ManiakJiggy This is How Movies Should Be Made

Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

bkoganbing If you are at all squeamish than please avoid seeing Johnny Got His Gun. Not there is anything to see that is particularly, but Timothy Bottoms character in and of himself is one frightening example of what can come out of war and should it.The unkindest cut of all is minutes before the armistice was declared in operation and the guns ceased, Timothy Bottoms receives a blast from a mortar shell. Everything that makes one relate to what's around is now gone from him, four limbs, the windows to the senses all gone. But more of his brain is intact than the doctors realize and the film is narrated by Bottoms trying to communicate and also his memories of much better times before the Great War.Dalton Trumbo of the Hollywood Ten had been back working for over a decade now from the blacklist, but here he was not writing a script but also was the director filming his own novel. No doubt certain people were looking for a hidden subversive message. But the only message that Johnny Got His Gun delivers is war is very bad thing and does terrible things to some human bodies.Of course the title is a past tense of that opening verse of George M. Cohan's period flag waver Over There. So many young men from so many countries marched to war with those songs thinking war was some kind of honor thing. Honor if there ever was any in war was lost in that conflict where automatic weapons, poison gas, and the tank came to the fore. Kids with 19th century ideals like Bottoms as we see his reminiscences came up against something that flag waving nostrums didn't take into account.Bottoms is brilliant in the film that first gave him stardom and the rest of the cast performs well. Credit goes to Dalton Trumbo for a necessary, but harrowing piece of cinema.

cableup In 1972 I was 16 and living on my own in NYC. The era was tumultuous and I was naive enough to believe that tumult was the norm. That time was tailor made for the vision of Trumbo. In a different but appropriate way, today is too. I had read JGHG in my HS freshman year and seeing the title on a marquee in Soho I bought a ticket.I won't remark on storyline or the skills brought to bear by the principals or dwell on how the ethos, pathos and logos of Trumbo's piece are resonant now as then.I will relay this information. I left that theater shattered. I knew the story, the book was faithfully translated to the screen albeit abbreviated. Nonetheless the delivery of JGHG on screen affected me to a degree that no other single piece did before or has since. I am a middle aged man now with grandchildren, and the uncle of young men who served in foreign wars. I have yet to reconcile my disdain for people who take advantage of their positions to send our children to their deaths with my understanding that some things are worth our blood and treasure. We each carry our own unique moral baggage to our concepts of war. My baggage was made manifest at an afternoon matinée one rainy day in 1972, almost 40 years ago but cemented in my psyche. This is my testimony to the power of Dalton Trumbo's work.In case the magnitude of its impact has not been strongly enough emphasized here, I should note that I have had a copy of JGHG in my film library for some time but have not watched it. I just can't bring myself to go through that again as there is no cathartic effect or anything approaching relief to be had.

DragoonKain Let me preface this by saying I have not read the book but I definitely want to after seeing this very thought provoking film.Like many of you, I first heard about this movie from Metallica's video of their song, One. It's essentially the story of a young WWI soldier, Joe, who loses his limbs, his face, and all of his senses except for touch. But his mind is completely intact, yet trapped in his completely broken body. When I first heard about the movie, it seemed incredibly disturbing, and it definitely peaked my interest in seeing the film. But I never got around to actually seeing it until recently. And now that I've seen it, I'm very glad I have.The movie wasn't as disturbing as I thought it would be. Perhaps, had I seen this when I was younger, and more fearful of the losses he had suffered, I would have been horrified. But, as we age and are increasingly exposed to such tragedies and losses, our sensibilities numb somewhat, and we become more accepting of our own mortality and frailty. This movie is also somewhat comforting in that it makes ones own problems seem trivial by comparison. We often forget that things could always be worse. And Joe's situation seems to be about as bad as it good get. Nevertheless, he does his best to deal with it as best he can, which is also strangely comforting.Another reason why this movie didn't feel as depressing or disturbing as I thought was because the acting wasn't that great. There were times when I literally laughed out loud during some of the more emotional scenes simply because the delivery was off. The movie felt quite amateurish at times. There were also times when the film got a little too preachy. It often tries to force its pacifist views on the viewer a little too obviously, particularly in the way it portrays the military commanders as heartless buffoons with no redeeming qualities. Still, the movie did seem to get better as it went on and there were enough great moments in this movie to make it worthwhile.Probably my favorite aspect of the film was in the way it explored the themes of reality vs. dreaming. Because Joe is unable to communicate for much of the film, he creates a world for himself, mostly of memories, and of dreams, and of strange moments that have stuck with him. In his head, he often converses with his old girlfriend, a somewhat incompetent Jesus, and his father in order to get advice on how to deal with his situation. None are able to really provide good advice, reinforcing the fact that his situation is truly hopeless, but the things they talk about are often very thought provoking and deep on an almost existentialist level.Jesus, in particular, helps him to see that he is perhaps better off living for his dreams rather than for his real life, since his real life is more like a nightmare, and his dreams often give him hope and comfort. In a memorable conversation with his girlfriend, he questions what is real, and what time is. Since all he has is his memories and is no longer able to experience anything worthy of memory, does he really age? Will he ever forget anything since there are very few new memories to replace the old? In a way, he's frozen in time, and keeping track of time becomes one of his goals early on.All in all, this leads me to believe that the source material from which this film was made is probably much better than the film, and probably much deeper than just a simple pacifist's message. Check this film out if you get the opportunity, it will certainly make you think, and it's actually not as morbidly depressing and disturbing as you might think.

random_avenger On the last day of Word War I, a soldier named Joe (Timothy Bottoms) is hit by an artillery shell that doesn't kill him but destroys all of his limbs, face, vision, hearing and ability to speak. He wakes up in a hospital where he can feel people's presence in the room by the vibrations they make on the floor but cannot communicate with them in any way, causing him extreme anxiety. All he has left is his imagination which he uses to revisit his sometimes surreal memories of his childhood and youth, remembering especially his father (Jason Robards), girlfriend (Kathy Fields) and deceased army buddies. He also has conversations with Jesus himself (Donald Sutherland), but not even He seems to know how to help.The contrast between reality and Joe's dreams is marked by switches from black & white to colour. In the hospital room we can hear Joe's desperate voice trying to make contact with the doctors and nurses who either don't pay attention or just can't understand him. Only one of the nurses (Diane Varsi) truly wants to see him as a human being anymore. It's very easy to feel his pain and hearing him begging the doctors via Morse code to either make him a public demonstration of the horrors of war or just kill him is one of the most effective anti-war scenes ever. The very last scene should haunt the audience for a long time after the film has ended.Even though a bedridden shadow of a man sounds like an unlikely subject for a film, Johnny Got His Gun succeeds excellently. The anti-war message is heavy, but what other kind of message can you have about a world war? The heart-breaking story, diverse visual style, steady direction and strong performances by Bottoms, Robards and Varsi make the film a powerful work of art. It is one of the best war films I've seen and I'll recommend it to anyone looking for an effective cinematic experience in any genre.