Trumbo movie a timely reminder of dangers of demagogy
In addition to being an extremely well-acted motion picture, “Trumbo” is a powerful story about the societal costs of demagogy. The actor’s actor Bryan Cranston has a Golden Globe nomination for best performance for his portrayal as the title character Dalton Trumbo. Helen Mirren has a Golden Globe nomination for actress in a supporting role as the vicious gossip columnist Hedda Hopper.
It’s not a role one might expect Mirren to play, but the actress absolutely nails Hopper, who promoted the blacklist with all her power as a heavyweight columnist, in a time when her genre carried a lot of weight.
Trumbo was a big-time writer, at one time the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood. He also wrote several novels, including the pacifist “Johnny Got His Gun.” His screenplays – not all initially credited to Trumbo – include Spartacus, Papillon, Lonely Are the Brave, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, The Brave One and Exodus, a big hit of 1960.
Dalton Trumbo was one of the many, many actors, directors, producers and writers blacklisted from working in the motion picture industry from 1947 to 1960, after they were targeted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. They refused to cooperate with the committee, which was investigating Hollywood associations with the Communist Party.
Some, like Trumbo, served prison sentences. After his release from prison, Trumbo wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for “The Brave One” using a pseudonym. Trumbo is credited with breaking the blacklist. The infamous blacklist came before the McCarthy era, when the witch hunt for Communists, particularly members of the Communist Party who held positions in the federal government, was at full tilt. It was an especially ugly time when politicians such as Sen. Joseph McCarthy preyed on Americans’ fears of Communism, the Soviet Union and the overarching fear that the Cold War would become World War III.
The “Hollywood Ten” including Trumbo, were victims of the HCU-AA before the McCarthy era, led by the widely discredited senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy. He was a demagogue, in the same sense that Donald Trump uses “.. the dark power of words … rarely seen in modern politics … as he forgoes the usual campaign trappings … and instead relies on potent language to connect with, and often stroke, the fears and grievances of Americans,” Patrick Healy and Maggie Haberman reported in The New York Times (Dec. 6, 2015).
The Times report analyzed 95,000 words spoken by Trump, revealing , “historians say, … the appeals of some demagogues of the past century.” Historians, psychologists and political scientists compared Trump to McCarthy, Huey Long, George Wallace and Pat Buchanan “who used fiery language to try to win favor with struggling or scared Americans.”
Fear of Communists fueled the wretched witch hunts of the McCarthy era and the House Committee on Un-American Activities, just as many Americans’ fear of Islam – and all Muslims – partly drives Trump’s appeal to many. There are, of course, other reasons for Trump’s numbers in the polls of Republican voters.
As in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s, and throughout much of the Cold War, fear drove the placement of Japanese-Americans in concentration camps during World War II, after the Japanese stack on Pearl Harbor which drew the United States into WWII. Fear in part drove the isolationism of the 1930s, which dominated national policy – until the Japanese attack.
“Trumbo” the movie is based on a 1970 biography of the same title by the late Bruce Cook. In a foreword for the 2015 release, John McNamara, screenwriter for the movie, writes: “This is the only book about Dalton Trumbo written with his cooperation. Cook was able to gain Trumbo’s trust and respect, so as you read, you get the whole of the man and those affected by him. All of us who worked on the movie tried to get those same feelings of immediacy and intimacy on screen.”
They succeeded admirably. They include the fantastic Diane Lane as Trumbo’s wife Cleo and John Goodman as the head of King studios. “Trumbo” is a powerful story about First Amendment rights, that should not be overlooked.
Schumacher is a member of The Sun News Editorial Board. Contact him at dschumacher@thesunnews.com
This story was originally published December 16, 2015 at 9:00 AM with the headline "Trumbo movie a timely reminder of dangers of demagogy."