Half a century of the Johnny Got His Gun
On May 14, 1971, exactly half a century ago (!), at the Cannes International Film Festival, the premiere of Dalton Trumbo's anti-war film drama "Johnny Got His Gun" took place.
Dalton Trumbo's "Johnny Got His Gun" in Cannes was nominated for a Palme d'Or. But the festival's jury, chaired by French actress Michelle Morgan, awarded the award to the British film "The Go-Between", directed by Joseph Losey. Among the losers of this film were the Hungarian film "Szerelem (Love)" by Károly Makk, the Soviet "Бег (The Flight)" by Alexander Alov and Vladimir Naumov, the French "Le souffle au coeur (Murmur of the Heart)" by Louis Malle, the Italian "Morte a Venezia (Death in Venice)" by Luchino Visconti and others.
But Dalton Trumbo, despite the fact that it was his directorial debut, received the Grand Prize of the Jury (tied with Milos Forman, who was awarded for directing the film "Taking Off").
Dalton Trumbo directed the film based on his own novel of the same name, written in 1938 and published in 1939 almost simultaneously with the beginning of World War II. The title of the novel was derived from the slogan "Johnny, get your gun!" This slogan was used during the First World War in the United States as a call for young people to join the American army. That is, it was an analogue of the slogan used in Russia during the Civil War: "Did you sign up as a volunteer?"
In 1939, Dalton Trumbo's novel "Johnny Got His Gun" was awarded the American National Book Award as the most original literary work. And in 1940, Dalton Trumbo initiated the publication of this novel in the Daily Worker, the press organ of the Communist Party of the United States, of which Trumbo was a member. Mercantile considerations had nothing to do with it. Dalton Trumbo wanted to prevent the United States from entering the war against Hitler's Germany by all means available to him, since after the conclusion of the Molotov - Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union, and therefore the entire world communist movement, were, if not allies, then at least partners of Hitler.
In 1941, after the attack of Hitler's Germany on the USSR, the position of Dalton Trumbo in relation to his own anti-war novel changed dramatically. Trumbo began to prevent the publication of his novel in every possible way, because, on the contrary, he began to fight for the early entry of the United States into the war on the side of the allies. However, even without Trumbo's efforts, after the US entered the war, the novel was banned as anti-war, and, therefore, anti-patriotic, and until the end of the 50s was banned.
And Dalton Trumbo himself led a semi-underground existence during the McCarthyism years, as we wrote in more detail in the articles on the films "Roman Holiday" by William Wyler and "Spartacus" by Stanley Kubrick, the author of the scripts of which was Dalton Trumbo.
In the 60s, Dalton Trumbo had the idea to film the novel. With this idea, he attracted the Warner Bros. film company. In 1964, it was reported that the film based on Trumbo's novel would be directed by Luis Buñuel, and the film would be produced by Martin Ransohoff. However, something did not work out. Warner Bros. abandoned the project. Then, in 1966, Dalton Trumbo, along with aspiring producer Bruce Campbell, took up the creation of the film on their own. Both invested 80 thousand dollars in the budget of the future film, plus attracted 25 investors who invested 600 thousand dollars. 61-year-old Dalton Trumbo, who had no experience of directing until that moment, decided to direct the film himself. By the way, the film preserved the work of Luis Buñuel - episodes with Jesus Christ. But Buñuel is not mentioned in the film's credits.
The lack of necessary experience in directing affected the timing of the production of the picture - work on the film lasted almost 5 years. As a result, the film's budget was $ 1 million instead of the planned $ 750,000.
On the screens of American cinemas, Dalton Trumbo's film "Johnny Got His Gun" was released on August 4, 1971. And then he was hit by a barrage of very unflattering reviews from American film critics. And this is despite the success, albeit not absolute, received by the film and its director at the Cannes Film Festival. The most typical review was published, of course, in The New York Times by Roger Greenspun: "Johnny Got His Gun" has perhaps two ideas: one, that war is a crime, and two, that it is a crime committed by the old against the young. The first of these ideas seems unquestionable, but uninteresting. The second, though questionable, is also uninteresting. And yet they are virtually all the thought that gets into the film, the rest being a mess of clichéd, imprecise sentimentalizing and fantasizing."
Roger Ebert, remained aloof from the attacks on Trumbo's picture and thus once again demonstrated the independence of his judgments. Ebert rated the film by Dalton Trumbo with a maximum of 4 stars and in his review wrote: "I've never much liked anti-war films. They've never much stopped war,....Trumbo has taken the most difficult sort of material -- the story of a soldier who lost his arms, his legs, and most of his face in a World War I shell burst -- and handled it, strange to say, in a way that's not so much anti-war as pro-life. Perhaps that's why I admire it."
But in 1971, Ebert had not yet acquired the reputation of a film critic guru. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Film Critics, and, moreover, the first among film critics, only in 1975. Perhaps it was the attack of American film critics that caused the actual failure of Trumbo's film at the box office: with a budget of one million dollars, the film grossed less than 800 thousand dollars in the first year in the United States and Canada. Most likely, it was precisely because of the failure of his directorial debut that Dalton Trumbo abandoned further attempts to try himself in directing. And in 5 years he died - at the age of 70. And his only directing experience - the film "Johnny Got His Gun" - gradually plunged into the abyss of oblivion. And, probably, it would have been completely forgotten.
But, quite unexpectedly, 17 years after the release of the film on the screen, he received support from where it was impossible to imagine. In 1988, the rock group Metallica released the album "... And Justice For All". This album contained the song "One", the lyrics of which actually retell the content of Dalton Trumbo's film. Moreover, Metallica also made a video using frames from this film (you can watch it here.) And this clip caused a real explosion of interest in the picture, first of all, among young people, as a result of which the film was sometimes called "cult".
The modern moviegoer highly appreciated the first and only film of Dalton Trumbo as a director. 69% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users gave this film a score from 8 to 10. And 21% of users gave Dalton Trumbo's film "Johnny Got His Gun" the highest score - "ten".
In the USSR, the film was not shown, although it was created by a former member of the Communist Party, who paid for his beliefs with a year of imprisonment and years of semi-underground existence. Apparently, for the Soviet ideology, the anti-war orientation of the film was also unacceptable.
A Russian blogger, hiding under the nickname Main House, gave this description of Trumbo's film: "if someone is looking for a movie for "tension", not pop and entertainment, not empty arthouse philosophizing, but a serious film that will make you think and cause an emotional response, then you need to watch "Johnny took a gun" right now, without delay. But impressionable people should watch it with looking back to the protective mechanisms of their own psyche. Although the movie has a gentle, almost childish rating of PG, you should not be mistaken about this. Rating refers to the picture on the screen, but not to the message of the film. "Johnny" is able to drive into depression seriously and for a long time. The movie literally oozes despair, and the ending is such that you can only take a gun and shoot yourself. However, people of a different worldview (I refer to myself as one of them) may have a different reaction – joy. Gratuitous. Just for having eyes, a face, arms, and legs. And your mind isn't trapped."
Taking into account the audience ratings and all that has been said, the rating of Dalton Trumbo's film "Johnny Got His Gun" according to FilmGourmand was 8,620, which made it 273rd place in the Golden Thousand.
