Trumbo

Somerville, Mass - One of the tools that the dictatorial regimes of Eastern Europe used to encourage "loyalty" was to deny the right to work to intellectuals and artists who were suspected of having uncommunist sympathies.
Without a means of earning a living, the targeted individuals had a choice: they could renounce their offending works, sign a pledge of loyalty to the regime and denounce other outlyers. Or, they could give up their right to work in their area of expertise, taking a job as a window washer (as the main character in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which I wrote about in a previous post) or a baker (as in Tom Stoppard's Rock & Roll, which I will write about in my next post). In some cases, these individuals could not work at all, and were forced to depend on the generosity of friends of family to support them.
In the Soviet Union, artists and writers were required to create communist-utopian-themed socialist realist works. Otherwise, their license to paint, or write, or whatever, would be revoked, and the artist would officially become a "social parasite". This tool was also effectively used by the Nazis in their occupation of Czechoslovakia, Poland and other countries. And - sometimes we forget - it was also used by the United States during the Cold War.
The documentary film Trumbo was a jolting reminder that my country's history is not so different from totalitarian regimes I am writing about.

Dalton Trumbo was one of Hollywood's most beloved directors in the 1930s. But he was a harsh social critic (case in point, his most famous novel, Johnny got his Gun). And he was a communist sympathizer. His antiwar ideas did not make him very popular with the US government during WWII. They certainly attracted the attention of the House Un-American Activities Committee. (No joke: that is really what the committee was called up until 1969. Very Big Brother.)
Trumbo was one of the "Hollywood Ten" who refused to provide any information about their own or others' political involvement. He invoked the First Amendment to defend his right to express his point of view in his books and films. He was blacklisted and eventually jailed.
Trumbo's story is ultimately one of triumph, as he continued to write under assumed names. In 1956, the Oscar for Best Story was awarded to Robert Rich for The Brave One, but it was never claimed, as Robert Rich was Trumbo's pseudonym. In 1960, he received credit for Exodus and Spartacus, with assistance and support from other Hollywood notables. It was the beginning of the end of the blacklist.
The final piece of the puzzle fell into place in 1993, when Trumbo was posthumously awarded the Oscar for Roman Holiday (1953). The original award - 40 years earlier - had been given to Ian McLellan Hunter, who had not written the screenplay, but rather provided a front for Dalton Trumbo.
So Trumbo finally received his due.. Meanwhile, all across Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, thousands of artists, intellectuals, writers and filmakers were opening their studios, uncovering works and unleashing long-dormant creativity.