KURT VONNEGUT: UNSTUCK IN TIME
Cert
15
In cinemas and on altitude.film now
“I didn’t even want to be in this film in the first place,” says Robert B Weide, director of this touching, if slightly unfocused, account of the fascinating life of SlaughterhouseFive writer Kurt Vonnegut.
Like Weide, I’m not a fan of documentaries that feature interviews with the documentary maker.
And while this one is sort of famous in his own right (he directed episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm), it feels churlish to take any time away from one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.
Still, since it took Weide 40 years to complete this film, he does have some explaining to do. He first started following Vonnegut around with his camera in 1982 and they forged a friendship that lasted up until the author’s death in 2007.
The film is strongest when Weide concentrates on interviews with the writer and his family, explaining his reticence to talk about his wartime experiences and the laborious process behind that easy-going writing style.
Vonnegut emerges as a fascinatingly complex figure – generous, hilarious, difficult and sometimes cruel, an iconoclast riven with insecurities.