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Okay, this must be where I can review films. Anyway, my first review will be of Johnny Got His Gun, one of the most depressing films I've ever seen, as well as one of the most beautiful.

The story follows Joe, a WWI soldier who loses his arms, legs, and face from a landmine. Instead of following the story on the battlefield, however, we are faced soley with Joe lying in hospital, remembering his old life and trying to communicate with the outside world. The result is one of the most poignant anti-war films of all time, with the viewers forced to face the destruction caused by war, and what it has done to Joe, both physically and mentally. It is certainly not light viewing, and definitely not recommended for anyone feeling down, but otherwise I advise you take a look, as it is a film not worth missing.

(Heheh wow, my first ever movie review!! Yay!! =^-^= )

(****):

In color and B/W.


I really liked this movie, at least for the most part. adapted from his own world war one novel, Dalton Trumbo adapts it very faithfully.

Joe Bonhams goes on a one act path from a simple teenage life with his teen sweethart to the front lines of a WW1, and, inevitebly to a hospital bed; immobile, blind,and with no limbs or lower face: with only his thoughts and touch to guide his mind.

I will not speak explicity of the internal mind struggle of Joe, but it is mostly mesmerising. Less mesmerising are some of the early scenes with his girlfriend, which i thought felt awkward and not very authentic; however i could be wrong, since people were different ninety years ago. I just thought it was weird that the if the girls father basically tells joe to go in the bedroom with his daughter, that they would be so hesitant once they were in their. I mean the guy is leaving for World War One like the next day! My point is that i was not drawn in by these scenes.

Certain flashback/dream sequences work great like a couple with his father in forest. These scenes pay-off in large part because that when they are over, real life sets in again, and joe is only left with his thoughts and multiple torments.

The people who come in to the hospital room are all fascinating in their polarity either toward being severly power drunk, or extremly compassionate, and in some cases seemingly indifferent towards joe's plight. The kind nurse has some amazing scenes, where there is not real dialogue for many minutes.

Dialogue takes a backseat much of the films sequences/scenes, and we are confined at times to hearing only joes internal thoughts.

Its the horror both of joe situation and the way it is handled that inevitably account for the powerful message of anti-war. Its powerful, but at times, the film lags. A very strong ending.

A curious story of the flashbacks of a fallen, maimed, physically destroyed and damaged soldier during World War I. The only functioning part of this soldier's body is his mind. His mind speaks but those in attendance, of course, do not hear him. There is an assumption by the medical staff that this wounded soldier is nothing more than a slab of meat -- no purpose, no feeling, no future. Johnny slowly begins to realize the full extent of his condition, and how he is going to deal with it. Can we learn from what this useless, supposedly vacant individual has to teach us regarding war and its consequences? Dalton Trumbo, screenwriter and director, conveys this story superbly. Listen carefully to all the ambiguity, and you will leave this film with a new respect for life, conflict and the weak and wounded from war.

*** (out of four)

Very moving and deeply disturbing adaption of the famous novel.

Timothy Bottom burst onto the cinematic screen in 1971 with two great performances in two very different films. The second was the brilliant "The Last Picture Show". The first was this film.

Bottoms plays a young man who has just been injured in the war. He loses both legs, boith arms, and his sight and hearing. He struggles to comunicate with those who cae for him.

Years later scenes from this film were used very effectively in the Metallica video for the song "One".

Dalton Trumbo was one of the top screen-writers in hollywood until being blacklisted in the communist witch hunts of the late 40s. He won an academy award, albiet anonymously for his screenplay of 1958's "The Brave One", and also wrote a pair of 1960 Oscar winning films ("Spartacus" and "Exodus"). Although his career never fully recovered to his position before the House Committee on Un-American Activities' investigation, in 1971, he was able to make his directorial debut on a film adaptation of his 1939 novel, "Johnny Got His Gun". What can be expected of a 65 year old, first time director? Surely not a masterpiece of a film, and yet that's what we got. Trumbo's story of a WWI soldier who is crippled by a mortar shell is of a vein similar to "All Quiet on the Western Front" and "The Best Years of Our Lives", in that it uses the devastating effects of war to question our beliefs of what life and death are really all about. To say the soldier is crippled is an understatement: he loses both his arms and legs, his hearing, and, although we never actually see it, his face is gone as well. He's left as nothing more than "a living pile of meat". The doctors, convinced he is for all intents and purposes brain-dead, keep him alive as a medical curiousity, to be studied and observed for research in further treatments, unaware he is conscious and can feel pain. All he can do is twist his head about, which the doctors attribute to "muscle spasms". The horror of this situation is only alleviated through various fantasies and dreams, oftentimes involving the love he left back home (Kathy Fields), Christ (Donald Sutherland), and the dead of his past, including his father (Jason Robards). Many of the flashbacks involving the soldier's family were taken directly from Trumbo's actual boyhood (in fact, the room where Trumbo's father died was used when filming the death scene of the main character's father). It's difficult, though, to tell which are the flashbacks and which are pure dreams from his imagination. It's possible that everything is a dream (something he acknowledges to himself through his subconscious). His mother (in his dreams) tells him only the soul is real, it's the flesh that's false. Some of his dreams are particularily powerful, such as his conversation with Christ, as he watches the holy carpenter crucifixes to mark the graves of dead soldiers. Christ tries to help him with his dilemma (he imagines a rat crawling on his face): "you should try to knock the rat off, and if there is no rat, it's only a dream- but I can't touch the rat, I have no arms". Christ has no answers for him. Some scenes in this film are so painful, so senseless they must be speaking to the then-fresh wounds of Vietnam. But really, war of any era is just as senseless when it comes to the human aspect. It should be recognized that it's an ugly thing to glorify war, and making it seem like it's anything other than the tragic waste of human life that it is, is reprehensible. Johnny Got His Gun gives us humanity reduced to it's most fragile state, and then asks us to judge what price is worth that cost.

Morbid and depressing, a surprising lack of regard to period detail, it seemed longer than it's 1 hour and 45 minute length. Very talky, and I found it painfully slow moving at times. It is moving, and it does make a statement through some very disturbing scenes.

Probably my favorite anti war movie so far. Goes very deep into the "locked inside" feeling, makes a very primeval fear out of war; even still, the rest of the story comes off a little dry and basic.