MovieChat Forums > Trumbo (2015) Discussion > So is this a pro-communist movie?

So is this a pro-communist movie?


Thoughts

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It looks like a pro-democracy film. Everything that the Mccarthy hearings represented was fascism -- the suppression of opposing ideas through force.

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McCarthy was right.

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There certainly WERE communists. So yeah, in that respect, McCarthy may have been right. Heck, my Grandfather was a Communist. As a Russian Jew, he had absolutely nothing but hatred for the USSR. But he still was a Communist. But you can be right, and still be totally criminal and anti-democracy. These people who were blacklisted, fired from jobs, or forced to leave the country in some cases, were nothing but patriots. For the most part (and I'm sure you are right, that there were Soviet Spies in the country), these were simply people trying to improve working conditions and rights for those who sweated for their country. It was persecution, pure and simple, and thus totally immoral and evil.

Democracy means that all citizens have equal rights under the law, regardless of their beliefs. IF you abandon that principle, you become a fascist, and fascism is more dangerous than communism. With pure communism, you get a Kibbutz. With Fascism, you get a Musolini. We just fought a war to eliminate fascism, and McCarthy brought it into the United States congress, and made it the de facto law of the land. He was a fascist who had infiltrated the government of the U.S., and thus, by his own terrible logic, he himself ought to have been blacklisted and deported.

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I thinks it pro-free speech.

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Holy smokes what a dumb question.

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Here's a question:

Anybody in favor of adapting the Communist model of government to the USA now?

Are you now, or have you ever been.....?

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Honestly, is this thread real or a joke?

Its 2015 and communism died almost 24 years ago. The war is over and we won. You all can come out from under the bed now and stop seeing commies everywhere. (I realize that the current crop of conservatives long for the day when the Red menace was a guaranteed way to scare people and defame the other side...but that went out with tube TVs.)

Regarding this movie, Dalton Trumbo was one of the greatest screenwriters to grace Hollywood and also a true American patriot. He understood the importance of the Bill of Rights and refused to go along with the hysteria and demagoguery from the right wing. Whether he believed in Communism is not the issue - he was a US citizen entitled to his political beliefs without harassment. He committed no crimes, was never accused or charged or convicted, yet was forced into exile and (almost) destroyed. A sad, despicable blemish on our record. We are supposed to be free, especially free to believe something that is not liked by the majority. There is no freedom if you must conform to everyone else.

Regarding Mr. McCarthy, he was just a sick, manipulative politician who used the Communist scare (and his infamous "list") to gain publicity and fame and higher office and power. He had no real list and had no knowledge of the Venona intercepts (which were Top Secret at the time). His staff later admitted that his "list" was a blank sheet of paper. But the scare he started was picked up by the HUAC and the Hollywood right wingers, who milked it as far as they could. In the process, they trampled the civil rights of many innocent people (just watch the movie "Good Night, and Good Luck" to see how horrid the whole affair was).

Luckily, Dalton Trumbo lived to see his name cleared and to receive his recognition from the Academy, when, in 1975, he received an Oscar for "The Brave One". In 1993 he finally was recognized posthumously for "Roman Holiday", the movie that launched Audrey Hepburn. He wrote so many other great scripts and so deserves the recognition as one of the truly great writers of Hollywood's Golden Age.

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Regarding this movie, Dalton Trumbo was one of the greatest screenwriters to grace Hollywood and also a true American patriot. He understood the importance of the Bill of Rights and refused to go along with the hysteria and demagoguery from the right wing. Whether he believed in Communism is not the issue - he was a US citizen entitled to his political beliefs without harassment.


Saying Dalton Trumbo believed in the Bill of Rights is like saying Genghis Khan believed in peace and diplomacy. Trumbo admitted in books that were published in his lifetime that he used his influence within the Screen Writers Guild to stop countless anti-Communist or anti-Stalinist screenplays from being produced. He and his CPUSA cronies forced left-wing screenwriter Albert Maltz to retract his statement that art should not be judged based on it's creator's politics but rather on it's quality and he also helped drive director Robert Rossen out of the Communist Party because he felt that the film All the King's Men was too critical of autocratic governments.

And here is what the great defender of free speech Dalton Trumbo said to a fellow screenwriter who did not share his political views: “It is difficult to support your belief in the inalienable right of man’s mind to be exposed to any thought whatever, however intolerable that thought might be to anyone else. Frequently such a right encroaches upon the right of others to their lives. It was this 'inalienable right' in Fascist countries which directly resulted in the slaughter of five million Jews.”

Worst of all, Trumbo voluntarily tuned in countless innocent Americans to the FBI for merely writing him and asking where they might purchase a copy of his book Johnny Got His Gun, a book he had previously seen fit to publish and would later both write and direct a film adaptation of.

Blacklisting is wrong, whether done by Dalton Trumbo and his CPUSA cronies in the various guilds or by the HUAC. Regardless, what happened to the bully Trumbo was no tragedy. The only tragedy is that he was ever allowed to work again after having been responsible for damaging so many careers.

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[deleted]

No. It's an anti-paranoia movie.

The problem with fanatics is that they destroy the very freedom they claim to protect.

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Hopefully just a film about a man and his struggles with what he believes in.



Never defend crap with 'It's just a movie'
http://www.youtube.com/user/BigGreenProds

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I'd say it's a freedom-of-speech movie. It's the same way that Walt Disney was sympathetic to Hitler at one point, but no one is saying because of that, the entire Disney empire is tainted and should be destroyed.

Also, while it is true that the US didn't liquidate it's OWN citizens for being communists, it certainly actively supported the liquidation of communists and leftists in Chile, Argentina, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Indonesia, and of course, Vietnam. I don't think anybody is saying the US is as bad as Stalin or Pol Pot, but it's pretty naive to think they have no blood on their hands.

"Let be be finale of seem/ The only emperor is the Emperor of Ice Cream"

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I'd say it's a freedom-of-speech movie


Oh, so Trumbo is the villain of the film? After all, he used his considerable influence to ensure that anti-Communist and anti-Stalinist screenplays were never produced and bragged about doing so publicly, he helped persecute screenwriters and directors (including fellow leftists) who did not march in total lockstep with Stalin and himself and even reported countless innocent Americans who merely inquired as to where to purchase Trumbo's own book to the FBI, as Trumbo himself admitted in his collected letters, which ironically he allowed to be published just a year before he personally wrote and directed a film adaptation of the same book (and while the U.S. was at war no less; that should tell you where his loyalties really lied as the nation being at war was his excuse for banning the book and reporting those who wished to read it in the first place).

Or is the movie instead about some fictional character named Trumbo who bears no resemblance to Dalton Trumbo, the notable screenwriter and FBI informant? Because there is no way that a movie featuring a version of Dalton Trumbo which resembles reality in the slightest as a protagonist is pro-free speech in any way, shape or form.

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"It's the same way that Walt Disney was sympathetic to Hitler…"

lazarillo,

This is a myth. A perpetual myth. Disney, as a businessman, was interested in film distribution in Germany. No different than any American company that is today interested in the Chinese market. There is zero evidence Walt Disney was ever "sympathetic" to Hitler.

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It is an anti-fascist movie.

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