The Invisible Counterpoint

''American Sniper'' is a movie for those who enjoy feeling protected and safely individuated—disconnected from other people—rather than for those eager to lose themselves into a brotherhood. Chris Kyle is a sniper—his organs and privates are always covered as he lies on the ground to ''snipe.'' He becomes a famous sniper—his fellow troops don't see him so much as just one of them as a hero protector who guarantees them victory. His mission is not the same as everyone else's, as much as he might pretend that it is: while the rest of the troops take out the ordinaries, he is bound to face off against the great devil Mustafa, who picks off vulnerable soldiers like a death vulture pounced direct from the sky. He can personally handle some adulation—one soldier who hails him repeatedly as ''the hero'' before the rest of the troops, is dealt with with a plate of flung food, humbling the alert state of newly-drawn attention with th...

Clint Eastwood feels comfortable when men can rule the public sphere and women can be ushered into the domestic. He feels that the idea of male authority is so vulnerable right now, deemed so deservedly vulnerable, that if you pointed to any instance of it with praise carelessly, you might find yourself linked to something just about to be devoured into a hole where devil jezebels will take it to pieces for its rape-enabling vibe. So he makes a film set in the era of the 1950s—"Jersey Boys”—where ostensibly it's not "your" preference but just realistic to delineate the journey of a band where everyone in authority is a man, and where its not your revenge dream come true but just realistic to show the fate of the agitated woman who marries the leader of the band to become a housewife who bounces of walls into craziness. And when he makes his next film, he escapes North America entirely, and goes perhaps to the one place where we can make male control not seem a c...