Trumbo (15.)
Directed by Jay Roach.
Starring Bryan Cranston, Diane Lane, Helen Mirren, John Goodman, Elle Fanning, Michael Stuhlbarg and Louis CK. 124 mins.
The communist witch hunts and blacklists instigated by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC) would surely sail into the nominations for Most Shameful Period In 20th Century American History Oscar, and that despite some tough competition. The Blacklist's legacy was thousands of ruined careers and broken lives.
The small legacy of Hollywood films on the subject are their own dark stain. Woody Allen in The Front is quite amusing but Guilty By Suspicion, with Robert De Niro may be the perfect example of the film that is so pleased with its worthiness that if offers nothing to audiences. Now we have this biopic of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, the most prominent of the Hollywood Ten who were jailed in 1950 for refusing to cooperate with the Committee’s hearings. For ten years he was blacklisted, writing scripts (and winning Oscars) under pseudonyms and organizing work for other blacklisted writers until Kirk Douglas effectively broke the blacklist by crediting him as the writer of Spartacus.
Hysterical scapegoating and paranoid fear mongering are always worthwhile subjects and here in the Trumpo era you can see why a film about this might seem relevant right now. The big problem with these films is that they are like anti capital punishment films in which an innocent person is sentenced to death. It's all too easy. Of course executing innocent people is wrong, just like persecuting people who were clearly not spying for Moscow. He may have been a member of the Communist Party, but the Trumbo of this film is no way a threat to the American way of life. When he is sent to prison and has to hand over his personal possessions they include a gold cigarette case; much of his tragedy is seen as the fact that he went from being the highest paid writer in Hollywood to writing for peanuts and he has to move to a smaller house.
The other problem with these films are that they are about writers (people from all walks of life were on the blacklist but they never get films made about them) and writing is inherently dull on screen activities. Trumbo is presented to us as the archetypal screen writer, clattering away at his typewriter while puffing away at his ciggies and downing classes of whisky – writers in films always drink whisky. The film's novelty is that he often does all this in the bath.
Trumbo is a nice enough film with an engaging performance by Cranston in the title role and lots of jolly cameo turns. At one point Louis C.K, playing another member of the Ten turns to Trumbo and complains, “Do you have to say everything like its chiseled in stone,” and that goes for the film as a whole. There's no thrust or zest to it. In the film, the decision to have his name put on Spartacus was down to a bit manipulation by Trumbo, playing Douglas off against Otto Preminger. According to Kirk Douglas's autobiography the decision was as a result of the Spartacus director Stanley Kubrick suggesting in a meeting that he should be given sole credit for the script, even though he constantly criticised it, and Douglas was so disgusted by his shamelessness he phoned the security gate at Universal and asked them to leave a pass for Trumbo.
It also bugged me that in a film which features actors playing real figures (John Wayne, Kirk Douglas) very little effort has been made to be like the person they are playing. The worst offender here is Stuhlbarg who is apparently playing Edward G. Robinson but is so thoroughly unlike any image you
Directed by Jay Roach.
Starring Bryan Cranston, Diane Lane, Helen Mirren, John Goodman, Elle Fanning, Michael Stuhlbarg and Louis CK. 124 mins.
The communist witch hunts and blacklists instigated by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC) would surely sail into the nominations for Most Shameful Period In 20th Century American History Oscar, and that despite some tough competition. The Blacklist's legacy was thousands of ruined careers and broken lives.
The small legacy of Hollywood films on the subject are their own dark stain. Woody Allen in The Front is quite amusing but Guilty By Suspicion, with Robert De Niro may be the perfect example of the film that is so pleased with its worthiness that if offers nothing to audiences. Now we have this biopic of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, the most prominent of the Hollywood Ten who were jailed in 1950 for refusing to cooperate with the Committee’s hearings. For ten years he was blacklisted, writing scripts (and winning Oscars) under pseudonyms and organizing work for other blacklisted writers until Kirk Douglas effectively broke the blacklist by crediting him as the writer of Spartacus.
Hysterical scapegoating and paranoid fear mongering are always worthwhile subjects and here in the Trumpo era you can see why a film about this might seem relevant right now. The big problem with these films is that they are like anti capital punishment films in which an innocent person is sentenced to death. It's all too easy. Of course executing innocent people is wrong, just like persecuting people who were clearly not spying for Moscow. He may have been a member of the Communist Party, but the Trumbo of this film is no way a threat to the American way of life. When he is sent to prison and has to hand over his personal possessions they include a gold cigarette case; much of his tragedy is seen as the fact that he went from being the highest paid writer in Hollywood to writing for peanuts and he has to move to a smaller house.
The other problem with these films are that they are about writers (people from all walks of life were on the blacklist but they never get films made about them) and writing is inherently dull on screen activities. Trumbo is presented to us as the archetypal screen writer, clattering away at his typewriter while puffing away at his ciggies and downing classes of whisky – writers in films always drink whisky. The film's novelty is that he often does all this in the bath.
Trumbo is a nice enough film with an engaging performance by Cranston in the title role and lots of jolly cameo turns. At one point Louis C.K, playing another member of the Ten turns to Trumbo and complains, “Do you have to say everything like its chiseled in stone,” and that goes for the film as a whole. There's no thrust or zest to it. In the film, the decision to have his name put on Spartacus was down to a bit manipulation by Trumbo, playing Douglas off against Otto Preminger. According to Kirk Douglas's autobiography the decision was as a result of the Spartacus director Stanley Kubrick suggesting in a meeting that he should be given sole credit for the script, even though he constantly criticised it, and Douglas was so disgusted by his shamelessness he phoned the security gate at Universal and asked them to leave a pass for Trumbo.
It also bugged me that in a film which features actors playing real figures (John Wayne, Kirk Douglas) very little effort has been made to be like the person they are playing. The worst offender here is Stuhlbarg who is apparently playing Edward G. Robinson but is so thoroughly unlike any image you
