MovieChat Forums > Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) Discussion > Is this about the old retreating into th...

Is this about the old retreating into themselves?

posted 19 years ago by mikkyogden
6 replies | jump to latest

Is this about the old retreating into themselves?

I have always felt that this is a film about old people withdrawing into themselves- my granddads 93 and is still fairly ok- but he gets confused he has told me that he’s in a Japanese POW camp ( he did fight in Burma). I image him sitting in his room all day drifting from sleep to awake- having half dreams- that what’s this films about.

“Socialism at a snail's pace” Bukaran Russian economic figurehead 1917-1928

[–] cfz2468100 18 years ago

How many million died in that war? And Vonnegut survived Dresden which is about like someone surviving Hiroshima and later writing about it. And now a poster reduces this to nostalgic Alzheimers. I'm amazed how shallow and ignorant that people can be.

[–] le_deathcab 18 years ago

cfz2468100, get over yourself.

[–] guayi 18 years ago

I agree, what a jerk.

[–] MrBigglesworth999 15 years ago

That's an overly harsh reaction to someone who simply has a different opinion to yours.

[–] zeta1983-1 15 years ago

He was unstuck in time, living his life in random order. It was about living the good days and not the bad if you could. I can see the parallel though, but I don't think Billy was just nostalgic, he even travels to an alien planet eventually.

[–] sonofabird 18 years ago

It was written when the author was in his 40s, so...interesting interpretation, but no, I don't think so.

It's "about" a lot of things, but this isn't one of them. Now, it might very well be about war screwing people up so that they withdraw into themselves for the rest of their lives and develop parallels and whatnot because no one else around them can understand what they went through - that, I would believe to some extent.

"Always look on the bright side of life. Do do. Do do do do do do."