Directed by:
George Roy HillScreenplay:
Stephen GellerCinematography:
Miroslav OndříčekCast:
Michael Sacks, Ron Leibman, Eugene Roche, Valerie Perrine, Perry King, Kevin Conway, Roberts Blossom, Gilmer McCormick, John Wood, Emil Iserle (more)VOD (3)
Plots(1)
George Roy Hill's adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's whimsical antiwar black comedy--an immensely popular novel at the time of the film's release because of its implicit condemnation of the war in Vietnam--stars Michael Sacks as the placid Billy Pilgrim. He's become "unstuck in time," as the author describes him, or more prosaically, he's had a nervous breakdown as a result of a recurrence of the trauma of witnessing the horrific Allied firebombing of Dresden in 1945. The desultory narrative has Billy jumping from his war experience to his future on the planet Tralfamadore with the buxom Montana Wildhack (Valerie Perrine), then to an episode of shock therapy, then to an episode in his childhood, and then to his life as a relatively unhappy suburban optometrist. Throughout, the naive Billy remains a curious mixture of kindness and detachment, the best combination of qualities one could have, the author seems to imply, for surviving in a world of meaningless suffering. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Reviews (2)
Everyone who has ever read a novel by Kurt Vonnegut knows how difficult it is to translate his literary template onto the film screen. His works are multi-layered, consisting of the thought processes of his characters, various places and times that intertwine with each other, and most importantly, they contain various dream passages and hallucinations. The attempt to make an equally successful film based on his work usually ends in a disaster, such as Breakfast of Champions. For a long time, I believed that the only film worth seeing was Mother Night, and only now do I realize that George Roy Hill's film has almost the same quality. Slaughterhouse-Five, like the novel, is absurd, tragicomic, strange, and provocative. Several scenes are among those that film fans will remember for life. The main character's encounter with victorious Soviet soldiers or the end of his best friend are certainly among them. Overall impression: 85%.
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It's a peculiar movie that mostly motivated me to eventually find a book and try to understand what it was actually about based on it. The transitions in the film are great, but the form somewhat overshadows the content, which I don't think was entirely the intention of the book. Definitely an interesting and specific portrayal of war, which is not for everyone.
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