Papa Mike's Video #20: Dalton Trumbo's JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN

"DARKNESS
IMPRISONING ME
ALL THAT I SEE
ABSOLUTE HORROR
I CANNOT LIVE
I CANNOT DIE
TRAPPED IN MYSELF
BODY MY HOLDING CELL"

Without getting too much in depth, this is a very good and occasionally moving - and for the time probably as good and moving as imaginable - adaptation of a masterwork of first person surreal-satirical narration and about what communication really means. The black and white scenes with our beleaguered but positive hero Joe are the sections where it feels the most compelling and where Trumbo finds a balance with his literary technique and visual style... 

Though I can't help but wonder if it would have gone beyond into another impressionistic or consciousness-expanding scope if Bunuel had it (I also wonder if Lynch saw this - how Joe trashes and moves in stunning black and white makes me think of the baby from Eraserhead - and I bet he would have nailed it too). The color scenes have their moments and Robards is solid (and Sutherland is... Not quite as weird as he was in Little Murders the same year, actually), but some of the acting and even Writing is stiff. 

I read the book a few years back and I wonder if Id have responded more seeing it closer to when I finished it. Johnny Got His Gun is captivating, sometimes deeply felt, and never boring, but something is missing here to make it a full story of the human spitit. Come to think of it, it is ultimately about the failure of it. 

(Oh, and the Metallica music video for "One" is the greatest thing this could have happened to the film.  It's iconic now.)

"S.O.S. Help Me."