esrosedotblog

POSTHUMOUS

Today's film was the documentary

Trumbo (2007)

Dalton Trumbo was a screenwriter who had remarkable success and then lost all when he refused to say whether he was or had been a member of the communist party.

He took the First Amendment on the basis that no one can ask us our political affiliations.

But they did and they held him and the Hollywood Ten for contempt of Congress. It went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Ten lost.

Trumbo spent a year in jail and at least ten years in blacklist purgatory.

But he wrote films anyway and got paid for them. Mostly B's.

Then he wrote the script for The Brave One (1957) as Robert Rich. No one came to the podium. Everyone knew that it was Trumbo.

Then Otto Preminger used him for Exodus (1960) and Kirk Douglas for Spartacus (1960) and they named his name in the credits.

The hell that he went through is told through his own letters and autobiography. Some film clips are used as well with relevant dialogue.

Except for some personal memoirs, the entire film is written by Trumbo.

What pain. What a time.

I remember that it was all wrong. The blacklists and all. I would have been in my early to mid teens. He testified in 1947. McCarthy had his fall when I was a senior in high school.

I think we have come close to this kind of thing most recently in the bush years when this film was being produced.

We only had our feet in the water but it was bad enough.

Trumbo's words are read by some wonderful actors.

I liked it very much and it was very instructive.

I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5.

Labels: films