JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN

US, 1971, 111 minutes, Colour.
Timothy Bottoms, Jason Robards, Marsha Hunt, Diane Varsi, Donald Sutherland, Kathy Field.
Directed by Dalton Trumbo.

Eminent screenwriter, Dalton Trumbo, undertakes an ambitious task: directing the film of his 1939 novel, a powerful anti-war parable of gentle and savage realism and fantasy. Some sequences are as moving as you will ever see in their picture of pre-1914 American family life. Some are harrowing as we identify with the hero, a practically dead survivor of a trench explosion. (Johnny didn't come marching home again, hurrah.) Timothy Bottoms is convincing, especially in the many monologues he speaks as we look at his hospitalised husk. Jason Robards as his father has some moving scenes. Donald Sutherland is a fantasy Christ. Many questions are asked in this memorable experience.

1. The overall impact of the film? Interest, serious study of war and antiwar? Its didactic tone?

2. The use of colour and the use of monochrome? Monochrome for the reality of Joe's situation? Colour for his memory and his fantasy? The importance of the re-creation of the World War I period, the war itself in the trenches, his happy home life, enjoyment in the countryside, work, going to war? The contribution of the musical score and its variety? Classical, popular American?

3. The portrayal of the realism of war in the trenches in World War I? The way this was intermingled in dreams, memories and fantasy? The importance of dreams and memories and fantasies for the psychic life of the individual? Their relation to realistic objectivity? The subjective life of the person? The projection into such imaginings of basic feelings? The film's technique to portray this psychological life? Audience identification with it?

4. The impact of the prologue and its tone, the war, the build-up to the explosion and its later explanation? The uselessness of Joe's detail and his maiming?

5. How effective was the anti-war tone of the film? How well did it state its case? The mangled and maimed figure of ice? Was this too strong - for a popular audience? The impact for an American audience in the light of the two world wars, Vietnam? (The film released in 1971?) For a non-American audience? What was the film's statement about war and man's participation in it, attitudes, motives, violence?

6. The title and the irony of the patriotic song and coming home again from war? The ironies?

7. The importance of the dialogue and the emphases on patriotism, especially with Joe's father, the people sending him off to World War I, the cliches about war and democracy - his father's statement about dying for it and giving his only begotten son? The attitudes of the military, religious leaders?

8. Introduction to the hospital sequences? The portrayal of the arrival, the role of the doctor and his decisions and the later scenes when it was revealed what he had done, the nurses and their treatment of Joe and injecting him for reflexes, the gradual portrayal of his discovery of his missing limbs, the long passing of time, the pain and the awareness of pain, his awareness of change, the gradual relief, eg. with the sun and the cool, learning to tell time, keeping a calendar? The nature of human life in this dismembered hulk? The film's comment on the value of human life?

9. The doctor and his responsibilities, his arrogance, the reasons for his decision in preserving Joe? The other doctors and their reaction? Their decisions in discovering his identity and his plea to be killed, the moral value of their decision to keep him alive - for what motives?

10. The narrative skill of the film and its communication of Joe's past life? The interspersing of the memories and the effect of this juxtaposition of coloured memory and monochrome present life?

11. How well did the film portray various psychological theories about the nature of dreams - the people in one's dreams and what they represent, the subject in his own dreams? Reality and unreality, learning by symbol?

12. The effect of the chronology, the development of Joe's past life, the various criss-crossing? The information given, the understanding by the juxtaposition of events?

13. The film's portrayal of the happiness of boyhood, fishing, Joe's devotion to his mother, learning, his emotional relationship with his father, and not hugging him etc. ?

14. The American youth, again the fishing, the important sequence of losing the line and his fear, the bond with his father, the gradual growth towards his father and his wisdom? His father's inculcating patriotic ideas and giving his only begotten son? The vigil at his death and its effect?

15. The contrast with the presentation of the American mother, the domestic touch, the importance of her reaction to her husband's death?

16. The significance of parents for Joe? What they showed him about life? The importance of his imagining his father and his father telling him to use his head for communication? The importance of the parent figure and his living on after his death in Joe's memory and helping him to come alive? His father raising him from a kind of death?

17. The romantic background: Kareen, and her father, their petting, the father's decision about his spending the night with her? The recurrence of Kareen in his fantasies? Her memories of only the one night, the fear of the baby, her marriage and Joe's encounter with her husband? The memory of her attitude towards his going to war and wanting him to run away?

18. Joe's work at the bakery, the significance of the party sequence, the people who were there, the dancing, the dance of life and death, the manager and his repetitious acknowledgement of his role and the workers? The comment on American society?

19. The build-up to going to war, the overtones of patriotism, the contrast with life in the trenches, death? The portrayal of militaristic attitudes and presuppositions, their arrogance?

20. The significance of the presence of Christ, Christ in Joe's fantasies - the religious background, especially his mother and the Christian Science? Donald Sutherland and his appearance as Christ, his going away from Joe, deaths? Joe's seeing him at work and the answers that Christ gave and his refusal to give solutions? The significance of his finally driving off in the imaginary train? The religious significance of this presence of Christ - in relation to human life, war?

21. The character of Joe - his personality as it emerged from his monologues and the dramatic technique of Timothy Bottoms reciting these monologues? The happiness of his early life, the crisis of the war, his coping with his wounds and disabilities, communication with people and imagining them, the importance of his encounter with the nurse and communication? Christmas, the passing of time, the various ways in which he could express himself -even to asking to be killed? The significance of his life and its meaning for anybody who knew his story?

22. The portrayal of the nurse, the contrast with the other nurses, her compassion, helping him to feel, the communication and the emotive warmth that she gave to this, the emotion, sexuality? The morality of her decision to kill him as he asked for it? Her being caught? The significance of the sign of the cross before she attempted to kill him? The moral right or wrong of her decision?

23. Audience response to the horror of his being kept alive? To what purpose? How alive was he? If he were to be shut away for so long?

24. The pathos of the receding shots at the end - the visual equivalent of Joe going into oblivion and yet alive? The final comment on the themes of the film?