“I’ll unleash hell on you”: Clint Eastwood’s riskiest movie as a director
When it comes to telling a true story, the stakes are high. It’s not only that a director is trying to make a good movie, living up to their own cinematic standards and ticking all the boxes of being interesting, entertaining and moving for the audience. There’s now another level – they have to do justice to the facts at hand and the people it all happened to. Clint Eastwood was well aware of that, and no one would let him forget it.
When Eastwood pivoted to directing, his entire career as an actor helped him out. Having been on the other side of the camera, he knew how to get the best out of his cast. He understood how to convey and tell a story and how to truly get into a character. But when that character is a real-life person, it becomes more complex. It’s no longer the writers, directors and cast figuring out the motivations and feelings at hand. Now, all those things are facts that have to be respected and portrayed just right. The real-life events have to be respected, and in Eastwood’s case, he was warned there would be consequences if they weren’t.
The project was American Sniper, the biographical story of Chris Kyle, an American war veteran who wrote about his experiences fighting in the war in Iraq. It wasn’t even supposed to be Eastwood’s project at first. After Warner Bros. bought the rights to the book it’s based on, it was bounced between different hands, including, at one point, Steven Spielberg’s.
It seemed that everyone, at every turn, understood that this was a big undertaking. Not only was the pressure on to do justice to Kyle’s life, but it would be a film that really had to do justice to veterans everywhere, to victims of war and to anyone impacted by this conflict and any others. War, as always, is a huge, difficult topic. But when the story is being told through the eyes of a real person about a conflict that didn’t happen that long ago, it was a weighty film to be making.
Eastwood knew that, but just in case he didn’t, Kyle’s father, Martin Kyle, stepped in to make sure he did. “Disrespect my son and I’ll unleash hell on you,” Kyle senior reportedly told the Hollywood legend, threatening that if the story wasn’t told right, no amount of celebrity would save Eastwood from the wrath of a father.
It was a tender topic. American Sniper was released in 2014, a year after Kyle sadly passed. He was murdered at a gun range, so that tragic ending undeniably made the movie, which was full of violence and conflict, even more sensitive for Eastwood to be handling and Kyle’s family to be watching.
But luckily, there was no hell necessary. The movie was a complete success, racking in awards nominations, clearing up at the box office but, most importantly, respectfully and powerfully depicting the life of Chris Kyle in a way that made his dad drop his weapons.
Never Miss A Tale
The Far Out Clint Eastwood Newsletter
All the latest stories about Clint Eastwood from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.