Kurt Von­negut: Unstuck In Time

Known for his satir­i­cal nov­els that both stressed and par­o­died the inequal­i­ties rife in mod­ern soci­ety, author Kurt Von­negut released 14 nov­els, three short sto­ry col­lec­tions, five non-fic­tion works and wrote five plays dur­ing a pro­file career. His 25-year friend­ship with the doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er Robert B Wei­de – who directs here – brings about an insight­ful pro­file piece that tells the writer’s sto­ry as well as chart­ing the mon­u­men­tal influ­ence he exert­ed on cul­ture at large.

The film is built using a mix of inter­views, archive footage and ani­mat­ed cut-aways, as the life of Von­negut is shown to have been plagued by mis­for­tune: from the trag­ic death of his sis­ter Alice to his mother’s sui­cide in 1944. It cov­ers the writer’s event­ful life from start to fin­ish, delv­ing into his expe­ri­ences as a pris­on­er of war in Ger­many dur­ing the World War Two – an event that would one day become the inspi­ra­tion for sem­i­nal 1969 tome, ​‘Slaugh­ter­house-Five’. The nov­el is an anti-war sto­ry that pro­pelled his fame to new heights after reach­ing fourth place the New York Times best­seller list.

Weide’s friend­ship with the esteemed writer allows for an authen­tic study of the acclaimed writer’s life, cov­er­ing not only his pros­per­ous career but also his domes­tic life through both home videos and inter­views with fam­i­ly mem­bers. How­ev­er, not all was sun­shine and rain­bows, and the film is hap­py to focus on its subject’s flaws. The writer had to con­front his dis­tress­ing expe­ri­ence as a sol­dier and deal with his own bout of unfaith­ful­ness to first wife Jane Marie Cox.

The doc­u­men­tary show­cas­es how Von­negut inter­act­ed with his fam­i­ly through­out his career, explain­ing that he could go from an upbeat and joy­ous per­son to an anti­so­cial her­mit in the space of a day. Not only was he an estab­lished writer, but he was also a part time come­di­an, shown through clips dis­played through­out the doc­u­men­tary as he made use of his crude humour to tell hilar­i­ous jokes at talks and readings.

With his sub­stan­tial influ­ence came a mass of devot­ed fans who idolised him, dri­ving across the coun­try to meet him, with some even stay­ing at his own house for days on end. In fact, Weide’s own infat­u­a­tion with the acclaimed writer helps this doc­u­men­tary to become a very per­son­al chron­i­cle of an inter­est­ing and influ­en­tial life. Wei­de cre­ates a doc­u­men­tary that even those unfa­mil­iar with Von­negut and his lega­cy can enjoy.