A film about Dalton Trumbo
Dalton Trumbo was one of my first mentors when I was a teenager with ambitions for a writing career. So I'm happy to see this New York Times review of the movie his son Christopher has written about him: When an eloquent voice was stilled by Hollywood. Excerpt:
Peter Askin’s stirring documentary “Trumbo” gives you reasons to cheer but also to weep. It makes you lament the decline of the kind of language brandished with Shakespearean eloquence by Dalton Trumbo, the blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter, in his witty, impassioned letters excerpted in the movie.
Some of those letters, collected in the 1999 volume “Additional Dialogue,” are delivered as forceful dramatic soliloquies by a battery of distinguished actors including Joan Allen, Brian Dennehy, Michael Douglas, Paul Giamatti, Nathan Lane, Liam Neeson, David Strathairn, Josh Lucas and Donald Sutherland.
Another cause for lament is the shortness of historical memory in today’s climate of infinite distraction. Why chew on the unhappy events of six decades ago when you can drool over pictures of Brangelina or get lost in the latest video game? Anyway, who cares what happened way back then?
Writers in particular should care because it can (and will) happen again. Whatever you think of Dalton Trumbo's political judgment (clearly not good), his integrity and courage were exemplary.
Crawford, This movie is coming to town (Albuquerque) this week and I am going to see it Tuesday. When I saw the ad for it I remembered you and your father. Bob McCullough, my first husband, was a friend of yours. I have been trying to remember your father's name. Curious to see if your family is mentioned in the movie.
Posted by: Rebecca | November 30, 2008 at 07:42 PM
very useful for writers!
www.iamthetiger.blogspot.com
Posted by: mahendra | May 01, 2009 at 09:15 AM