurb instead—“A washed up actor, who once played an iconic superhero, battles his ego and attempts to recover his family, his career and himself in the days leading up to the opening of a Broadway play.”
This promises a classic film story—a problem, a clear objective borne of that problem, a struggle, the happy resolution of a climactic victory, You know the ending before you see it—the play will happen, it will be a success, and we will leave the theatre with that uplifting, triumphant feeling. It is a promising, if slightly predictable, premise.
Riggan Thomson, the Birdman, is depressed—he cries, he is divorced, he is suffering, and behaves like an immature child sometimes. Forget this if you are looking for a kick-ass alpha male to root for, as he shoots or outpunches the “bad” guys.
But Thomson’s story is told with a spine—he has a single, obsessive goal—to put up a Broadway play to revive his career. For a guy who “gave up” a hero costume, but then could not get work as an actor, not even if he tried to go back to the Birdman role, it’s a logical one.
The dialogues rise well above average, and the actors are well in character—Ed Norton excellent as always, Emma Stone outstanding as Thomson’s estranged daughter, Michael Keaton convincing as Thomson.
Three flaws kill the outstanding potential of Birdman. First, the narrative starts too late in the plot. To feel for him, we must see Thomson down and out, working odd jobs to make ends meet, trying anything, even a Birdman role at age 50, to get back, before raising the stakes to an all-out emotional and financial gamble on producing a Broadway play. After all, no one will give him a role of any kind now. But the show begins when Thomson is in the game of producing the play already, and his reasons must come via an obnoxious device—an exposition creature, his inner being in a Birdman costume, with whom he has a conversation. Exposition via character voiceovers that directly talk to the audience, or have asides like Frank Underwood in House of Cards, are bad enough. Setting up an exposition character, like Red in The Shawshank Redemption, is far worse. Same problem—it’s not easy to get on the rollercoaster when we don’t get picked up at the start.
But in the end, we are human. Humans, unless they are deep-seated Existentialists, or Marxists, like to root for human success. Even when the Sniper makes an irrational choice of choosing personal vendetta over the lives of his comrades, and takes a shot giving away their position when he shouldn’t, we want his shot to succeed. We are human….more spoilers ahead.
With the third but fatal flaw, Birdman joins the abyss of Existentialism that Hollywood is already awash in.
Despite all the frailties of Birdman’s structure, it has one, and the human in us wants the play to happen and do well. We want father and daughter to reconcile. The payoff comes, but at a price—with sensationalism, the second problem—Thomson shoots his nose off on stage.
Even that we could have forgiven. We are human. We root for the hero. But, with objective achieved, our hero literally jumps off a cliff, and with that suicide, the third but fatal flaw, Birdman joins the abyss of Existentialism that Hollywood is already awash in. If you don’t buy that Thomson is dead, read this—‘Deep Thoughts About ‘Birdman’.
If you do happen to see all three of the major nominees everyone is talking about (The Imitation Game, Birdman, American Sniper), ask yourself one question—all three main characters are dead in the end—which one did you cry for or felt deeply for?
That’s your answer to catharsis, structure, and which is the best of the lot.
About the Author: Vinay Kolhatkar
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