Clint Eastwood Believes ‘American Sniper’ Makes ‘The Biggest Anti-War Statement Any Film Can’
Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper continued its successful run at the box office after earning an impressive $62 million on its second weekend. Despite its success, American Sniper has gotten a fair deal of criticism, especially from the left, due to its staunch war theme.
American Sniper kind of reminds me of the movie that’s showing in the third act of Inglorious Basterds.
— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) January 18, 2015
However, Clint Eastwood is left bemused at the criticism adding that American Sniper is very much an anti-war film. The 84-year-old director spoke at Saturday’s Producers Guild Award Nominees Breakfast where he claimed that American Sniper makes “the biggest antiwar statement any film can”.
American Sniper has notably received criticisms from celebrities such as Michael Moore, Seth Rogan and Bill Maher. Eastwood insisted that the film depicted “what [war] does to the family and the people who have to go back to into civilian life like Chris Kyle did.”
Eastwood went on to compare his recent juggernaut to another that he directed.
“One of my favorite war movies that I’ve been involved with is Letters from Iwo Jima,” Eastwood said.
“And that was about family, about being taken away from life, being sent someplace. In World War II, everybody just sort of went home and got over it. Now there is some effort to help people through it. In Chris Kyle’s case, no good deed went unpunished.”
Eastwood spoke of how important it was for he and Bradley Cooper to visit Chris Kyle’s family in order to gain insight of the “history of the family and their feelings about the whole situation.”
“I went down there and met the mother and father and their grand-kids. It was of great value to [Bradley] because he could get into the history of the family and their feelings about the whole situation. It was a very pleasant experience from beginning to end.”
Recently, Fox & Friends host Charles Payne defended American Sniper, particularly Chris Kyle, insisting that the movie depicts Kyle simply saving American lives.
Payne said, “It’s a pretty simple thing, you watch the movie, he saved American lives. And he went through a tough struggle to do it, but it was a job that had to be done.”
One thing is for certain, American Sniper will continue enjoy success at the box office with many weighing in their opinions of the movie in the run up to the Academy Awards.
(Photo by Paul Zimmerman/WireImage)
