Trumbo

Trumbo tells the story of screenwriter and novelist Dalton Trumbo, one of the most prolific, talented, and ideologically committed members of the so-called Hollywood Ten. Like his colleagues Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, and Adrian Scott, Trumbo went to jail in 1947 for the dubious crime of “contempt of Congress.” He refused to rat on his friends and answer unreasonable questions put to him by HUAC (the House Un-American Activities Committee).  A precursor to Senator Joseph McCarthy’s investigations of the supposed widespread Communist subversion in America, HUAC investigated potential Communist influences in the motion picture industry and spread fear and distrust amongst the Hollywood community.

Unable to find work after his release from prison because of the unofficial blacklist that barred studios from hiring Communists (or suspected Communists), Trumbo nonetheless returned to screenwriting, working for substantially lower salaries under various pseudonyms and using other writers as “fronts.”  Trumbo was the most successful anonymous screenwriter of this era. He won Oscars for The Brave One (1956), written under the pen name Robert Rich, and for my favorite movie of all time, Roman Holiday (1953), credited to Ian McLellan Hunter (who fronted for Trumbo and was later blacklisted himself). In 1960 Trumbo “broke the blacklist” when producers Kirk Douglas and Otto Preminger publically insisted on giving him credit for his work on their blockbuster hits Spartacus and Exodus.

Television writer John McNamara fashions Trumbo’s story into a typical biopic—marginally informative and mildly entertaining, but ultimately pretty forgettable.  Director Jay Roach, most famous for the broad Austin Powers and Meet the Parents comedies, brings an utterly uncinematic flair to the proceedings. As with his acclaimed but shallow HBO political docudramas Recount (2008) and Game Change (2012), Roach’s attempt to faithfully recreate specific details results in a completely fake looking movie. This is one of those period pictures where every set looks like it was borrowed from a museum; where each costume looks like it was just made and had never actually been worn by a human being until the first day of shooting. The 1940s and ‘50s was a time when men chain-smoked, when they perspired visibly, when their slicked-down hair was often out of place after hours of hard work. Yet nothing in this film feels like it has ever been dirty, or smelly, or not constantly attended to. The cinematography, art direction, editing, and even the casting all feel like a TV movie striving to be more than it is.

Bryan Cranston takes on the titular character with uncontained glee—Dalton Trumbo is the type of impossibly literate, witty eccentric that actors delight in playing. Exuding charm and sophistication, Cranston is easily the best thing about this film, but he doesn’t rise above it and can’t distract us from its shortcomings. A strong cast surrounds him and they all do their utmost to round out the thinly drawn roles. But the balance of acting styles is wildly uneven. Performances range from comically big and blustery, like John Goodman as the D-list producer Frank King who happily employs (exploits) Trumbo during the writer’s years as a pariah; to subtly underplayed, like Michael Stuhlbarg as Edward G. Robinson, Trumbo’s A-list actor pal who supports his friend until pressured by HUAC and the studios to turn on him. It’s telling that Goodman’s mugging caricature plays much better in this simplistic picture than does Stuhlbarg’s attempt to humanize Robinson. Few of the actors portraying actual people look or sound much like their real-life counterparts—a notable exception is Dean O'Gorman as Kirk Douglas.  Those playing fictional composites, like Louis C.K. as fellow writer Arlen Hird, all talk like the expository and thematic delivery devices that they are. 

It’s surprising there aren’t more films covering the McCarthy Era and the Hollywood blacklist because the subjects seem tailor made for the movies. Stories about this topic make for noble narratives centering on liberal underdogs honorably fighting against a corrupt system, and they feature famous names and faces from Hollywood’s golden age. Perhaps the industry has held back because of a long-held collective shame for complying with the Communist witch-hunts. Trumbo is only the sixth major studio picture I can think of (not including documentaries) to center on a real or fictional character swept up in the “Red Scare” which terrified Tinsel Town.  Like those other films—Sydney Pollack’s The Way We Were (1973), Irwin Winkler’s Guilty by Suspicion (1991), Karl Francis’ One of the Hollywood Ten (2000), Frank Darabont’s The Majestic (2001), and, the best of the bunch, Martin Ritt’s The Front (1976)— Trumbo lacks bite, nuance, and a substantive dramatic arc. 

The Trumbo we see in this film is admirable but not especially compelling. He is stalwart, principled, and on the right side of history from beginning to end. His only flaw seems to be that, because he had to work so hard, he neglected his family (though it remained intact). None of the complexities inherent in the events of this period come through in Trumbo; even the treatment of Edward G. Robinson—the only truly conflicted character depicted here—is one-dimensional. Trumbo comes off like a dry, predictable, obscure history lesson, even though it concerns a subject still immensely relevant, arguably more important in the political climate of 2015 than at any other time since the ‘60s.

The McCarthy Era, and the politics of fear and suspicion in general, should be better known and understood, but perhaps feature films are not the best medium to accomplish this.  With its leftist bias and tendency to simplify and distort history, Hollywood is not the most trusted or reliable source of information. Movies exploring McCarthyism, like Daniel Taradash’s Storm Center (1956), Peter Yates’ The House on Carroll Street (1988), and George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) tend to be as facile as those that attempt to explain HUAC and the blacklist. It’s as if filmmakers can’t contain their glee at going after such easy targets as the paranoid old white guys who led the Communist witch-hunts. With the exception of The Front, these pictures never succeed in credibly conveying the destructive power these men had over individuals and the country. The attitudes of the antagonists in these movies seem laughably antiquated, even though they’re not. These villains were ultimately discredited, but their ideological descendants still wield tremendous power and influence. Maybe someday we’ll get a great narrative film that really contextualizes this era and subject, but Trumbo ain’t it.