Billy Pilgrim has mysteriously become unstuck in time. He goes on an uncontrollable trip back and forth from his birth in New York to life on a distant planet and back again to the horrors o... Read allBilly Pilgrim has mysteriously become unstuck in time. He goes on an uncontrollable trip back and forth from his birth in New York to life on a distant planet and back again to the horrors of the 1945 fire-bombing of Dresden.Billy Pilgrim has mysteriously become unstuck in time. He goes on an uncontrollable trip back and forth from his birth in New York to life on a distant planet and back again to the horrors of the 1945 fire-bombing of Dresden.
- Awards
- 3 wins & 4 nominations
- German Leader
- (as Friedrich Ledebur)
- Young German Guard
- (as Nick Belle)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaAlthough Vonnegut's renowned refrain, "And so it goes", appears over 100 times in the novel, it it is not uttered even once in the movie version.
- GoofsWhen Billy Pilgrim is asked by the American soldiers, "Where's your rifle?", he replies that he doesn't have one because he's a chaplain's assistant. However, in the United States Army, the primary duty of the chaplain's assistant in a combat zone is to protect the chaplain, so all chaplain's assistants must carry rifles. Because Chaplains are considered ministers in uniform they are forbidden from carrying weapons even when in combat zone.
- Quotes
Billy Pilgrim: [in his sleep] You guys go on without me. I'll be alright.
Prof. Rumfoord: All he does in his sleep is quit, surrender, and apologize. I could carve a better man out of a banana.
- Crazy creditsThe Universal logo does not appear on this film.
- ConnectionsEdited into The Clock (2010)
- SoundtracksConcerto No. 5 for Harpsichord in F minor, BWV 1056 - 2nd movement 'Largo'
Written by Johann Sebastian Bach (as J.S. Bach)
Performed by Glenn Gould, Piano
Columbia Symphony Orchestra
Vladimir Goldschmann, Conductor
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.
- Jaime N. Christley
- Jul 12, 1999
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official sites
- Languages
- Also known as
- Schlachthof 5
- Filming locations
- Prague, Czech Republic(as Dresden)
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $3,200,000 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 44 minutes
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1