Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time

The movie opens as if Vonnegut had written it: time-tripping, past, present, "future" tenses. It unfolds with awareness and self-consciousness of the process of making the documentary, and with living a deliberate existence. We watch as Vonnegut steers his direction, with the enthusiastic support of his wife Jane, from a life in the corporate world to evolving as a philosophical novelist. The fact that Vonnegut welcomed Director Robert B. Weide into his personal life strums on the heart strings of any human being who has been a follower, a fan, or a groupie of a beloved artist. Every moment of this film is emotional, poignant, and profoundly underscored by filmed statements, answering machine messages, and written text declarations made by Vonnegut himself.

This documentary stands on its own as a well-considered and crafted oeuvre. The art of the film is created and observed in a linear-time fashion. The body of "Unstuck in Time" is focused on Vonnegut's writings, work, life, challenges, lectures, and lends visual exposures to his graphic illustrations. It is highlighted with interviews with family and friends, and footage from reels of 16 mm family films. Weide includes his own reflections on the documentary's process, his own personal life (and "distractions") during the long duration of making the movie, and on his close relationship with Vonnegut.

I wasn't left feeling as if I had any more questions about Vonnegut's biography; I feel that Weide has covered all the factual information very neatly in a 2 hour 7 minute package. As the credits rolled, I was wiping away tears from missing Kurt more than ever, full of thanks for his influence on me.

Greetings again from the darkness. Sometimes the work really does speak for itself. Co-director and long-time Vonnegut friend Robert B Weide even admits the renowned author told him, "anything that is any good of mine is on a printed page". The strange thing here is that by the time it's over, we aren't sure if we've watched a documentary on the life of Kurt Vonnegut or one about Weide's friendship with and respect of the man.

Vonnegut, of course, is one of the great American writers of the 20th Century. Born and raised in Indianapolis, he wrote novels, short stories, and plays, and his work was noted for his clever humor and detail. His big breakthrough came in 1969 when "Slaughterhouse Five" became a best-seller, and his other works include "Cat's Cradle" (1963) and "Breakfast of Champions" (1973). As we see during the film, his live talks became 'must-attend' events due to his brilliance and ability to speak directly (and with caustic wit) about a world that he didn't always maintain the greatest hope for.

Weide and co-director Don Argott address Vonnegut's shortcomings as a family man, by allowing his daughters to tell Daddy stories in their own words. What's clear is that Vonnegut being captured by Germans during WWII at the Battle of the Bulge, and subsequently held at Dresden was a driving force not just in his writing, but in his approach to life. He survived the Allied bombing by taking cover in ... you guessed it ... a freezer in a slaughterhouse.

Archival footage of Vonnegut and interviews with his daughters and biographers, give us a pretty complete looks at his life. Oddly, it's Mr. Weide who seems to spend as much time on camera as anyone, leading us to wonder about his focus in what he terms a '40 year' project. Possibly the most interesting segment involves the various drafts of Vonnegut's most popular work ("Slaughterhouse Five" was his 6th novel), and the specific comparisons of the author to lead character Billy Pilgrim. Vonnegut passed away in 2007, and we have little doubt his response to that would be ... "So it goes."

"I didn't want to be in this film, but I felt I had to explain why it took forty years." I guess all the people who review "it's self indulgent of Weide" are too big *s to get this single line explanation.

I fell in love with Vonnegut's writing in high school, which presaged a lifetime of suicidal depression for me. Anyhoo, this film exactly fits Vonnegut's style and philosophy and it just depresses the hell out of me that other reviewers don't grok it. (lol) BTW one of Weide's films made from Vonnegut's books, "Mother Night" was made for $6,000,000 (estimated) and grossed only $403,701, which explains in part it took Weide so long to return to doing material on Vonnegut, (although he doesn't give these numbers in this film), and why few filmmakers have bothered to touch Vonnegut's material since. So it goes. If you haven't read Vonnegut, you're probably not worthy, sorry I mean interested, of watching this. I don't know why you would bother.

While many are bothered by the interaction of the filmmaker in this film and initially, I too was unsure about it, I finally decided that the many years Weide spent making this film and spending time with Vonnegut made him a central character in his life and therefore he holds a space in this documentary just as Vonnegut's children do. It was a beautiful film and I really enjoyed it!

An incredible labor of love that should delight and move any Vonnegut fan, and not a bad introduction for those who aren't familiar with him yet. It's a very human portrait of the man, warts and all, not a deep literary analysis of his books, but you will gain some great insights into how some of those came together, especially Slaughterhouse Five. The friendship of filmmaker Bob Weide with Kurt that is the centerpiece of the movie is crucial, a meta element fitting for a film about the guy who did meta (in Breakfast Of Champions particularly) before meta was cool! If any of this tweaks your interest, don't miss it.