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74 comments in total

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36 out of 41 people found the following comment useful :-
Pleasantly Surprised, 9 July 2004

Author: Mike Moore from San Diego, CA

Like most of those who have posted before me, I am an avid Vonnegut fan and went into this movie with a guarded optimism that it would just be decent.

But George Roy Hill did an excellent job conveying the overall feel of the book -- the time jumping was flawless and I didn't find it hard to follow at all. The actor who played Billy Pilgrim captured Billy's passive, calm and vaguely anti-social demeanor. Lazarro, Montana and Billy's wife are also well played.

George Roy Hill had a knack for directing movies made from great books -- e.g., "The World According to Garp" -- and in the end, I was pleasantly surprised how well this movie turned out.

As far as the Vonnegut adaptations go (I know of four -- this one, "Mother Night," "Breakfast of Champions" and the god-awful "Slapstick") this one is the best of the bunch.

I've always wanted to see a movie version of "Sirens of Titan," but it'll probably never happen -- so "Slaughterhouse Five" is my only chance to "see" Trafalmadore.

Recommended to any true Vonnegut fans. Other people probably won't appreciate it.

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35 out of 40 people found the following comment useful :-
Brilliantly Directed By George Roy Hill, 24 June 2002

Author: herbqedi from New York, NY

The realization of this glimpse into the mind's eye of a man unstuck in time is brilliant to behold. Yes, the book is a brilliant work in its own right, and open to interpretation, as a truly complex work must be. The movie is not the book. It is Hill's interpretation of the book, and a brilliant and viable one it is.

Hill won the best Director Oscar the next year with "The Sting". He later filmed the similarly unfilmable "World According To Garp" and also did a brilliant job with it, partially by letting go of John Irving's more depressing side. Other notable credits include Butch Cassidy... and The Great Waldo Pepper.

Michael Sacks, in his first movie, and only starring role at the tender age of 24, is completely convincing and natural. He is equally effective, compelling, and believable at the six distinct stages of Pilgrim's life memorialized herein. If he weren't up to the six-in-one role, the film wouldn't work, but he is, and it does. (I wonder why he has no other major credits, and ceased acting altogether in 1984. If anyone knows, please e-mail me.)

Valerie Perrine is fine as Montana Wildhack. The other characters are all played for maximum irony and effect, and the cast delivers beautifully, without exception. Eugene Roche is the epitome of kindness as Edgar Derby, the yin, to Ron Liebman's yang, a twisted ball of anger named Paul Lazaro. John Dehner is brilliant as a war-hawk professor upset at the Vietnam protesters. His character would be as appropriate amidst today's global conflagration as it was in 1966. Lucille Benson, Kevin Conway, Sorrell Booke, Holly Near, Richard Schaal, and Perry King are the more familiar names in a uniformly excellent cast, including the German actors.

The musical score is also perfect, both in tone and substance. Vonnegut is a master of superimposing satire over irony over futility. The movie does a marvelous job of blending these contrasts and making its audience feel enriched. The music underscores all of these contrasts. The cinematography also is magnificent.

Searching desperately for something to say to show that the movie cannot be 100% perfect, the only thing I can come up with is that the pacing of the movie drags slightly when the soldiers leave the first camp for Dresdner until their new Kommandant gives his "welcoming" speech. It might have played better with about three minutes cut from that sequence. So what?

I recently saw Slaughterhouse Five for the fifth time in 27 years since I originally saw it at my college campus -- this time on DVD. I never fail to catch something new, and I never fail to enjoy it all the more.

Given how many 70's movies have failed miserably to withstand the test of time, Slaughterhouse Five is a true treat to be savored.

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38 out of 48 people found the following comment useful :-
So it goes, 29 December 2001

Author: lot49 from Acme Building

Kurt Vonnegut was more than worthy of the National Book Award that he received for the novel Slaughterhouse Five, but his humor and literary expertise are often lost in screenplays.

This flawed movie was a cult classic since its release because legions of Vonnegut fans were so fond of the novel that they could overlook the film's flaws. This is probably the only Vonnegut novel to make the transition to the screen as a movie that more than a handful of people are willing to watch. And they watch it again and again. I am reminded of Voltaire lovers who enjoy Leonard Bernstein's Candide. This seems to be the best of all possible Vonnegut movies.

There is a wealth of trivia associated with the cast. Michael Sacks disappeared into obscurity. Sharon Gans joined a community theater company that seemed more like a cult. Holly Near became a feminist folksinger. Valerie Perrine would later give a great performance as Honey Bruce in Bob Fosse's Lenny. Perry King and Ron Liebman became minor stars.

The story is largely allegorical. It is not science-fiction. Vonnegut is coping with the trauma of World War II, particularly the horrors he witnessed during the firebombing of Dresden. Billy Pilgrim's emotional numbness and alientation are characteristic of combat fatigue or post traumatic stress. Despite the lack of a chronological plot, Billy Pilgrim's arc is linear.

To the uninitiated, being "unstuck in time" can be confusing. It's sort of like one's first encounter with hypertext. Perhaps, that's why the movie is better on the second or third viewing. The key to enjoying Slaughterhouse Five is to focus on the best scenes and performances -- much like Billy Pilgrim's advice on living.

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29 out of 33 people found the following comment useful :-
'Unstuck in Time' makes for interesting narrative, 16 August 2001

Author: kgprophet from Minneapolis

I give this film a 7 out of 10.

It makes an eloquent statement about how traumatic moments in our life stay with us as if it ‘just happened yesterday'. What makes this film so appealing is how it depicts what would happen if you could jump around your entire life. When the future influences the past, it takes on a great significance. Billy Pilgrim is a humdrum Optometrist who nevertheless has an exciting life, surviving the bombing of Dresden in WW2, living through a plane crash, and being transported to another planet. Yet he maintains to be humble. As we follow Billy's life, the portrait of mediocre America is a touching contrast to the other moments that are frightening. He knows how he will die, and in the process becomes unafraid to live life to it's fullest. The inhabitants of the planet Tralfamador (??) say it is best to concentrate on the good moments in your life, and not so much on the bad. But they are still there, and you cannot erase that moment of your life. In essence, the true moral of this film is to accept all that has happened in your life. For if you don't, you deny the validity of your existence. When Billy finally writes about his adventures, others have a chance to learn about the world and themselves that would've otherwise been denied.

Technically, the film uses the moments where Billy jumps in time as meaningful transitions. It interweaves lessons learned from one part of his life and applies it to the present moment (whenever that is). The film's real treasures are the supporting characters that surround Billy. It also vividly transports you to WW2, a semi-autobiographical account of Kurt Vonnegut's real life experiences in Dresden. The film is filled with anecdotes that present the film's other main theme, that life is indeed ironic.

I was deeply touched by this film, with it's ability to whisk you from scenes of horror to amusing ‘Kodak moments'. The music poignantly represents these transitions, and helps to carry the film. In the end, you can accept his death, by having lived his life.

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21 out of 24 people found the following comment useful :-
One of the best, 5 March 2005

Author: mike-1230 from Ontario Canada

There is a definite 70s feel to this production of a book that does an amazing job of spanning the most fascinating period of American history -- 1945-1970. I first saw this film in 1986 as a late teen at the height of Regan America, the cold war, nuclear detente. Billy Pilgram was the beginning of that world that I was just starting to pay attention to. The movie had a really profound effect on me at the time. Reading the book afterwards and getting into his other books, didn't detract at all from my assessment of the movie adaptation. Even seeing it now many years later doesn't detract from an amazingly solid film. The transitions as Billy gets unstuck in time are some of my favorite movie images. Also beautiful is the music which totally turned me on to Glenn Gould.

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24 out of 31 people found the following comment useful :-
Rarely is a book so faithfully translated to film: **** (out of four), 10 April 2002

Author: pliegeoi from America

It's not very often that a film captures the same feeling and idea of a novel. I was a little disappointed that the commenter on the MAIN page admitted to not even reading "Slaughter House Five" and then continued to criticize the film for not going in sequence of Billy Pilgrim's life(this person obviously has no idea). I will say that if you haven't read the book, the film may be confusing and hard to follow. This is the only drawback. If you have read the book, then you should be pleased with how well it was adapted. This film is a classic simply because it tells the story of Billy Pilgram who has become "unstuck in time" the way it was told in the original novel. This is a movie for people who have read the book; it's easy to criticize this film if you have no idea about Kurt Vonnegut or the novel because you have never experienced the brilliance of his book. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is, you should avoid that American mentality of not reading something because you'll just see the movie, and read a book for a change; then maybe you can criticize the film.

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24 out of 35 people found the following comment useful :-
A brilliant and faithfull adaption., 17 January 2001
Author: Jess-24 from Unstuck, somewhere in time

"Slaughterhouse 5" is perhaps the best book-film translation I've ever seen.

Let me safely say that Kurt Vonneguts 'Slaughterhouse 5' is my favourite book ever. It is incredibly funny and moving above any book I've ever read. But it is also a very complex and philosophical story with many deeply rooted undertones. As such, I strongly urge people to READ THE BOOK before you see this movie. A great many points are left unexplained to the viewer, assuming they have read Vonneguts version. As I read it beforehand, the movie didn't insult my intelligence by putting Vonneguts ideas in plain view. Instead, it relies faithfully on the viewers interpretations, not unlike the book.

Once again, unless you have a mind open like a 7-11, READ THE BOOK. Take my advice, and be immersed in the greatest story of the 20th century.

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17 out of 22 people found the following comment useful :-
Luminous and haunting, 12 July 1999
Author: Jaime N. Christley (j_christley@hotmail.com) from NAS Whidbey Island, WA

There seems always to be something exhilaratingly depressing about Vonnegut's work. It's as if our lives were slowly coming apart at the seams. There always seems to be an element of tragic waste in his characters' lives, and never is the feeling more evident than in the book and film of "Slaugherhouse-Five." It's not surprising to learn that Vonnegut really did live through the firebombing of Dresden during World War II.

If there's a weak element of the film, it's the bombing itself. By never letting the audience see outside the bomb shelter Pilgrim was in (and if so, not making it vivid enough for me to remember it), the horror and sheer magnitude of the event is downplayed. Two hundred thousand people died in the destruction of one of the greatest, most majestic cities in all of Europe, and all we're given is a shaking camera. Those who've read the book know that the trajedy was conveyed all to well by Vonnegut's skillful, near-photographic descriptions of the event and its aftermath. Very little of it made it to the screen.

Aside from that, George Roy Hill does an excellent job of communicating the existential dread of what must have been thought to be an unfilmable novel. The fate of Pilgrim's wife through her reckless driving could have come off as tasteless black comedy, but any cheap laughs are thankfully avoided, and the sequence is as shocking as it is heartbreaking. The really far-out parts of the novel (the four-dimensional aliens, Vonnegut's conception of the future and the end of the universe) are done with complete seriousness; another director might have had a condescending approach to the material, and killed the magic. The novel, by itself, is one of the best I've ever read -- it gleefully trashes the rules of standard novel-making, narration, and continuity, and manages to tell a real whale of a tale (there's a lot of weird stuff to swallow in it.) When I saw Hill credited as director, I moaned in agony, recalling the headaches that were induced by his smug, syrupy box office smashes "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "The Sting." After those two, I gave up all hope in Hill, the same way I did with Richard Lester after "Petulia" and "Help!" By the end of the movie, however, I ate my words. It's a beautiful, thought-provoking, and enchanting film, and does justice to a fine novel.

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11 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
Nearly as good as the book!, 29 January 2002

Author: alan7-2 from Barcelona Spain

This is a very clever, thoughtful, well made movie. It succeeded in doing what I thought was nearly impossible, i.e. to put this amazing book on film. There are one or two small points that keep me from giving this picture anything higher than a 7, the main one being Ron Liebman playing the Paul Lazzaro role - highly irritating. Other than that, a brave and imaginative, clever, witty film that I would heartily recommend to anyone.

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9 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
A problem film for those unfamiliar with the book, 16 January 2001

Author: michaelsjmurphy (michaelsjmurphy@netscape.net) from Illinois

Kurt Vonnegut has had little luck with the translation of his vision to the wide screen. His style and subjects rarely lend themselves easily to linear film-making, and this adaptation of his best-known novel points up the problems inherent with that fact. A viewer who has never read the book will be hopelessly lost almost from the beginning, as the story line is told from the point of view of a man who has come "unstuck in time." This conceit (where the hero has no control over the order in which he experiences his life), while used to stunning effect in the book, can make for a very muddled FILM, and here sadly, the final product can't be excused for its fidelity to the spirit of the novel. Technically, this film has some high points. The cinematography and designs are excellent, capturing the desolation of Europe engaged in WWII and the isolation of the foot soldier fighting that war, as well as recreating the feel of a bygone time and place. The casting of this film is an eclectic mix, with Michael Sacks giving a convincing, if not memorable performance in the role of Billy Pilgrim. Sharon Gans is wonderful as his overweight and overwrought wife. Ron Liebman provides manic talent here as the hero's main antagonist, and Valerie Perrine demonstrates her lack of acting talent beautifully, ironically playing a talentless actress/centerfold model (and the object of Pilgrim's more prurient desires). Having seen this film on both the big and small screens, I can say that little is lost in the shrinkage.

Rating 6.5/10

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