Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

ShangLuda Admirable film.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Joanna Mccarty Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Hitchcoc This film is almost hard to talk about. The Dalton Trumbo novel involves a man who has been dismantled in war. He is just a trunk and a head, with his body hanging on. He still has his sexual organs. He is immobile, of course, and dependent for everything on his caretakers. One young woman, a nurse, take pity on him and gives him a sexual experience. LIke any of us, he has dreams, but he is unable to express them to anyone. He needs stimulation but is kept in a dark room and approached on rare occasions. If there is a true nightmare, this would be it. The most devastating thing is that he is really young and will probably live a long time. We are kept involved with his thoughts through a kind of personal narration. It may be the saddest film I've ever seen.

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.

mark.waltz This deeply felt anti-war drama will make you ask many questions as to the point of war, the frailty of humanity to stop future wars, and for me, this one: When your government sends you off to war, and you come back so maimed that your life is not your own anymore, who is to take responsibility for your mortality? Timothy Bottoms is the tragic hero, a nice innocent young man who goes to France and comes back so messed up, there is almost no point to survival anymore. No arms, legs, ears, eyes, mouth, nose. Simply a working brain connected to non-working flesh. The heart beats, the kidneys, liver and lungs do what they need to do. But an eternal living death endures with nothing but time to reflect and ponder why he survived. Bottoms recalls his very loving parents (Jason Robards and Marsha Hunt in magnificent performances) and learns to communicate with one nurse (Diane Varsi) through the Morse code he learned as a child. Bottoms makes a request-either put him on display so the world can see the tragedy of war, or let him die through mercy killing.Dalton Trumbo, whose screenplay credits list some of the greatest films Hollywood ever saw, recounts a bit of his own childhood along with his anti-war sentiments that made him an enemy of the McCarthy era and got him blacklisted. He wrote the original book back in the late 30's (just as Europe was beginning to start another World War) and also directed this engrossing film that will endure discussion for generations to come. Timothy Bottoms is excellent, showing such fear in his voice-overs as his soul begs to be released, remembering an ideal childhood that makes his tragic fate so much more so. Robards gives a performance as Bottoms' devoted father so nuanced and layered it is a shame he did not receive an Oscar Nomination. Veteran star Hunt, another blacklisting victim, is both strong and loving as his hard-working mother. You cannot help but be touched by Bottoms' remembrances of their special times together. In a controversial but tear-inducing appearance, Donald Sutherland plays the vision of Jesus Christ who offers Bottoms comfort but not release.I normally do not like films that flashback so recklessly between different times or films that reflect different moods. This film has three different moods-one for Bottoms' stay at the hospital, another for his adolescence, and the third for the metaphoric dreams he faces as he falls deeper into despair. All work seamlessly together to reveal the deeper strength of our souls that overpower our physical beings. Words alone cannot convey the depth of emotions that this film brings on; It must be seen so the individual can understand what makes Trumbo's writing so deep and special.

ma-cortes This wrenching tale about a basket case in which a young American soldier named Johnny -Timothy Bottoms - is hit by a bomb on the last days of the WWI . The story takes place in the mind of a quadruple amputee who has also lost his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. As the deaf and dumb Joe is limbless , faceless and confined to a semi-existence and he attempts to communicate with the staff -Edward Franz- and caretakers . Regaining consciousness, 20 and some year-old Joe Bonham slowly learns that while his brain is healthy and able to reason, the rest of his body is irreparably shattered, leaving him forever tied within the confines of his own imagination. Regarded as a vegetable and stuck in a light-less hospital utility room , he fantasizes and dreams about life before and after the artillery shell . He struggles valiantly to find some way to communicate with the outside world . Tapping his head on the pillow in Morse code he breaks through and pleads with his nurse -Diane Varsi- to be put on display as a living example of the cost of war.The black-listed Trumbo adapted his own novel, seemingly unfilmable , incredibly based on real events , approximately thirty years after he wrote it and shot at the climax of the Vietnam era . The picture is often sentimental, sometimes thought-provoking as well as terrifying . It is developed through a sustained interior monologue on a series of flashbacks to Johnny's infancy , his first and only night with his love interest -performed by Kathy Fields- , before leaving for the front , his employment in the local bakery and his relationship to his father- Jason Robards- and Christ well played by Donad Sutherland , including some breathtaking images in a train. The flick terminates captioning the following : ¨ War dead since 1914 : over 80.000.000 , missing or mutilated : over 150.000.000¨ . ¨ Dulce et decorum est pro Patria Mori ¨. The movie deservedly won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes 71 . This morbid anti-war and pro-euthanasia diatribe is very good film though a little bit boring , talky and depressing. It's recently remade (2008) in a special version by Rowan Joseph with Ben MacKenzie as Johnny .