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Johnny Got His Gun |
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Dalton Trumbo was one of Hollywood’s highest-paid screenwriters before Tinseltown’s McCarthy-era blacklisting. As a member of the Hollywood Ten, Trumbo was accused of being a member of the Communist Party, and after refusing to cooperate with the Witchfinder General and his cronies (the House Committee on Un-American Activities), sent to prison in 1950. Although he later admitted the affiliation, it was no excuse for his conviction. Using the screen name Robert Rich, his script for The Brave One (1956) won an Oscar, as his screenplay for Roman Holiday had in 1953. In the latter case, Ian McLellan Hunter was given credit (Hollywood finally awarded Trumbo his own Oscar in 1993, 16 years after his death). Finally, in 1960, Trumbo began to once again receive full credit for his works, beginning with his screenplays for Exodus and Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus. Trumbo’s experiences with the anti-Commie brigade are related in two of his books, The Time Out of the Toad: A Study of Inquisition in America (1972) and The Devil in the Book (1956). |
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| In 1939, Trumbo’s shocking and vividly anti-war novel, Johnny Got His Gun, was published. Although it won an American Bookseller award, the book was pulled from the shelves due to political fears that it would dampen the gung-ho patriotism needed in the upcoming war. Years later Trumbo was able to bring his anti-war classic to the screen himself and what he delivered is truly an unforgettable and affecting film. Francois Truffaut was to call his it all-time favorite war film. |
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| In the movie the story is told through a plethora of flashback/dreams that illustrate why young Joe Bonham (Timothy Bottoms) is laying in a military hospital bandaged head to toe (well, not quite, because he’s missing all his appendages). Joe enlisted when the war broke out, made love to his girlfriend for the first and only time, and shipped out. At the front he is sent to no-man’s land where a mortar shell lands in his trench, with horrific results. The doctors determine that his spinal cord is severed (the docs use the term “decerebrated”) and that he brain dead. As such he represents a tremendous opportunity for medical study. The problem is, Joe’s totally conscious of what’s going on, but because the shell also blew his face completely off, is unable to communicate with the staff. The flashbacks range from sentimental (but not sappy) to out and out weird. There’s the lovingly portrayed night with his girlfriend, a fishing trip with his father, and then...there’s Donald Sutherland as a very cynical Jesus Christ moonlighting as a train engineer. Making matters worse is Joe’s growing inability to distinguish his dreams from reality. |
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| This film will really tear you up. Most viewers will find something to relate to in Joe’s earlier life, and if not, there is so much information about Joe’s pre-war existence that we know too much to not care. If Joe’s first successful communication doesn’t break you up, the film’s disturbingly hopeless ending will. |
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Send Jim an E-mail |
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