Slaughterhouse-Five (film)

Last updated
Slaughterhouse-Five
Original movie poster for the film Slaughterhouse-Five.jpg
Original film poster
Directed by George Roy Hill
Written by Stephen Geller
Based on Slaughterhouse-Five
by Kurt Vonnegut
Produced by Paul Monash
Starring
Cinematography Miroslav Ondříček
Edited by Dede Allen
Music by Glenn Gould
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release date
  • March 15, 1972 (1972-03-15)
Running time
104 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Slaughterhouse-Five is a 1972 American comedy-drama military science fiction film directed by George Roy Hill and produced by Paul Monash, from a screenplay by Stephen Geller, based on the 1969 novel of the same name by Kurt Vonnegut. [1] The film stars Michael Sacks as Billy Pilgrim, who is "unstuck in time" and has no control over where he is going next. It also stars Ron Leibman as Paul Lazzaro and Valerie Perrine as Montana Wildhack.

Contents

Slaughterhouse-Five premiered at the 25th Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize and was nominated for the Palme d'Or. The film also won a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and the inaugural Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film. Sacks was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer – Male for his portrayal of Pilgrim.

Vonnegut wrote about the film soon after its release, in his preface to Between Time and Timbuktu : "I love George Roy Hill and Universal Pictures, who made a flawless translation of my novel Slaughterhouse-Five to the silver screen. I drool and cackle every time I watch that film, because it is so harmonious with what I felt when I wrote the book." [2]

Plot

In Ilium, New York, the middle-aged Billy Pilgrim writes a letter to the editor claiming to have become "unstuck in time"; he finds himself as a young man behind enemy lines in Belgium during World War II, where he and a number of other American troops are captured by the Germans. A fellow prisoner of war, Paul Lazzaro, develops a grudge against Billy and vows to kill him; at a camp, Lazzaro attacks Billy but is intercepted by an older POW, Edgar Derby. Billy and Derby develop a friendship. The Americans are set to be transferred to Dresden for the duration of the war and are asked to elect a leader. When Lazzaro nominates himself, Billy nominates Derby for the role, and Derby is acclaimed after Lazzaro steps down. In Dresden, the POWs are placed in a slaughterhouse, Slaughterhouse-Five. During dinner, sirens sound off and the POWs head to shelter; the firebombing of Dresden commences, during which Billy believes 100,000 perish. The POWs emerge and the Germans have them sort through the ruins for survivors, warning looting will be punished. When Derby discovers a dancing figurine, he pockets it, and is executed by a Nazi firing squad.

After the war, Billy marries the wealthy Valencia, whose father owns an optometry school, and Billy goes into the field. They have two children, Robert and Barbara. Robert becomes a troubled adolescent, at one point caught by the police vandalizing a Catholic cemetery. Billy bribes the police into letting Robert go. Billy and his father-in-law Lionel Merble board a private jet for an optometry convention. When Billy looks out the window and sees men in ski masks, he has a premonition the plane will crash en route, which it does. Lionel is killed but Billy is found alive and taken to hospital. On her way to the hospital, a distressed Valencia has multiple accidents and her car's exhaust is destroyed, causing her to die of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Billy is released from the hospital and opts to live alone, over the objections of Barbara. Robert has reformed and enlisted for the Vietnam War. While alone, Billy is abducted to the alien planet of Tralfamadore, along with film actress Montana Wildhack. The Tralfamadorians live in the "fourth dimension" and teach Billy the universe is made up of random moments strung together; when one dies, they go back to another point in their life, and it is up to them to focus on good moments and ignore the bad. The Tralfamadorians hope Billy and Montana will mate. Billy and Montana fall in love and have a child, whom Montana names Billy Jr. On Earth, Billy argues with Barbara about the existence of Tralfamadore; Billy, being able to travel into the future as well as the past, shares a vision of his death, in which he is fatally shot by an elderly Lazzaro while giving a speech about Tralfamadore.

Cast

Music

Slaughterhouse-Five is the first of two feature films for which Glenn Gould supplied the music; Bach Concerto #5 in F Minor, BWV 1056, and Concerto #3 in D Major, BWV 1054 were recorded at Columbia Studios with the Columbia Symphony orchestra; some selections came from existing recordings, and two featured other artists, including Rudolf Serkin, piano, with Casals conducting Brandenburg Concerto #4 in G Major, BWV 1049, III Presto. The film used such a small amount of music that the soundtrack album added atmospheric excerpts from Douglas Leedy's synthesized triple album Entropical Paradise.

The prolonged rendition of the final movement of Bach's fourth Brandenburg concerto accompanies a cinematic montage as the main character first encounters the city of Dresden.

Awards

The film won the Prix du Jury at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival, [3] as well as a Hugo Award and Saturn Award. Both Hill and Geller were nominated for awards by their respective guilds. Sacks was nominated for a Golden Globe.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kurt Vonnegut</span> American author (1922–2007)

Kurt Vonnegut was an American writer and humorist known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. In a career spanning over 50 years, he published fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and five nonfiction works; further collections have been published after his death.

The year 1972 in film involved several significant events.

<i>Slaughterhouse-Five</i> 1969 novel by Kurt Vonnegut

Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death is a 1969 semi-autobiographic science fiction-infused anti-war novel by Kurt Vonnegut. It follows the life experiences of Billy Pilgrim, from his early years, to his time as an American soldier and chaplain's assistant during World War II, to the post-war years. Throughout the novel, Billy frequently travels back and forth through time. The protagonist deals with a temporal crisis as a result of his post-war psychological trauma. The text centers on Billy's capture by the German Army and his survival of the Allied firebombing of Dresden as a prisoner of war, an experience that Vonnegut endured as an American serviceman. The work has been called an example of "unmatched moral clarity" and "one of the most enduring anti-war novels of all time".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Valerie Perrine</span> American actress (born 1943)

Valerie Ritchie Perrine is an American retired actress. For her role as Honey Bruce in the 1974 film Lenny, she won the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles, the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her other film appearances include Superman (1978), The Electric Horseman (1979), and Superman II (1980).

<i>Mother Night</i> 1962 novel by Kurt Vonnegut

Mother Night is a novel by American author Kurt Vonnegut, first published in February 1962.

<i>Valley of the Dolls</i> (novel) 1966 novel by Jacqueline Susann

Valley of the Dolls is the first novel by American writer Jacqueline Susann. Published in 1966, the book was the biggest selling novel of its year. As of 2016, it has sold more than 31 million copies, making it one of the all-time best-selling fictional works in publishing history.

Tralfamadore is the name of several fictional planets in the novels of Kurt Vonnegut. Details of the corresponding indigenous alien race, the Tralfamadorians, vary from novel to novel:

Kilgore Trout is a fictional character created by author Kurt Vonnegut. Trout is a notably unsuccessful author of paperback science fiction novels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linda Lavin</span> American actress and singer

Linda Lavin is an American actress and singer. She is known for playing the title character in the sitcom Alice and for her stage performances, both on and off-Broadway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Barrie</span> American actress and author

Barbara Barrie is an American actress and author.

<i>The Execution of Private Slovik</i> 1974 television film directed by Lamont Johnson

The Execution of Private Slovik is a nonfiction book by William Bradford Huie, published in 1954, and an American television movie that aired on NBC on March 13, 1974. The film was written for the screen by Richard Levinson, William Link, and director Lamont Johnson; the film stars Martin Sheen, and also features Charlie Sheen in his second film in a small role.

A pilgrim is one who undertakes a religious journey or pilgrimage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Archibald Willard</span> American painter

Archibald MacNeal Willard was an American painter who was born and raised in Bedford, Ohio. He was the son of Samuel Willard, the pastor of Bedford Baptist Church.

Reverse chronology is a narrative structure and method of storytelling whereby the plot is revealed in reverse order.

Michael Sacks is an American actor and technology industry executive who played the role of Billy Pilgrim in George Roy Hill's Slaughterhouse Five (1972).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sharon Gans</span> American actress and cult leader (1935–2021)

Sharon Gans was an American actress and cult leader.

<i>Phar Lap</i> (film) 1983 Australian film

Phar Lap is a 1983 film about the racehorse Phar Lap. The film stars Tom Burlinson and was written by David Williamson.

John Butt is an English orchestral and choral conductor, organist, harpsichordist and scholar. He holds the Gardiner Chair of Music at the University of Glasgow and is music director of the Dunedin Consort with whom he has made award-winning recordings in historically informed performance. He is a prolific scholar, conductor and performer of works by Johann Sebastian Bach.

The International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) are music awards first awarded 6 April 2011. ICMA replace the Cannes Classical Awards formerly awarded at MIDEM. The jury consists of music critics of magazines Andante, Crescendo, Fono Forum, Gramofon, Kultura, Musica, Musik & Theater, Opera, Pizzicato, Rondo Classic, Scherzo, with radio stations MDR Kultur (Germany), Orpheus Radio 99.2FM (Russia), Radio 100,7 (Luxembourg), the International Music and Media Centre (IMZ) (Austria), website Resmusica.com (France) and radio Classic (Finland).

The Ghosts of Watt O'Hugh is the first in a series of novels by Steven S. Drachman (2011). The books fall into the category of science fiction Western and tell the story of an American Civil War veteran who becomes a dime novel hero while engaging in various fantastic adventures. The books also feature true life characters such as Oscar Wilde, J.P. Morgan, the first-century Chinese emperor Wang Mang and the mathematician Leopold Kronecker, who appears as a villain.

References

  1. Canby, Vincent (March 23, 1972). "Film: Time-Tripping With 'Slaughterhouse-Five'". The New York Times . Retrieved November 7, 2020.
  2. Parshall, Peter F. (1987). "Meditations on the Philosophy of Tralfamadore: Kurt Vonnegut and George Roy Hill". Literature/Film Quarterly. 15 (1): 49–59. JSTOR   43796292 . Retrieved November 7, 2020.
  3. "Festival de Cannes: Slaughterhouse-Five". festival-cannes.com. Archived from the original on 2012-09-25. Retrieved 2009-04-13.