| Slaughterhouse-Five | |
|---|---|
 Original film poster | |
| Directed by | George Roy Hill |
| Written by | Stephen Geller |
| Based on | Slaughterhouse-Five byKurt Vonnegut |
| Produced by | Paul Monash |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Miroslav Ondříček |
| Edited by | Dede Allen |
| Music by | Glenn Gould |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 104 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Slaughterhouse-Five is a 1972 Americancomedy-dramamilitary science fiction film directed byGeorge Roy Hill and produced byPaul Monash, from a screenplay byStephen Geller, based on the1969 novel of the same name byKurt Vonnegut.[1] The film starsMichael Sacks asBilly Pilgrim, who is "unstuck in time" and has no control over where he is going next. It also starsRon Leibman as Paul Lazzaro andValerie Perrine as Montana Wildhack.
Slaughterhouse-Five premiered at the25th Cannes Film Festival, where it won theJury Prize and was nominated for thePalme d'Or. The film also won aHugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and the inauguralSaturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film. Sacks was nominated for aGolden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer – Male for his portrayal of Pilgrim.
Vonnegut wrote about the film soon after its release, in his preface toBetween Time and Timbuktu: "I love George Roy Hill andUniversal Pictures, who made a flawless translation of my novelSlaughterhouse-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]
InIlium, 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 duringWorld War II, where he and some other American troops are captured by the Germans. A fellowprisoner 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 toDresden 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 aslaughterhouse, Slaughterhouse-Five. During dinner, sirens sound off and the POWs head to shelter; thefirebombing 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 ofcarbon monoxide poisoning.
Billy is released from the hospital and opts to live alone, over the objections of Barbara. Robert has reformed and enlisted for theVietnam War. While alone, Billy isabducted to the alien planet ofTralfamadore, 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.
Slaughterhouse-Five is the first of two feature films for whichGlenn Gould supplied the music; Bach Concerto #5 in F Minor,BWV 1056, andConcerto #3 in D Major, BWV 1054 were recorded atColumbia Studios with theColumbia Symphony Orchestra; some selections came from existing recordings, and two featured other artists, includingRudolf Serkin, piano, withCasals conductingBrandenburg 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 fromDouglas Leedy's synthesized triple albumEntropical Paradise.
The prolonged rendition of the final movement of Bach's fourthBrandenburg concerto accompanies a cinematic montage as the main character first encounters the city of Dresden.
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 82% of 17 critics' reviews are positive.[3]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 66 out of 100, based on 6 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[4]
The film won thePrix du Jury at the1972 Cannes Film Festival,[5] as well as aHugo Award andSaturn Award. Both Hill and Geller were nominated for awards by their respective guilds. Sacks was nominated for aGolden Globe.