Skip to content Skip to navigation
University of Warwick
  • Study
  • |
  • Research
  • |
  • Business
  • |
  • Alumni
  • |
  • News
  • |
  • About

University of Warwick
Publications service & WRAP

Highlight your research

  • WRAP
    • Home
    • Search WRAP
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse WRAP by Year
    • Browse WRAP by Subject
    • Browse WRAP by Department
    • Browse WRAP by Funder
    • Browse Theses by Department
  • Publications Service
    • Home
    • Search Publications Service
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse Publications service by Year
    • Browse Publications service by Subject
    • Browse Publications service by Department
    • Browse Publications service by Funder
  • Help & Advice
University of Warwick

The Library

  • Login
  • Admin

Calling the shots : American Sniper, cinema populista e guerre impopolari

Tools
- Tools
+ Tools

Carruthers, Susan L. (2016) Calling the shots : American Sniper, cinema populista e guerre impopolari. Ácoma – Rivista Internazionale di Studi Nord-Americani, 11 : Gli Stati Uniti e le guerre del nuovo millennio . pp. 48-65. ISSN 2421-423X.

An open access version can be found in:
  • Publisher
Official URL: http://www.acoma.it/content/gli-stati-uniti-e-le-g...

Request Changes to record.

Abstract

Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper is sui generis: the sole commercially successful Hollywood film about the war in Iraq. This essay considers the politics of populist moviemaking in an era of unpopular war. Reading the film against the grain of Eastwood’s purported “antiwar” impetus for dramatizing the story of Chris Kyle, the author proposes that American Sniper valorizes both the killing of Arabs and gun culture more broadly. War, Eastwood implies, invariably damages warriors who deserve a better fate; yet guns are nevertheless endowed with quasi-sacred powers of regeneration in his paean to America’s most prolific sniper. To make this moral point, however, Eastwood has to occlude the final chapter of his protagonist’s life - killed by a fellow traumatized veteran whose therapy, devised and administered by Kyle, consisted of target shooting. Shorn of this bitterly ironic conclusion, Eastwood’s story encourages audiences to mourn the loss of an “American hero,” without considering either why he died or whether mass killing merits such reverent celebration.

Item Type: Journal Article
Alternative Title: Calling the shots : American Sniper, populist cinema and unpopular war
Divisions: Faculty of Arts > History
Journal or Publication Title: Ácoma – Rivista Internazionale di Studi Nord-Americani
ISSN: 2421-423X
Official Date: October 2016
Dates:
DateEvent
October 2016Published
Volume: 11 : Gli Stati Uniti e le guerre del nuovo millennio
Page Range: pp. 48-65
Status: Peer Reviewed
Publication Status: Published
Access rights to Published version: Open Access (Creative Commons)
Description:

Article translated into Italian by Dora Renna

Open Access Version:
  • Publisher
Contributors:
ContributionNameContributor ID
TranslatorRenna, DoraUNSPECIFIED

Request changes or add full text files to a record

Repository staff actions (login required)

View Item View Item
twitter

Email us: wrap@warwick.ac.uk
Contact Details
About Us