Slaughterhouse Five
A man becomes unstuck in time in the film that became a classic.
This is the story of Billy Pilgrim who is ordinary in almost every respect but one: he has come unstuck in time and jumps back and forth in his life with no control over where he is going next. Part of one morning he might spend on a distant planet Tralfamadore with sexy movie bombshell Montana Wildhack, and at the same time be in a ditch in Belgium in World War II where he is set upon by GI's Paul Lazzaro and Roland Weary, and then captured by German soldiers. Then Billy finds himself on his honeymoon night with his bride, the overweight, but rich Valencia Merble. Back in the war, Billy is marching with other prisoners, when he is pulled from the line to pose for pictures for a German press photographer. And so it goes on, from past, to present, to future, until finally realizes that in order to survive even to his death which, again, jumping around in time, he watches in Philadelphia, he must concentrate on the good things and ignore te bad in life.
Member Reviews
Thoughtful - RobBC
A decent adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s semi-autobiographical novel about a man suffering from extreme dissociative behaviour following his experiences in a German POW camp. Billie Pilgrim is literally lost in time, he never knows when he’ll be pulled from his affluent middle-class existence in order to relive the horrors he witnessed in WWII. Both realities are confusing to him....the senseless destruction of the past, and the comfortable banality of the present with its silly social conventions and a family that is little more than a group of strangers to him. Not only is he lost in time then, he is also lost culturally and spiritually. It’s not until he’s kidnapped by a race of aliens that he finally experiences the peace of mind that has eluded him. Ironically, it is this third reality (a complete departure from reality actually) that contains the least amount of true freedom....Flawless take on a modern classic - greenlight
Apparently Kurt Vonnegut greatly approved of this George Roy Hill adaptation of his popular 1969 anti-war novel. He should have. The film looks as good today as it did back in 1972, when it won the Cannes Festival’s Jury Prize but flopped at the box office. Hill masterfully threads together the different slices of hero Billy Pilgrim’s time-travelling existence without ever leaving the viewer disoriented. At the movie’s centre, unknown Michael Sacks inhabits the role of Billy the innocent with perfect understatement.
From surviving the fire-bombing of Dresden (as Vonnegut himself did) to being abducted to another planet (as he'd probably have liked to) seems like an unlikely story-line, yet the writer and the director make it work. There are light moments and even gratuitous nudity, but Vonnegut’s understandably bleak view of humanity pervades the film – probably the reason it failed commercially. The psychopath who hounds Billy is a fellow-American, not a Nazi, and the character symbolizing pure goodness is, naturally, destined for a brutal end. Yet there’s a quiet dignity to it, reflected in a poignant musical score consisting entirely of Glenn Gould playing Bach – the kind of inspired touch that characterizes George Roy Hill’s sensitive treatment of this great book.33 plus years later and it's still ahead of it's time - Georgeinsaskatchewan
I first saw this movie in 1973 after reading the book of the same tittle. I wondered how it would come off in a movie as it's such an intense fairly complicated story of time travel but not in the ordinary sense of time travel where one shoots fast froward or back in time. This is truly a great story involving the mind and the sense of brain travel if you will. This movie transcended the book and it's thoughts exceptionally well, way beyound it's present time...so the movie itself is actually a part of the time travel experience in itself. Watching it again in 2006 has not diminished it's impact on me and i would say the young viewer who loves science fiction and has not read the book. Sit back relax and enjoy this movie it's a classic.
Member Reviews
Read All...
Thoughtful - RobBC
A decent adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s semi-autobiographical novel about a man suffering from extreme dissociative behaviour following his experiences in a German POW camp. Billie Pilgrim is literally lost in time, he never knows when he’ll be pulled from ...Flawless take on a modern classic - greenlight
Apparently Kurt Vonnegut greatly approved of this George Roy Hill adaptation of his popular 1969 anti-war novel. He should have. The film looks as good today as it did back in 1972, when it won the Cannes Festival’s Jury Prize but flopped at the box office. ...33 plus years later and it's still ahead of it's time - Georgeinsaskatchewan
I first saw this movie in 1973 after reading the book of the same tittle. I wondered how it would come off in a movie as it's such an intense fairly complicated story of time travel but not in the ordinary sense of time travel where one shoots fast froward ...