George Roy Hill’s Slaughterhouse Five
George Roy Hill’s film rendition of Slaughterhouse Five seemed a little out of date. Watching this film in the modern day, I could not help but realize how action packed and dynamic our current films are. I found myself loathing the slow pace and uneventful nature of this 1972 version of Slaughterhouse Five. The amount of time spent on elaborating on traveling, would have been better spent adding in scenes and keeping more true to the book.
One major miss on the part of Hill is that I do not remember hearing about Kilgore Trout or his publications. When Billy is accused of being crazy in the book, one of the contributing factors is that his experiences with the Tralfamadorians is parallel to Kilgore Trout’s works. Additionally, Kilgore Trout adds dialog between Billy and Rosewater that the movie does not add or allude to.
Another miss on the part of Hill, is the mis-order of things. Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five had Billy jumping at completely random times. Sure, he jumps here and there based off of tangents and tangents of tangents, but the movie surprisingly follows a more logical approach. Hill’s production seems more like the story of Billy’s later years, with visits to the past. The movie gave me the feeling that Billy was more or less having flashbacks. On the other hand, the book took leaps, jumps, and skips all throughout Billy’s lifetime, giving you more of a sense of time jumping.
Already prefaced, the Tralfamadorians is another disappointment on the part of Hill. One of the smaller and easily ignored detail, is that we see a white light growing bigger and morphing, rather than the purple light from the book. Additionally, we never hear about the appearance of Tralfamadorians, nor do we get a comparison between the human race and their own (genders included). Adding further insult to injury, Hill decided to give a back drop to Tralfamadore, unwisely choosing to put Jupiter practically within reaching distance. While this has no real impact to the movie, it bothers me because it seems like an insult to put Tralfamadore in the same solar system as Earth. Just because something is spaced theme does not mean it should be ubiquitous in space movies.
Comparing George Hill’s interpretation to the book seems unjust. Vonnegut had intended for there to be so much more about Billy Pilgrim than Hill was able to do. The movie comes nowhere near the complex structure the book created. Many small details were lost in translation from words to film, and those small aspects built up to the point that just ruined the movie. Maybe someone else will take a second shot at producing Slaughterhouse Five, it has been over 40 years.
I agree with this blog wholeheartedly. I felt as if the movie did a poor job of representing the ideas that Vonnegut was trying to convey due to it's omission/extrapolation of those and so many other details. On the other end of the argument though, it strikes me as interesting that you more or less gave a pass to Hill by way of saying that, more or less, the project as it was put to him was something that was a difficult task to take on. But, that having been said, would it maybe have been better for Hill to just not try and make the movie in the first place?
ReplyDeleteI agree with both Matt and Rob. The novel cannot be compared to the cinema and to be asked to capture a scene that furthers a theme in the novel is an impossible request. Great question Rob: Matt, I am curious of your response?
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