Eastwood's 'SNIPER' Enthymeme
Mark McIntire Film Review
Enthymeme: noun, Logic.an argument in which a premise or the conclusion is not stated. Example: "Want him to be more of a man? Try being more of a woman!" (advertising slogan for Coty perfume).
Like some collective Narcissus Hollywood shamelessly adores its own reflection each year handing out gold statuettes to millionaires who gush about helping ‘the little people’ through their films. And by little people they don’t mean real people. They mean the ‘minorities-du jour’ so anointed by the popular press at the instigation of politicians indoctrinated by social scientists and other cultural witch doctors. Weird!
Little green visitors from Mars would no doubt find the annual Oscars a sickening display of self-contradiction prompted by inexorable guilt. The only factual line uttered all night is, “Oh gosh…I really don’t deserve this…” One too many wrinkles, a misplaced bit of flesh, a nose slightly defying Pythagoras, a dress by the ‘wrong’ designer, insufficient drug addiction, child abuse, domestic violence, or thuggery can spell disaster for a carefully crafted fake rampaging persona worth billions extracted from the mesmerized and the stupid. Now, according to the tinsel town cultural Orwellian, to be a screen hero you must be ‘defective’ because we are all defective and therefore we are all heroes because no one is a hero. Feeling trumps thought. Hollywood decrees that nobility is pretense, beauty is skin-deep, goodness is arbitrary and truth is capricious. Patriotism, the only unspeakable sin, is unmentionable.
Occasionally, every generation if we’re lucky, a film contrarian comes along that exposes the emperor’s new nakedness everyone else is wearing on the red carpet. Alfred Hitchcock, Quentin Tarantino both come easily to mind. Occasionally, a film comes along with a deft directorial touch that explodes Hollywood’s myths. Apocalypse Now, Reservoir Dogs and The Godfather are films that did that some decades ago. This year, Clint Eastwood is that contrarian and American Sniper is that film. The film is quite obviously painful for the tongue-tied popular press bewildered by the galactic artistic, political and commercial success of American Sniper. It's not so much that the film violates their pop culture dogmas, which it does, but more that they neither understand the deft directorial touch of Eastwood nor do they understand why the real people revere a good film about other real people when they see one.
Reading the New York Times no by-line review proves the point. The writer, whoever that may be, is conflicted claiming that the film;
"...is both a tribute to the warrior and a lament for war. Shirking politics, the film instead sets its sights squarely on its elite protagonist (Bradley Cooper), a traditional American war hero in an untraditional war." (But then at the end of the review there appears a curious lamentation of a post-modern mind; the need to nuance evil.) "Few Iraqis here are seen as anything but the enemy.
When Eastwood delved into World War II in "Flags of Our Fathers," his switch to the other side of the battlefield for "Letters From Iwo Jima" remains one of the most profound moral decisions in moviemaking. As fine as "American Sniper" is, it's in need of a companion piece."
Really? So, filmmakers have some moral responsibility to present a nuanced ambiguity for a point of view they do not endorse? Is no one evil because we are all evil? And, we are all evil because there is no evil? With that mindset, no wonder the some reviewers are conflicted and don't know quite what to make of the film while nervously hoping a sequel will be made from the terrorist point of view as equally moral. They better not dangle from a rope waiting for Eastwood to take that point of view. His success as a director is an enigma to a popular press that deeply resents his defense of heroes John Ford would buy popcorn to see. Why is that? Simple, it’s the power of the enthymeme.
There's no nuance in a Clint Eastwood film, but there is enthymeme and lots of it. He tells a real story with true characters dealing with authentic world consequences for their choices and their actions. They do not pose or pretend. They know who they are and claim nothing more. They wouldn't know how to be false. Eastwood presents them just as they are with no apologies and no regrets. That's what gets under the skin of his critics. Eastwood's 'sniper' is an Eastwood archetype that spans Eastwood's acting, producing and directing incarnations; thirty-five films in thirty-five years produced at Warner Brothers. His secret formula is the artful use of enthymeme in plot, character, and dialogue. Instead of holding a press conference to preach about how racist and unfair the death penalty is. He just tosses this line at you in;
(courtesy of IDBM)
UNFORGIVEN (1992)
" It’s a hell of a thing, killin’ a man. You take away everything he’s got, and all he’s ever gonna have.”
(The German Philosopher, Immanuel Kant, used the same premise in his defense of the death penalty.)
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Eastwood doesn’t apologize for revenge killing. When Gene Hackman's evil sheriff character says he doesn't deserve to have his head shotgunned into hamburger. Eastwood calmly delivers this bit of enthymematic comfort;
“ This ain't got nuttin' to do with deservin'.”
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Clint sends his ‘don’t mess with me’ messages indirectly as in:
GRAN TORINO (2008)
“Ever notice how you come across somebody once in a while you shouldn’t have messed with? That’s me.”
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Just in case some hombre is obtuse, Clint nudges him ever so gently in:
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY (1966)
“You see, in this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig.”
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Sometimes the vernacular is the wrapper for his enthymeme as in:
HEARTBREAK RIDGE (1986)
“I’m not doing this because I want to take long showers with you assholes and I don’t want to get my head shot off in some far away land because you don’t habla, comprende?”
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Of course, the most memorable and iconic use of the enthymeme comes from:
DIRTY HARRY (1971)
“I know what you’re thinking. “Did he fire six shots or only five?” Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk? Go ahead. Make my day. ”
Now consider and compare the enthymemes in these American Sniper dialogue snippets:
Taya Renae Kyle: If you think that this war isn't changing you you're wrong. You can only circle the flames so long.
Navy Doctor: Would you be surprised if I told you that Navy has credited you with... over 160 kills?
Chris Kyle: [Hums]
Navy Doctor: Do you ever think that... you might have seen things or... done some things over there that you wish you hadn't?
Chris Kyle: Oh, that's not me. No.
Navy Doctor: What's not you?
Chris Kyle: The thing that... haunts me are all the guys that I couldn't save.
Taya Renae Kyle: You're my husband; you're the father of my children. Even when you're here, you're not here. I see you, I feel you, but you're not here.
Wayne Kyle: There are three types of people in this world: sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs,
Wayne Kyle: Some people prefer to believe that evil doesn't exist in the world,
Wayne Kyle: and if it ever darkened their doorstep, they wouldn't know how to protect themselves.
Wayne Kyle: Those are the sheep.
Wayne Kyle: Then you've got predators, who use violence to prey on the weak. They're the wolves.
Wayne Kyle: And then there are those blessed with the gift of aggression, an overpowering need to protect the flock.
Wayne Kyle: These men are the rare breed who live to confront the wolf.
Wayne Kyle: They are the sheepdog.
Taya Renae Kyle: I need you... to be human again. I need you here.
Taya Renae Kyle: Hello?
Chris Kyle: Baby?
Taya Renae Kyle: Baby I can't hear you!
Chris Kyle: I'm ready. I'm ready to come home. I'm ready to come home baby!
Marc Lee: You got some kind of saviour complex?
Chris Kyle: No. I just want to get the bad guys, but if I can't see them I can't shoot them.
Taya Renae Kyle: What's the difference?
Chris Kyle: We ride horses, they ride their cousins.
Chris Kyle: God, country, family, right?
Chris Kyle: [to his pregnant wife] You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
Taya Renae Kyle: I have an alien growing inside of me.
Chris Kyle: [Chris sees his daughter crying being ignored by the nurse; the nurse is cradling another baby] Hey, that's my daughter!
Chris Kyle: [from trailer] I'm willing to meet my creator and answer for every shot that I took...
[whispers to himself as he points his rifle at an Iraqi boy carrying an RPG bomb]
Chris Kyle: Don't pick it up...
[pause]
Chris Kyle: Drop it!
[his finger starts trembling on the trigger]
Taya Renae Kyle: [from trailer]
[to Chris]
Taya Renae Kyle: Have I ever told you that I'm so proud of you?
[she lovingly caresses Chris' face]
Taya Renae Kyle: You're such a great father...
Chris Kyle: No, I'm not a redneck. I'm from Texas.
Clint Eastwood turns 85 soon. Long live the king.
Stunning read!
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