Day 37: Johnny Got His Gun

"There is no more reality to the waking dream of mortal existence than there is to the dream we have in sleep."

This summer, Nolan released what will probably be the greatest film of the year, Inception, which he says s aimed to delve into the depths of the human mind that can be unlocked during sleep. After watching Johnny Got His Gun I can only say that at that level, he's clearly failed in many aspects. Johnny Got His Gun is able to accurately detail the kind of things we think and dream in it's own corny and humorous way that after awhile you'll begin to notice what was missing in Inception which was a small and more human take to the mind of it's main character.

But I don't think Inception should even be seen as trying to delve into the nature of dreaming at all. The purpose of the whole dreaming premise in my opinion is to give the film a proper action/adventure setting for what the film is really about...grief. [...but back to Johnny Got His Gun since I'm not reviewing Inception and it's already been reviewed by a member of this site, and it was a quite pleasant review as well...]

Johnny Got His Gun begins with the main character returning from the battlefield missing arms, legs, and a face. The first question one would ask is answered immediately. Why even keep him alive? An ecstatic doctor sees potential in young Johnny. Johnny is missing all these essentials but has managed to survive. He is kept alive only for further observation for his condition is clearly something that comes along once in a lifetime.

Johnny Got His Gun sets out with the idea that it's supposed to be an anti-war film. If it attempts to be this then in my opinion it's a failure in the same way that Inception is a failure if it is supposed to be a film about dreaming. Johnny Got His Gun as it goes on begins to sound more like a philosophical conservation that is carried on inside one man's head. As he lacks the basic tools of communication, and all the tools of perception, Johnny is left to decipher between what is real by feeling the vibrations of the room and what is his dreams. Sometimes he dreams of memories. Other times he dreams in a world of fantasy. There are strong points in the film regarding war that are quite subtle.

For example, the war Johnny enlists in (it seems that he's volunteered) was World War I, probably the most important war America has been involved in since the Revolutionary War when it comes to foreign issues overseas. When Johnny is a little boy he asks his father why people go to war. Why is it that older men stay home, and younger men go out to die, and so on. Johnny's father, quoting President Wilson, replies, "The world must be made safe for democracy." Johnny says, "I'd never send my son to go and die." The conversation goes on to include comments about democracy and so forth but if you know a little history, you'd have to think that conversation couldn't have ever taken place in one of Johnny's memories.

Johnny enlists in the war as a very young man. World War I begins in 1914 and ends in 1918. This scene portrays him as a very young boy talking about the war which is impossible because the war doesn't begin for a few years. America stays neutral until 1917. It probably wouldn't even have been too relevant to Johnny at this point. I don't think it's an anachronistic scene at all. In his dreams, Johnny begins to ask his father about war from the perspective of a young boy. I see this scene as one about Johnny's innocence. Innocence, and curiosity is portrayed as a childlike trait, and that's probably a correct portrayal. Johnny's "pure" (what apparently is the dictionary's definition of innocence) throughout the film but he never spends time questioning the war like he does as a young boy.

This opposition to war must certainly be a glimpse of one argument that Johnny must be having with himself. When we dream we supply both sides of conversations. We create action and reaction. Johnny's debating with himself. He's thinking of death, and childhood as he lies wounded in the hospital as there is no historical precedent for a memory. This type of commentary about war is much more subtle than others like the ending of The Deer Hunter for example which is very moving but much more obvious.

Johnny Got His Gun is a film lacking most of the praised and acclaimed qualities of other anti-war epics. It looks like it was filmed on a low cost budget and it's actors, with the exception of Don Sutherland who plays Jesus, aren't spectacular either but it's script is very moving and very tight. The film was directed by the author of the novel it adapts and in this case it actually works. The Socratic pondering that goes on inside of Johnny's head seems to me to be accurate of how one would talk to himself. The humor is placed in all the right places, and the cinematography is used correctly. Johnny switches back and forth from color to black and white in a way that actually adds to the film.

Johnny Got His Gun is a film about dreaming, war, innocence, love, and religious guilt. For a story about a young man who's barely lived life and acknowledges it to himself, it seems to have had successfully taken a patchwork of unanswered questions and compile them into a dreamlike and ethereal journey about the meaning of life.