JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN © DR - GAUMONT
Johnny Got His Gun: the horrors of war, as seen by Dalton Trumbo
Stepping outside the usual pacifist safe spaces, the first feature film by American novelist Dalton Trumbo, screened at Cannes Classics in a restored version, met with unanimous acclaim in 1972 on the Croisette, where it was awarded the international critics’ Grand Prix and the Jury Prize.
It’s the last day of the First World War, and volunteer John Bonham has been seriously wounded by a shell. Stripped of all his senses, all that remains of the man is his brain, which he uses to think and dream. While he manages to let the nurse know he wants to end his life, the army doctors brush off his requests and keep him in this vegetative state against his will.
In the history of film, only one has succeeded in serving up a full-frontal, heart-wrenching snapshot of the horrors of war and the despair that comes with being a victim of medical tyranny: Johnny Got His Gun. McCarthyism martyr Dalton Trumbo was forced to spend thirteen years working under a pseudonym before revealing his first feature film, based on his own novel.
In a May 1971 interview with newspaper L’Humanité, the film-maker described how he had sought to ‘repulse both heart and mind’ after having seen ‘so many anti-war films that only succeeded in stirring physical repulsion’. The first version of the film was co-written with Luis Buñuel in 1964, but the funding for the screen adaptation fell through and the project was abandoned before it was picked back up by Dalton Trumbo just two years later.
Johnny Got His Gun is a unique work shrouded in utter darkness, where black and white is spliced through with colour, like glimpses of Joe’s dreams and fantasies clawing through sinister reality.
Presented by Gaumont. New 4K digital copy from GP Archives. Released in cinemas across France by Malavida on 2 October 2024.
Attended by Nicolas Seydoux, President of Gaumont.
