![]() ![]() In fact, Askin who was in the midst of directing the London stage version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch when he was approached to do Trumbo seems more suited to directing for the stage. Askin changes camera angles here and there, but the scenes mainly consist of a giant like Brian Dennehy, perhaps a glass of water and a table, and the letter being read. ![]() The plainly dressed thespians merely channel the magic on the page. Askin uses swiftly edited film clips, interviews (with both McCarthy era scholars and those who knew Trumbo like Douglas and Dustin Hoffman) and archival material, including interviews with the witty and crotchety screenwriter himself, but the beating heart of the film is the many A-list actors who read Trumbo’s letters to friends and family, his words so alive and precise even today that not much is needed in the way of interpretation. Yes, karma eventually arrived to vindicate Trumbo when he became the first writer to break the Blacklist courtesy of Kirk Douglas (who fought for his credit on Spartacus) and Otto Preminger (who did the same on Exodus). Trumbo (thus you probably didn’t deserve that paycheck in the first place. bakery while studying at USC, repossessing motorcycles, reviewing films for a trade magazine-and churning out six novels and eighty-eight short stories (all of which would be rejected for publication)? To all those laid off writers I say, if you can’t write without a paycheck being involved then you’ve no business considering yourself in the same profession as Mr. How many writers working today would accept poverty and prison, shame and exile to stand by their convictions-and do it for ten long years? How many writers in 2008 would have prefaced that with nearly another decade stoically working as a night bread wrapper for an L.A. ![]() To call Trumbo tenacious, awe-inspiring, a courageous hero doesn’t do the man justice. Peter Askin’s Trumbo, a poignant, mind-stirring documentary about the defiantly prolific screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, one of the Hollywood Ten blacklisted during the McCarthy era, is based on a play written by his son Christopher (from letters Trumbo wrote during that tumultuous period) is essential viewing for all film critics-any professional writer really-recently affected by the economic recession. ![]()
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