Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time. (15.)
Directed by Robert B. Weide and Don Argott
Featuring Kurt Vonnegut, Robert B. Weide, David L. Ulin, Edie Vonnegut and Mark Vonnegut. 127 mins.
The opening line of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five (which comes at the start of chapter 2; it’s that kind of book) tells us, “Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time.” Big deal: in time we all come unstuck. When it came out in 1969, Vonnegut’s comic, time travelling, science fiction account of the firebombing of Dresden propelled him into the frontline of American authors, a position he retained for around a decade or two. I wouldn’t like to suggest that Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions and the rest had gone the way of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, but I was kind of under the impression that he'd gradually floated clear of critical acclaim and reader popularity and that he’d become associated with a certain period. Which suggests that this biodoc has itself come adrift from its proper place in time.
Its late arrival is a theme of Weide’s film. After writing him a fan letter he began filming for this project. Over four decades, he never quite got round to finishing off the film but instead went on to have a successful career producing and directing Curb Your Enthusiasm and turned the Vonnegut project into a lasting friendship.
Now, fifteen years after its subject’s death, the film emerges: part standard literary biography and part account of a friendship and part Making Of. By author standard Vonnegut had a relatively interesting life, being a prisoner of war in Dresden when the bombing happened and then taking more than twenty years to work out a way to turn that into a narrative. He even had an unusual way of writing, hunched over a low-hanging typewriter, constantly rewriting and forming a writing style that was almost childishly simplistic but filled with a wry cynicism and dark dry humour. Later in life, Vonnegut became more famous for his lectures and commencement speeches, one of which was the basis of Baz Luhrmann's hit Everybody’s Free To Wear Sunscreen, which the film chooses to ignore.
But, ultimately, it is a film about a man who spent most of his time sitting in a room typing and the rest of the stuff about their friendship and the struggle to make the film doesn't really compensate. Weide’s mission perhaps is to counterbalance some negative portraits of the writer that emerged after his death in 2007 and to get people reading him again, but as someone who used to be a Vonnegut obsessive it only partially re-ignited the flame.
Weide became a fan of the writer at college, which I think is probably when almost all his fans discover him. I got pointed towards him by an English teacher and after Slaughterhouse Five I raced through the entire Vonnegut catalogue. By the time I was 20 though I had pretty much abandoned him. It was fascinating to revisit him, but couldn't quite shake the feeling that his books were things for adolescence. Still, as Joseph Heller shows, you only need to write one great book about WWII to stay in the pantheon. But if nothing else, Vonnegut is surely the greatest children's/ YA author ever. His books are short, simple, funny, serious, post-modern, illustrated and incredibly easy to read but by the end you have leapfrogged into the realms of proper literature. And all in a fraction of the time it takes to wade through a Harry Potter or Tolkien. Vonnegut at his best was like The Great American Novel written by Dr Zeuss.
Directed by Robert B. Weide and Don Argott
Featuring Kurt Vonnegut, Robert B. Weide, David L. Ulin, Edie Vonnegut and Mark Vonnegut. 127 mins.
The opening line of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five (which comes at the start of chapter 2; it’s that kind of book) tells us, “Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time.” Big deal: in time we all come unstuck. When it came out in 1969, Vonnegut’s comic, time travelling, science fiction account of the firebombing of Dresden propelled him into the frontline of American authors, a position he retained for around a decade or two. I wouldn’t like to suggest that Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions and the rest had gone the way of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, but I was kind of under the impression that he'd gradually floated clear of critical acclaim and reader popularity and that he’d become associated with a certain period. Which suggests that this biodoc has itself come adrift from its proper place in time.
Its late arrival is a theme of Weide’s film. After writing him a fan letter he began filming for this project. Over four decades, he never quite got round to finishing off the film but instead went on to have a successful career producing and directing Curb Your Enthusiasm and turned the Vonnegut project into a lasting friendship.
Now, fifteen years after its subject’s death, the film emerges: part standard literary biography and part account of a friendship and part Making Of. By author standard Vonnegut had a relatively interesting life, being a prisoner of war in Dresden when the bombing happened and then taking more than twenty years to work out a way to turn that into a narrative. He even had an unusual way of writing, hunched over a low-hanging typewriter, constantly rewriting and forming a writing style that was almost childishly simplistic but filled with a wry cynicism and dark dry humour. Later in life, Vonnegut became more famous for his lectures and commencement speeches, one of which was the basis of Baz Luhrmann's hit Everybody’s Free To Wear Sunscreen, which the film chooses to ignore.
But, ultimately, it is a film about a man who spent most of his time sitting in a room typing and the rest of the stuff about their friendship and the struggle to make the film doesn't really compensate. Weide’s mission perhaps is to counterbalance some negative portraits of the writer that emerged after his death in 2007 and to get people reading him again, but as someone who used to be a Vonnegut obsessive it only partially re-ignited the flame.
Weide became a fan of the writer at college, which I think is probably when almost all his fans discover him. I got pointed towards him by an English teacher and after Slaughterhouse Five I raced through the entire Vonnegut catalogue. By the time I was 20 though I had pretty much abandoned him. It was fascinating to revisit him, but couldn't quite shake the feeling that his books were things for adolescence. Still, as Joseph Heller shows, you only need to write one great book about WWII to stay in the pantheon. But if nothing else, Vonnegut is surely the greatest children's/ YA author ever. His books are short, simple, funny, serious, post-modern, illustrated and incredibly easy to read but by the end you have leapfrogged into the realms of proper literature. And all in a fraction of the time it takes to wade through a Harry Potter or Tolkien. Vonnegut at his best was like The Great American Novel written by Dr Zeuss.
