Blog #71 Slaughter House Five

Dark comedy, satire, time travel, comedy, drama, sci-fi, war

Directed by George Roy Hill

Written by Stephen Geller

Based on Slaughterhouse-Five 1969 novel by Kurt Vonnegut

Produced by Paul Monash

Starring

Image 2 *Starflight: the Plane That Couldn’t Fly* 1983

Michael Sacks plays Billy Pilgrim. Mr. Sacks also played Pete in Starflight: the Plane That Couldn’t Fly 1983.

Ron Leibman plays Paul Lazarro.

Valerie Perrine plays Montana Wildhack. Ms. Perrine also played Eve Teschmacher in Superman 1978 and Superman II 1980.

Cinematography Miroslav Ondříček

Edited by Dede Allen

Music by Glenn Gould

Production companies Vanadas Productions, Inc.

Distributed by Universal Pictures

Realease date March 15 1972

Running time 104 minutes

Country United States

Language English

Synopsis SPOILERS

Image 4 Billy Surrendering in World War II

The story of a quiet, possibly cowardly but kind man named Billy Pilgrim. The film shows Billy from just before he goes to optometry school, enlists in World War II, where he is captured and put into a prison camp, to his marriage, and then his kidnapping to a faraway planet.

Image 5 Billy proclaims in his book that he is unstuck in time

Billy proclaims he is unstuck in time and jumps, with no action of his own, through each of these eras of his life. The invisible aliens who kidnapped him are quite different and can’t explain why he is on their planet, or why he lives in a clear domed room. They can tell him why he can’t go outside. It’s because the atmosphere is extremely poisonous. The alien spokesman tells Billy this as if he might try, or perhaps to apologize for the confinement. Then they bring him a woman from Earth, Montana Wildhack, whom the audience and Billy have seen in Playboy-type magazines and in film earlier in his life, which adds humor to the piece.

The other characters are frustrated with Billy mostly because of his placid attitude. Some characters are quite kind to Billy. One fellow captured soldier welcomes him into the camp and takes Billy under his wing. A German leader instructs the prisoners where to go, how it will go, and how to handle it, in what appears to be a gentle, concerned manner.

However, one prisoner, Paul Lazarro, treats him badly, thinking Billy got his friend killed, which creates tension in the prison camp and follows Billy until the end of his life.

Conclusions SPOILERS

This movie was taken from a novel by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. I don’t know why they took the Jr. off when credited in the film, but he is a famous and successful writer. Anyway, the film is very interesting, somewhat scary, and, as I said, somewhat humorous. In total, this is a well-done movie—a classic.

It is a sad tale of a young man who is thrown around through his life and through his time, but he usually meets the events with quiet acceptance.

Sometimes, though, he gets excited. When the Germans are patrolling near where he is, he tells the other American soldiers he is with that they can surrender, which of course goes over poorly with the other men. To be fair, he is young, new, and an Assistant Chaplain in training. It seems like a reasonable course to him.

Billy is fine with each event because he has no control and will probably jump in time in the next few minutes or perhaps hours, but soon. He is even fine with the crazy man who comes for him in the end because the aliens teach him there is no beginning, and there is no end. Things are as they are.

It is a disturbing film; I like to fight against unwelcome events, or better yet escape them. This movie shows a way to accept just about everything. Each era, though, has its highlights, and Billy witnesses many important things. He is not really a coward, I think, but more a realist-things will happen as they will, and odds are he knows what will happen because he’s been there before, and he’s got to get back because Montana’s baby is about to be born.