Clint Eastwood's American Sniper raked in an unprecedented $105.3 million during the Martin Luther King Jr. four-day weekend, far surpassing forecasts and breaking Avatar's records for the largest January opening ever. It also became the biggest opening drama in movie history. On top of that, it has secured six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor for its star, Bradley Cooper.
Maybe that doesn't matter all that much to the film's screenwriter, Jason Hall. He has in common with his subject, the late Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer Chris Kyle, a disinterest with awards.
As the sniper with the most confirmed kills (those that have been witnessed by somebody other than the shooter) at 160, Kyle was awarded two Silver Stars and five Bronze Medals for valor but in his memoir, he said, "I'm proud of my service, but I sure as hell didn't do it for any medal."
Similarly, Hall, who has been nominated for a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for his reworking of American Sniper (the book Kyle wrote with Jim DeFelice and Scott McEwen), says he wasn't concerned about awards.
"In the scheme of things, that doesn't mean much," Hall says. "Hopefully, we'll be able to give people a better understanding of what [troops] go through and get a better understanding. In the scheme of things, a nomination doesn't mean all that much to me."
Having come to screenwriting after years of playing supporting roles (he's probably still best known for playing vocalist Devon MacLeish of the band Dingoes Ate My Baby on Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Hall seemed content to get recognition for his work behind the camera.
After years of trying to get work by reciting inferior texts, Hall says that writing material for people like Cooper (who plays Kyle) and Sienna Miller (who plays Kyle's widow, Taya) requires more than avoiding phrases like "There is an eerie silence."
"I just try to be truthful and honest, and I try and write visually, so that we direct the eye, which in cinema is the eye of the camera," Hall says. "So you try to direct the reader to what he [the camera] is seeing and experiencing rather than what he should be feeling and let the feelings come out through the experience of the story. You try and avoid telling."
This approach is particularly useful when writing for multiple Oscar-winning director Clint Eastwood (Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby). "I also think that Clint has a rare ability to ask a lot of questions within each scene and with a character, go much deeper than meets the eye. Many people watch films nowadays, and I think that our cinematic intelligence is becoming more limited because of the number of shoddy films that we're watching.
"But Clint's films tend to look deeper, and he tends to ask missing questions that sort of resonated about Chris Kyle. He doesn't try to force them or inflict his opinions on anybody. His questions just present the truth and let the audience come forward and find it."
Hall says he and Eastwood focused not only on Kyle's four tours of duty in Iraq but in the struggle that Kyle had returning from the war. Between tours, Kyle would be home but itching to return to battle. This might not have been advisable because Kyle had developed blood pressure so high that it's a wonder he didn't have a heart attack in battle, much less die at the hands of an enemy.
The film depicts Kyle's struggles with his own heart but doesn't include the knee surgery he had. Asked why he selected such a seemingly uncinematic malady, Hall says, "I felt the blood pressure was a condition that indicated his psychological well-being, or lack thereof. It kind of played a part in doing his job. When he took his shot, it was between heartbeats. The ability to calm himself behind the gun was that much more impressive when you knew this guy had blood pressure that was off the charts. And he calmed himself down."
American Sniper also explores the toll Kyle's service took on his marriage. Hall spent hundreds of hours on the phone with Taya Kyle, drawing on her experiences and her impressions of the man Iraqi insurgents dubbed, "Shaitan Al-Ramadi, or the Devil of Ramadi."
"What particularly fascinated me about his war and how it affected the [troops'] families was that because of technology, this war was closer to families than ever before in the history of warfare," Hall says. "For Chris, who had special privileges for what he was doing over there, he was on the phone with her four or five times a week. They were able to talk all the time. It wasn't just him. There were all the families who were talking on the phone to their loved ones, and gunfights would be breaking out in the background that weren't meant to be heard by these wives. We certainly ask a lot of those families."
Hall says that Taya's input was especially useful after Kyle was murdered Feb. 2, 2013, by a former Marine the SEAL was trying to help readjust to civilian life. Hall recalls completing his first draft the day before Kyle died and says Taya revealed a more complicated and dynamic man than the one depicted on the pages of American Sniper.
"What people perceive as Chris Kyle, is Chris Kyle the warrior, Chris Kyle, the man who called people from the Middle East 'savages.' That's the Chris Kyle who killed, but the Chris Kyle who tucked his kids in at night is not the same man. There's a real process for these guys to become whole and to strip themselves of the armor they've had to put on to fight and take lives. For us to assume that is who they are is short-minded of us, and it's an egregious act of disrespect because we put them in that position where they have to become something to take a life. And it's not a natural condition."
He adds, "That book was written when Chris was back from the war. What you get in that book is Chris Kyle the warrior and not Chris Kyle the man because Chris Kyle at that point still had his warpaint on."
The content in the book has also been contested. For example, former pro wrestler and Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura successfully sued Kyle's estate for defamation after the book depicted Kyle slugging Ventura, a fellow Navy vet, for making anti-American statements in a bar. Ventura and his counsel convinced the jury neither the fight nor the remarks happened. The incident is not in the film or in current editions of the book.
"I have my own insight on that, but I don't want to get into anything litigious with this person," Hall says. "Here's what I have to say about that: For anyone to assume they know everything about what happened and everything that our government does, outside of the war or inside of the war, is naive. As far as the bar fight, it was a bar fight, in a bar with a lot of drunk people. People hear and see different things. We'll let them sort it out. I don't think we've heard the last of it."
The Ultimate Honor
Curiously the film, which has received praise from Taya Kyle and his compatriots, has also received support from anti-war activist Jane Fonda who tweeted, "Powerful. Another view of Coming Home." Hall says, "I wanted to show the sacrifice of a soldier going to war, not just Chris' sacrifice but everything we ask these men to endure. It affects them for the rest of their lives. That's what she's seen. That's a beautiful thing. That was the intent."
Hall also says that simply having the film out has been a reward in itself. "It's the first time I've had an experience where I've walked away from a scene being shot, and it's the essence of what I've intended was executed in front of the camera."
MovieStyle on 01/23/2015