Bound to the Past: Walt Disney's America

When I was very young, I was enamored with the film Old Yeller.  There were Disney animated films at this time, but they weren't the frequent audio-visual market-controlling dominations that they are now.  This was long before Beauty & the Beast, Aladdin, and Pixar Studios.  Disney's old live-action films still made frequent visits to the small screen, and there was always the Sunday Night Disney TV show.  Like many, I was driven to tears by the conclusion of Old Yeller, but I kept returning to viewings of it anyway.  It wasn't because of any sort of experience with dogs.  At this particular time of my life, aged 7 or 8, the family had one dog for a short period of time that I don't remember being all that fond of.

A wiener dog named Hunts.

There are family stories about this pooch.  Like the time my Mom left the house, and driving away from the family home, she glanced into the rear-view and spotted Hunts chasing her car from behind.  After Ma had locked up, Hunts had bashed out what Wisconsinites call a "screen window" in the bathroom, made a jump that would have killed an ordinary dog, and began chasing my mom's car.

He was an irritating beast.  I seem to remember him being a lazy sort, who lay about, I think with a monocle on, barking at people with a German accent. (this may be my imagination speaking)  He was like a Dachshund Colonel Klink.  As I said, I don't remember liking him much, but occasionally the son of one of my parent's friends named Gibby (I don't think he went on to be the famous Gibby from the Butthole Surfers, but of this I can't be certain) always acted like the dog was his.  That pissed me off.  Hunts was a Nazi dog, but he was our Nazi dog.

The true family dog was yet to come, the legendary Ginger.

I digress, but that's a story I must get to eventually.

Old Yeller was a favorite film of mine, but this was way pre-VCR. The best I could do to revisit the classic was by reading (or having read to me) Walt Disney's America, one volume of a 1961 4-volume Wonderful World of Disney hardcover book set, one that I had inherited from a sibling somewhere along the line.  One of America's chapters was the literary breakdown of the Yeller saga.  The book also included the sequel, Savage Sam, which didn't tickle my fancy nearly as much.  I loved having my parents read the tale of Yeller and his family and their frontier life, before the immovable object of Yeller's impending doom darkened the horizon.  The pictures of Yeller, consumed with Rabies terrified me.  My mind equated it as some sort of demonic possession, and that beautiful Retriever mutt was the last creature on Earth deserving of that terrible fate.  My folks did a great job explaining why the end was the way it had to be, but it didn't stop the tears from flowing.

 America dominated the other books in the series, which were Fantasyland, Worlds of Nature, and Stories from Other Lands.  This Volume contained, besides Yeller: Ben & Me, Johnny Appleseed, & The Shaggy Dog, among others.  It was a great book for parents to read to kids right before bed.  Just enough text and great pictures to look at. I wish I had still had my copy when my kids were growing up.

It was, among others in this blog series, a book I returned to time and time again when I was at that age just before I was able to read.  I wish I knew what it was about this era that continually draws me back.  Maybe it is because that time period was the safest I've ever felt.  Maybe its just before the true drama of life made itself known. (which it would very shortly)

Maybe the earlier days of all media were simply just better.

Pick Up A Book: "There is No Other Way to Worship Them"

As a young kid, I can remember days when the summer sun was so bright you were forced to squint to keep from going blind.  When that happened it caused you to do a sort of tunnel-vision, hyper-focus on a very limited area.  You'd end up considering a piece of receipt drifting through the street, a pre-civil war era piece of gum, a crack in a tire that shouldn't be there.  You had to pay attention to that object, something you'd never even give the time of day to.

The sun forced you to.

That's what happens in Sam Snoek-Brown's book, a short story collection called There is No Other Way to Worship Them.   These stories and their characters are so detailed, so alive, that you find yourself feeling like you're staring at them instead of reading about them.  It's almost a sense of voyeurism or eavesdropping your experiencing.   From major life decisions to everyday minutiae, the characters fictional lives feel real to a degree and depth that most writers can't communicate.   Most of the stories are Texas/Mexico based, and range from a war fought before your grandparents' birth to the present day.  There is humor, there is dense drama, there is often suspense, twisting around each other.  Good or bad, the people feel real, and you find yourself caring for them.  Sometimes.... when maybe you shouldn't. 

Though I may not be smart enough to often understand what Snoek-Brown may be trying to say underneath the waves in some of these brief storms across the imagination, the characters and narratives are so powerful, the experience is rich.   And when the chapter ends and you set the book down, its not unlike when a cloud would step in front of that blaring sun on those childhood days, and you're suddenly set free from the sun-forced stare.

Whether or not you realize it, this man pulled you into a dream.

Click on the image and above, to get the book.

Halloween II on Lichter Road

John Carpenter's Halloween was literally the only film to give me nightmares.  The first time I saw it, sometime in 1981, was an HBO airing on a miniscule black and white Admiral Television.   I watched with my sister Randee in a tiny Racine, Wisconsin apartment she shared with another sister, Dee.  Imagine that, subscribing to HBO and watching it on a 9 inch black and white screen.

Scared the shits out of me nonetheless.  And that is plural "shits".

The second time was on the floor of our family's Lichter Road homestead, lying terrified next to my sister Linda as my future brother-in-law whispered from the shadows that Haddonfield, Illinois was not far from Kenosha, Wisconsin.

To me, the original Halloween, (and I know I'm one of gajillions who think this way) is the epoch of horror, and the icing is its perfection in seasonal viewing at this time of year.  It's tone personified.  It's not gory, it's intense and just plain scary.

Everyone in the world should remember a bullet-riddled Michael Myers falling out of an upper middle class balcony in that Haddonfield, Illinois on October 31, 1978.  Only to have gotten up and walked away as his demented psychiatrist looked on with an empty revolver.  I was mortified.

After all, Illinois wasn't very far from Wisconsin, said my caffeine and sugar encased imagination.  Don echoed that sentiment a short few months later from those affore-mentioned shadows.

Needless to say, I could not wait to find out what happened next.  I needed to know.

So in the fall of 82, in a two page spread in the Spectrum guide, there it was.  The featured film on the month.  Halloween II!!

To this day, I love the film.  I love how, taking a page from Bride of Frankenstein,  it picks up immediately after the climax of the original...it gives it some air of intensity. Director Rick Rosenthal claims to this day that he wanted to keep the suspense and tone of the original going for the sequel, but it was Carpenter who did recuts to implement more gore and graphic violence into the film to keep pace with the nasty slashers that followed in the seminal film's wake and became box office gold.

I don't know if that's true or not, (I hope not) but I will admit the sequel has a mean-spiritedness that seems unneccesary.  That needle in the eye!  Lance Guest slipping in a pool of blood!  Poor Alice!  All she did was wonder what the hell Mrs. Elrod's problem was!  What a random murder, Michael, geez.

All of this kind of caught me offguard as an 11 year old watching alone.

Anyhoo, the film affected me, just not as much as the first.  Because It had things that bugged me, even as a kid.  I thought the mask was weird and stupid until I learned years later that the mask was the original, worse for wear, from the first film and that I was actually stupid.

Myers walked in this one like he shit his pants.  As a kid, I queried, Would Michael care if he shit his pants?  Did he visit the bathroom?  Was the toilet afraid?  Now I'm thinking of Michael, Jason, and Freddy freshening up in front of a public bathroom mirror together.

I told you I was stupid.

40 years later Halloween is back on the big screen, with direct involvement from John Carpenter for the first time since Halloween III in 1982, and it is an amazing film.  The new one skips Halloween II entirely and acts as a direct sequel to the first, but there's an extended sequence that is an obvious homage to it that should keep the fans happy, if their memories are sharp.

Ham anyone?

Movies I Stayed Up Late For: Guest Appearance by Aidan Will: A Study of Billy Jack

The Billy Jack franchise has been a long-standing piece of my family's household for decades.  As readers of this blog and my Facebook page will well know.  My sister, Linda, indoctrinated me in the late 70's, and my love of the series has only grown despite its much deserved criticism.

The second in the series, Billy Jack, has a standing that has decreased in the mainstream over the years, but its cult adoration still exists and thrives.  Even modern film/tv stars like Nick Offerman sing its praises.  Why the fans exist is a question answered with multiple responses.  Whether its the nostalgia factor, the political leanings that dance on the fringes of history lessons, or its sympathy to the plight of Native Americans and their reservations, (these are issues still being addressed cinematically by the likes of Taylor Sheridan with the incredible Wind River, and TV's Yellowstone), all answers are valid.

My kiddo Aidan has discovered it as well, and is a proud owner of the recent Shout Factory's Blu-Ray box set of the series.  Their explanation of the Billy Jack Franchise's ups and downs is as strong, if not better summation of any I've read.  Sit back, put on your banded hat, prepare for a vision quest, and absorb the foundations of Milwaukee native Tom Laughlin's labour of love.

Ladies and Gents, I give you the words of Aidan Will:

It was a tumultuous time for the world, and a time of change for the cinema. The Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement had galvanized the youth culture into action and activism and disillusioned them with authority and government. In response, the film industry had to change. Those investing their money in film could no longer afford to ignore the youth. So, in the mid-sixties, a wave of more modestly budgeted and, frequently, more politically aware films hit the market, and these films made money. This was the scene Tom Laughlin entered with Billy Jack. Though obscured by the more well-known films of the day, Laughlin’s most well-known feature was nonetheless influential in how films are marketed and stands as a perfect example of the cinema of the early 70’s in both the methodology of its release and the merit of its content. 

Tom Laughlin was a Milwaukee native who began acting in the 50’s (Spiro, Milwaukee Journal). Upon witnessing the mistreatment of Native Americans in South Dakota, the hometown of his wife, Delores Taylor. This mistreatment ranged from attempts at exclusion and intimidation at the post office to their inhumane living situations. Laughlin deigned to write a screenplay capturing his frustrations at this mistreatment. He was in disbelief seeing people living in covered cars and showering in water coming from a pipe outside of a church. (Esposito) After marrying Delores, they were off to Hollywood, because he “wanted to change things.” They were soon bankrupt but the couple managed to arrange funds to produce the exploitation film The Born Losers (1967) to cash in on the motorcycle-gang film craze and raise the money to make Billy Jack. (Wilkins, People) 17 years after the script was initially written, they were able to make the film they wanted. Fighting tooth-and-nail all the way, they experienced various production problems ranging from disputes with Warner Bros. to Laughlin’s own fiery attitude and approach to directing on set. After selling the finished project to Warner Bros. for distribution for $1.8 million, Laughlin was unhappy and suspicious of their treatment of the film. He accused them of sidelining the project’s release in preference to their own productions and took them to court. The dispute was settled and Laughlin supervised the re-release himself, booking theaters across the country. He began showings with 66 Los Angeles theaters each showing the film for one to two weeks. It then spread to nearly 400 theaters simultaneously, a number which would only grow over the next two years. (Hall, Neale, 196-197)

The film, against all odds, was an absolute hit, factoring in both its initial 1971 release and subsequent re-releases facilitated by Warner Bros. in ’72 and ‘73, it grossed around $90 million on an $800,000 budget. When adjusted for inflation this is still an incredible and noteworthy success. The film was, if only briefly, a phenomenon, it seemed Billy Jack was the hero for the right place and the right time. Something about this film spoke to people, and when its content is considered, it’s surely understandable. Billy Jack (as played by Laughlin himself) was a war veteran who hated the Vietnam war, and sought to defend people from social injustices whenever he could, perhaps the perfect hero for the youth of 60’s and 70’s. In particular, he aimed to defend the so-called ‘Freedom School,’ a facility ran by Jean (Delores Taylor’s character) where all were welcome, no matter their heritage or interests. Of course, a group of backwards townspeople, even on the establishment level, are not keen on this institution, essentially relegating it to a haven of kooks encouraging and bolstering hooligan behavior. The design of this film is, to say the least, peculiar. It defies categorization. Surely many people flocked to see the film’s impressively executed martial arts sequence, but that’s only a small fraction of the film.

 It could be said Laughlin was uncertain of the sort of film he wanted to make. The focus of the final product, for all its merit, is certainly questionable. At times it does hearken back to its exploitation predecessor, The Born Losers, with a subplot involving the rape of Delores Taylor’s character, and of course the titular character’s physical vengeance upon the oppressors of the town. Yet there are large portions of this film that seem to lean towards the tendencies of the Art film, or even the Neorealist film. Billy Jack comes and goes, but what is always there is the town and its people. And Laughlin was happy to let the camera stay on the people of town and the students of the school. We see children sing songs, and men perform improvisational theatre both on campus and in the middle of the town. He had visual reverence for the natural landscapes surrounding the area. These sequences alternate between being somewhat of a drag to legitimately charming. Calling back to Neorealism, the film was shot on location and much of the cast was culled from non-professional sources, including friends of the Laughlin family. Laughlin got convincing performances out of the people where it counted. Thanks to this, the serious moments of the film operate with actual gravity and are able to land on the audience with impact. 

There’s no doubt that the film is deeply spiritual as well, with Laughlin wanting to pay great respect to the Native American people. He stated in an interview his belief that in making Billy Jack he was helping to preserve the message and memory of the Ghost Religion founded by the Paiute leader Wovoka, after Wovoka’s son-in-law and last surviving descendant, Andy Vidovich flew to the set stating “Wovoka wants me to get his message out.” In consideration of more than one interesting synecdoche occurring on set (one a scene of Native Ritual, the other a dispensation of mortal justice) Laughlin states that upon filming certain scenes, “It became clear to me that Wovoka was using us to get his message through to today’s youth.” (Esposito) It has to be admitted that the film is preachy, Laughlin had no interest in subtlety here. The saving grace being that it was well-meaning, sincere, and perhaps appropriate for the time it was made. The film draws from real experiences had by Taylor growing up in South Dakota. One famous scene, in which one of the oppressors pours flour over some of the students in an ice cream shop to “make them white,” was based off of actual events. (Esposito) It is very likely, given Laughlin’s very particular anti-authority attitude and borderline-hippie aesthetic, that this film couldn’t have been so successful in any other period of time. 

It goes without saying that despite the film’s stellar box office performances and warm reception by audiences (if not critics), not to mention its spawning of at least one highly successful sequel, The Trial of Billy Jack (1974) (which itself featured a highly influential marketing campaign) , it’s simply not remembered like the box office hits of its day such as William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973), Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975) and George Lucas’s Star Wars (1977). When looking at the time in New Hollywood when a film first became an event that could be sustained for a long time over a wide area, Billy Jack is surely not irrelevant to the conversation. Yet it’s not frequently included in such discourse. There are no Billy Jack Halloween costumes, no Billy Jack action figures or playsets, or talks of rereleases and reboots. The film’s popularity has died down from a blockbuster audience to what is essentially a cult following that, while passionate and enduring, is not massive. 

So, why was the Billy Jack craze so ephemeral in comparison to that of the blockbusters that would follow? Why would a massive blockbuster audience simmer down to the most modest of followings?  Perhaps it was simply too much of a product of its time, satisfying to its immediate audience, but dated in such a way to render it less palatable for later audiences. On an objective level, Billy Jack simply wasn’t as great a film as Jaws or Star Wars. The film’s unfocused and unclassifiable nature, while part of its intrigue, may have been to its detriment in the long run. This film couldn’t reward the average viewer on repeat watches as perhaps Jaws and Star Wars could. Those curious about the film’s seminal, Bruce Lee-predating martial arts sequence may have lost interest after learning they would also have to contend with prolonged sequences of singing and improvisational theater.  The Trial of Billy Jack, while also a great success, was even more experimental and carried on the political themes of its predecessor, even featuring recreations of the Kent State Shootings and the My Lai Massacre. This was not a well-received film, critically speaking (Though there are those in recent times calling for a reappraisal), and the next Billy Jack film, Billy Jack Goes to Washington would end up being a cinematic vehicle for Laughlin’s real-life political ambitions, and never saw theatrical release. A fifth sequel began production but was never finished. Perhaps, if the sequels had committed to a specific genre (likely the action film) the franchise’s popularity could have maintained momentum enough for it enough to have achieved lasting mainstream recognition.

So, what is Billy Jack? Is it’s a blockbuster or a cult film? The proportion of its budget to its success was surely suggest a blockbuster, and one might demand it take a place at the table of the 70’s box office successes, given its re-release exhibition method of “four-walling” had an influence on several major studios’ re-releases of expensive pictures who’s initial box office results were disappointed, such as Warner’s Jeremiah Johnson (1972), Avco Embassy’s The Day of the Dolphin (1973) and MGM’s Westworld (1973).  (Hall, Neale, 197) But today the film holds onto but a modest cult audience. It could be said that Billy Jack was a cult film that scratched and clawed its way to blockbuster success through the sheer tenacity of its creator. 

In the end, the film’s legacy still clings to life in the periphery. Laughlin and Taylor have since passed on (Laughlin in 2013, Taylor in 2018), survived by their children who also took part in the making of their films. However rough around the edges, Billy Jack deserves a place in the discussion of New Hollywood given to its unlikely success and appeal to the youth culture.  The Billy Jack franchise remains as a testament to the Laughlins’ passion and their hope for social change, as well as a monument to their extraordinary perseverance in a harsh industry. 

Bound to the Past: Jaws

As a kid, I was really a huge fan of sharks.  Ridiculously so.  They were, after all, "nature's perfect killing machine", which was a quote said or written by everybody.  By the 4th grade, I had accumulated numerous books of the Scholastic variety, and watched every nature program on the subject that was available without the benefit of cable television.  My mom had added to my burgeoning interest by finding copies of Shark: Attacks on Man by George A Llano and Shark Attack by H. David Baldridge at rummage sales. I was, at a young age no less, becoming an oceanographer-level expert on the notorious carcharodon carcharias.

And needless to say, I had seen Jaws about 10 times by the time I was 9.  At that age, I had decided I wanted to take the leap and read Peter Benchley's novel that was the basis for Steven Spielberg's now famous popcorn extravaganza, and likely my favorite movie. In the same basement rec-room that I had stumbled across the book Strange Unsolved Mysteries, I had also found someone's ragged and dog-eared copy of Jaws, emblazoned with the "Now a Major Motion Picture" stamp that has become so famously applied to novels making the leap to the silver screen.

Benchley's book became the first "non-kid" book I ever read.  Sadly, it was nowhere near as exciting as Spielberg's filmed version, and contained a bit too much melodrama for a youngster geared up for blood-and-guts killer fish action.  Who needed all that marital intrigue?  Certainly not this 9 year-old.  Despite that, this was the moment that I fell in love with the concept of the novel.  I've been an avid reader ever since.  Eventually my sister bought me the novelization of Jaws 2 by Hank Searls for Christmas, and this young completionist was thrilled.  I had a mini-library of shark-related material to continually delve into, while that behavior drew shaking heads and rolled eyes from family members.

In the winter of 1979, another sister (see a trend developing here?) bought me Ideal's Jaws "board game" where you need to pluck junk from the great fish's mouth before its jaws clamp down on the plastic hook you use to accomplish this goal. To be honest, the box it comes in is much cooler than the game itself.

Not too much further past that moment in time, sharks lost much of their luster as explained here.  Nonetheless, The Great White Shark, through fiction and fantasy, had become an imagination-piquing device that I, to this day, occasionally still reference.  I've seen Jaws and Jaws 2 many more times since, passed their legendary stories on to my kids, (avoid numbers 3 and 4 at all costs, unless you dig unintended laughter) own a DVD copy of Blue Water, White Death, and have immersed myself in Steve Alten's hyper-speed Meg series with great relish.  Meg, to the uninitiated, is based on the Megaladon species, the prehistoric precursor to the Great White, said to be a 65 foot version of it's descendant.  You can imagine where the imagination can take that concept.  A filmed version of that classic is headed to the big screen this summer, 43 years after Jaws.

I don't know if I would have become the avid reader I am, the lover of suspense and sci-fi that I continue to be, the admirer of the great creatures that only mother nature can provide that I have always been, had it not been for Jaws.  I definitely wouldn't have turned out to be the Roy Scheider enthusiast that I am.  Speaking of which, check out The Seven-ups and Sorcerer today.  I mean it, buy them now.  These films are 70's masterworks.

And again, to a book, I'm grateful.

Say, if you're in the mood for my less-than-insightful look at one of the most blatant rip-offs of Jaws ever made, there's this.

Critical Mass For The Envelope

Since the dawn of music, movies, and film,  people have been trying to get to the extreme edge of expression.  

Society itself usually provides the method of reigning it in, whether it be mild watchfulness or censorship, it doesn’t matter. The outside layers get pushed further and further out over time.

I think we may have reached critical mass.

Maybe I’m talking about the door that was opened by punk in the 70’s and the metal and grind core blacksmiths that wandered through it that have brought us to the brink with black metal. 

Perhaps I mean the dark corners probed by cyberpunk and splatter authors that exacerbated and maybe even blasphemed the pathways laid by Stephen King?

Of course there’s the awful rough edges of film created by filmmakers I won’t mention by name here.  Their stuff is not the material of mass marketing, but I know who they are and what they’ve done and cannot understand them.  It seems as though they want to drag the awful into the light so you can stare at it like Malcolm McDowell at the end of “A Clockwork Orange”, while they grin at the hideousness they have wrought.

What is the purpose of the exposed flesh these musicians, writers, and filmmakers have birthed?

It’s possible to flash the dark angles of the soul to express your anger, your pain, your frustration.  Those pieces of night, when bared, are definitely supposed to let folks know that there’s a layer to you that they should be sad for, feel the anger associated with, perhaps even be wary of. 

Those moments that the author, the creator, allows to flicker, do indeed shock because they are of themselves and by nature limited. It’s painful because its unsustainable. The expression of sadness, anger, sorrow, yes, even hatred can be beautiful when its measured. When you prolong it, it becomes something else. 

It becomes ugly. 

It becomes cruel.

It becomes Evil.

The raw, ripping music of The Sex Pistols, The Clash, and The Misfits.  The words of Stephen King, Jack Ketchum, and Joe R. Lansdale.  The filmed brush strokes of John Carpenter, Wes Craven, George A. Romero.  These were the extremities of my youth, my roots, where I came from.  These were the hard edges that kept me up at night….

Yes, there are numerous moments in all of their accomplishments that are disturbing, disgusting, and painful to behold.  Those moments are surrounded by great beauty however, even if its just in the way the works are constructed or machined.  When the darkness comes, it tears at your heart, makes you leap, perhaps even reel back on your heels in shock.  The reason for that effect is because they are layered among the existence of other possibilities, and therein lies the art, shining is the beauty. 

I do love how I’ve seen all of these creators of legend being a direct influence on many artists today, so perhaps the apocalypse is not near.  That being said, I also see an outpouring of music that is 100% shock value, with vocals that sound like someone belching into a drive-thru speaker, writers that only merely sprinkle plot among the bloodshed, filmmakers that seek only to exploit the very base vile actions that humanity can perpetrate.  Like Stephen King himself said about one of his own short stories, they have "no redeeming social value".

Yes, it is a sort of critical mass.  Due to the pure monstrous id of what these folks have created, the others with a story to tell, a song to sing, a visual painting to create, can no longer be seen as “the edge”.  It's because the envelope the true artists pushed has been set alight by those who want to only disgust.  The edge hasn’t been pushed, it’s been leapt over, screaming and flailing, without a parachute.

It’s a shame, really.  I’m one of the lucky ones, having done enough research to know where those that dwell in the dark have displayed their work and choose to avoid it.  The world is dark enough on its own. Especially in these awful, multi-level monstrous days.  The true shocks, the startling moments of the soul, are best experienced when what exists around them actually provides them the strength and meaning they possess. 

I choose to take my darkness where it actually accomplishes what it’s supposed to. 

In the light.

And sometimes, in well designed darkness, the light has power too.

The Spectrum Files: Johnny Got His Gun

I'm no big fan of guns, that's not a mystery to anyone that knows me, because my lizard brain has a hard time detangling them from warfare.

In the winter of 1988, all the long-hairs in my Central Wisconsin High School were jacked to the moon because it happened.

Metallica crossed over.

With the single "One", the Bay-area four piece thrash outfit had gone from headbanger cult band to a chart-topping rock act.  This opened the door to hearing the type of hard-rock on mainstream radio that most people wouldn't think possible.  It was a watershed moment.  That overshadowed the true accomplishments of the song, however.  The structure of "One" is based on the concept of a man who goes to war and loses all of his limbs, his eyesight, and his hearing.  He lays in a complete void wanting nothing but release.  In all reality, it is pretty impossible to imagine a worse fate.  The concept is mirrored by the story "Johnny Got His Gun" and subsequent film, both of which the band claimed to have never heard of when they composed the piece.

On a warm Saturday afternoon in the summer of 1982, Spectrum aired the 1973 film written and directed by the since-legendary Dalton Trumbo.  Trumbo was played to Oscar-nominated effect by the actor Bryan Cranston, in a film about the man and his membership of the group known as The Hollywood Ten, blacklisted for their alleged ties to communism.  Trumbo's gifts were such that he was allowed to work in the industry behind closed doors, uncredited.

At the outset of Johnny Got His Gun, I thought it was another visualization of war, like many I'd seen previously.  That is, until its descent into hell began.  The lead character, Joe Bonham, goes off to fight, eagerly hoping to defend his country in World War I before his fate befalls him.  When he awakes in his black and white nightmare, only his dreams (in full color) are a release from his nightmarish existence.

The film's final scene is a bleak and uncompromising vision of awfulness in its cold honesty.  As a 10 year old, it was an ice bath that accomplished its goal.  It disturbed me to my core.  A long-standing fear of mine is confinement, like being buried alive.  This young man's situation probably wasn't much different from it.  It was some of the scariest shit I've ever seen.  An allegory of my worst fears thrown onto the screen as some sort of punishment for patriotism.  I wanted nothing more but to help this young man pull free from the bonds of an impossible quagmire of unrepentant misery and was helpless to do so.  I knew it was fictional, but not impossible.   Hence my unease, my reluctance to forget it.  While many friends were watching movies painting war as action films, I'd not look at those movies the same way after Johnny Got His Gun.

Regardless, over time, the movie had settled under dust in my memory sharing time with other problems, and was dragged back into the sunlight by Metallica's video.  The clip used footage from the movie as a backdrop for performance shots of the band playing their instruments in an empty warehouse setting.  All of what that movie had to share was brought back in excruciating revival,  firing off receptors of recall.

And I welcomed it.

Sometimes we need a reminder of what the viciousness of man can do, even if we don't necessarily want it.  But then again, in years since, art hasn't been necessary to provide that reminder.

It's been said that Jimmy Carter demanded all of his state department members view this film before beginning their work.  Perhaps it is time to resume that practice, and maybe have a few other people in government positions view it as well.

War is hell, but lessons can be learned in a much easier way than experiencing it for yourself.  Johnny Got His Gun is among the best teachers film has to offer.