Light Sleeper
Encyclopedia
Light Sleeper is an US-american
drama film
written and directed by Paul Schrader
in 1992. It stars Willem Dafoe
, Susan Sarandon
, and Dana Delany
.
The film, set in New York City
, shows the tragic events following the encounter of a 40-year-old drug dealer and his former girlfriend, which culminate in a final act of violence.
, has lost his perspective in life.
One night LeTour meets his former girlfriend Marianne, who both once shared an intense but destructive relationship due to excessive drug abuse. Although they stopped taking drugs, Marianne refuses his offer for a new start. After spending one night together, she tells him that this was her way of saying good-bye. Unbeknown to her, her mother died at the hospital while she was with LeTour. The next time he meets Marianne, she attacks him, demanding that he gets out of her life once and for all.
Meanwhile, the police start observing LeTour because one of his clients, Tis, is connected to the drug induced death of a young woman. On his next delivery, LeTour witnesses a heavily drugged Marianne in Tis' apartment. Only minutes after his departure, she falls to her death. LeTour gives the police a lead to Marianne's last whereabouts. At the wake, Marianne's sister Randi tells him not to feel guilty for what happened.
When Tis orders a new supply and insists that LeTour delivers it, he senses that Tis wants to dispose of him. Ann accompanies him, but Tis' guards force her to leave the room. In the subsequent shoot-out, LeTour is injured, killing Tis and his escort. He lies down on the hotel bed, showing no anger or pain, only a profound weariness.
Ann visits LeTour in jail, who expresses his relief and hopes for a better future. The film hints at the possibility that Ann will wait for him.
and his most famous screenplay, Martin Scorsese
's Taxi Driver
, and in this case his character dealing with anxiety
over his life and the external forces that threaten it. Light Sleeper also shares with American Gigolo an ending patterned after Robert Bresson
's Pickpocket
in which the imprisoned hero is shown contemplating a new and hopefully better existence.
The movie was still in the process of fundraising when the date of production start, which Schrader had given to stars Willem Dafoe and Susan Sarandon, arrived, so Schrader financed the first three weeks of pre-production from his own money. Light Sleeper was the first artistic collaboration of actor Willem Dafoe and director Paul Schrader, who met during filming of Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ
. Dafoe and Schrader continued working together in Affliction
(1997), Auto Focus
(2002) and Adam Resurrected
(2008).
Schrader had originally intended to use songs from Bob Dylan's
album Empire Burlesque
, but both men could not agree on which songs to use. Schrader decided to use songs by Michael Been
instead.
Light Sleeper premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival
in February 2002 and was released in the US on August 21 the same year, earning $1 million at the box office. It gained mostly positive reviews and received various nominations, including the Independent Spirit Award. Willem Dafoe was awarded the Sant Jordi Award as best actor. In a telegram, German
filmmaker Wim Wenders
congratulated Schrader, stating that his direction was in a league with that of Japanese
director Yasujirō Ozu
, who both Wenders and Schrader admire. In a 2005 interview, Schrader called Light Sleeper his most personal film.
, Chicago Sun-Times
"[…] a small but absorbing mood piece […] even when the film doesn't gel, one is held by Willem Dafoe's grimly compelling performance." – Owen Gleiberman
, Entertainment Weekly
"[…] stylish film noir […] But the story meanders, and it echoes Taxi Driver and American Gigolo so closely that Schrader is working less than fresh variations on over-familiar themes." – Geoff Andrew, Time Out Film Guide
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
written and directed by Paul Schrader
Paul Schrader
Paul Joseph Schrader is an American screenwriter, film director, and former film critic. Apart from his credentials as a director, Schrader is most notably known for his screenplays for Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and Raging Bull....
in 1992. It stars Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe is an American film, stage, and voice actor, and a founding member of the experimental theatre company The Wooster Group...
, Susan Sarandon
Susan Sarandon
Susan Sarandon is an American actress. She has worked in films and television since 1969, and won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1995 film Dead Man Walking. She had also been nominated for the award for four films before that and has received other recognition for her...
, and Dana Delany
Dana Delany
Dana Welles Delany is an American film, stage, and television actress, producer, host and health activist.After various roles in the early career, Delany garnered her first leading role in 1987 in the short-lived NBC sitcom Sweet Surrender and achieved wider fame in 1988–1991 as Colleen McMurphy...
.
The film, set in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, shows the tragic events following the encounter of a 40-year-old drug dealer and his former girlfriend, which culminate in a final act of violence.
Plot
John LeTour, a 40-year-old New Yorker, is one of two delivery men for Ann, who supplies an exclusive clientele in the banking and financing sector with drugs. While Ann contemplates switching to the cosmetics business, LeTour, who suffers from insomniaInsomnia
Insomnia is most often defined by an individual's report of sleeping difficulties. While the term is sometimes used in sleep literature to describe a disorder demonstrated by polysomnographic evidence of disturbed sleep, insomnia is often defined as a positive response to either of two questions:...
, has lost his perspective in life.
One night LeTour meets his former girlfriend Marianne, who both once shared an intense but destructive relationship due to excessive drug abuse. Although they stopped taking drugs, Marianne refuses his offer for a new start. After spending one night together, she tells him that this was her way of saying good-bye. Unbeknown to her, her mother died at the hospital while she was with LeTour. The next time he meets Marianne, she attacks him, demanding that he gets out of her life once and for all.
Meanwhile, the police start observing LeTour because one of his clients, Tis, is connected to the drug induced death of a young woman. On his next delivery, LeTour witnesses a heavily drugged Marianne in Tis' apartment. Only minutes after his departure, she falls to her death. LeTour gives the police a lead to Marianne's last whereabouts. At the wake, Marianne's sister Randi tells him not to feel guilty for what happened.
When Tis orders a new supply and insists that LeTour delivers it, he senses that Tis wants to dispose of him. Ann accompanies him, but Tis' guards force her to leave the room. In the subsequent shoot-out, LeTour is injured, killing Tis and his escort. He lies down on the hotel bed, showing no anger or pain, only a profound weariness.
Ann visits LeTour in jail, who expresses his relief and hopes for a better future. The film hints at the possibility that Ann will wait for him.
Cast
- Willem DafoeWillem DafoeWillem Dafoe is an American film, stage, and voice actor, and a founding member of the experimental theatre company The Wooster Group...
as John LeTour - Susan SarandonSusan SarandonSusan Sarandon is an American actress. She has worked in films and television since 1969, and won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1995 film Dead Man Walking. She had also been nominated for the award for four films before that and has received other recognition for her...
as Ann - Dana DelanyDana DelanyDana Welles Delany is an American film, stage, and television actress, producer, host and health activist.After various roles in the early career, Delany garnered her first leading role in 1987 in the short-lived NBC sitcom Sweet Surrender and achieved wider fame in 1988–1991 as Colleen McMurphy...
as Marianne Jost - David ClennonDavid ClennonDavid Clennon is an American actor perhaps best known for his portrayal of Miles Drentel in the ABC series Thirtysomething, a role he reprised on Once and Again....
as Robert - Mary Beth HurtMary Beth HurtMary Beth Hurt is an American actress of stage and screen.-Personal life:Hurt was born Mary Supinger in 1946 in Marshalltown, Iowa, the daughter of Delores Lenore and Forrest Clayton Supinger. Her childhood babysitter was actress Jean Seberg, also a Marshalltown native...
as Teresa - Victor GarberVictor GarberVictor Joseph Garber is a Canadian film, stage and television actor and singer. Garber is known for playing Jesus in Godspell, Jack Bristow in the television series Alias, Max in Lend Me a Tenor, and Thomas Andrews in James Cameron's Titanic.-Early life:Born in London, Ontario, Canada, Garber is...
as Tis Brooke - Jane AdamsJane Adams (actress)Jane Adams is an American film, television and theatre actress.- Early life :Adams was born in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Janice, an administrative assistant, and William Adams, an engineer. She has a younger brother, Jonathan, and was raised in Wheaton, Illinois and Bellevue, Washington...
as Randi Jost - Sam RockwellSam RockwellSam Rockwell is an American actor known for his leading roles in Lawn Dogs, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Choke and Moon, as well as for his supporting roles in The Green Mile, Iron Man 2, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Frost/Nixon, Galaxy Quest, Matchstick Men, The Assassination of...
as Jealous - David SpadeDavid SpadeDavid Wayne Spade is an American actor, comedian and television personality who first became famous in the 1990s as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, and from 1997 until 2003 when he starred as Dennis Finch on Just Shoot Me!. He also starred as C.J...
as Theological Cokehead
Background info
Schrader has described the film as a "man and his room" story like American GigoloAmerican Gigolo
American Gigolo is a 1980 crime drama film, written and directed by Paul Schrader. It is informally considered the second installment in his "lonely man" trilogy, following the Martin Scorsese directed Taxi Driver and preceding Light Sleeper .-Plot:Julian Kaye is a male prostitute in Los Angeles...
and his most famous screenplay, Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
's Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver is a 1976 American drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The film is set in New York City, soon after the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro and features Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and Cybill Shepherd. The film was nominated for four Academy...
, and in this case his character dealing with anxiety
Anxiety
Anxiety is a psychological and physiological state characterized by somatic, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral components. The root meaning of the word anxiety is 'to vex or trouble'; in either presence or absence of psychological stress, anxiety can create feelings of fear, worry, uneasiness,...
over his life and the external forces that threaten it. Light Sleeper also shares with American Gigolo an ending patterned after Robert Bresson
Robert Bresson
-Life and career:Bresson was born at Bromont-Lamothe, Puy-de-Dôme, the son of Marie-Élisabeth and Léon Bresson. Little is known of his early life and the year of his birth, 1901 or 1907, varies depending on the source. He was educated at Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, close to Paris, and...
's Pickpocket
Pickpocket (film)
Pickpocket is a 1959 film by the French director Robert Bresson. It starred Martin LaSalle, who was a nonprofessional actor at the time, in the title role, with Marika Green as the ingénue...
in which the imprisoned hero is shown contemplating a new and hopefully better existence.
The movie was still in the process of fundraising when the date of production start, which Schrader had given to stars Willem Dafoe and Susan Sarandon, arrived, so Schrader financed the first three weeks of pre-production from his own money. Light Sleeper was the first artistic collaboration of actor Willem Dafoe and director Paul Schrader, who met during filming of Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ
The Last Temptation of Christ (film)
The Last Temptation of Christ is a 1988 drama film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is a film adaptation of the controversial 1953 novel of the same name by Nikos Kazantzakis. It stars Willem Dafoe as Jesus Christ, Harvey Keitel as Judas Iscariot, Barbara Hershey as Mary Magdalene, David Bowie as...
. Dafoe and Schrader continued working together in Affliction
Affliction (film)
Affliction is an US-American drama film produced in 1997, written and directed by Paul Schrader from the novel by Russell Banks. It stars Nick Nolte, Sissy Spacek, James Coburn and Willem Dafoe....
(1997), Auto Focus
Auto Focus
Auto Focus is a 2002 American biographical film directed by Paul Schrader that stars Greg Kinnear and Willem Dafoe. The screenplay by Michael Gerbosi is based on the book The Murder of Bob Crane by Robert Graysmith....
(2002) and Adam Resurrected
Adam Resurrected
Adam Resurrected is an American-German-Israeli film, directed by Paul Schrader and adapted from Yoram Kaniuk's novel of the same name published in Israel in 1968 .Jeff Goldblum stars as the titular character, alongside Willem Dafoe, Derek Jacobi and Ayelet Zurer...
(2008).
Schrader had originally intended to use songs from Bob Dylan's
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
album Empire Burlesque
Empire Burlesque
Empire Burlesque is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 23rd studio album, released by Columbia Records in June 1985. The album peaked at #33 in the US and #11 in the UK....
, but both men could not agree on which songs to use. Schrader decided to use songs by Michael Been
Michael Been
Michael Been was an American rock musician who achieved critical attention and rotation play on MTV in the 1980s with his band The Call. He later released an album of his solo work and toured with his son's band Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. His song "Let the Day Begin" was the official campaign...
instead.
Light Sleeper premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival
Berlin International Film Festival
The Berlin International Film Festival , also called the Berlinale, is one of the world's leading film festivals and most reputable media events. It is held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in West Berlin in 1951, the festival has been celebrated annually in February since 1978...
in February 2002 and was released in the US on August 21 the same year, earning $1 million at the box office. It gained mostly positive reviews and received various nominations, including the Independent Spirit Award. Willem Dafoe was awarded the Sant Jordi Award as best actor. In a telegram, German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
filmmaker Wim Wenders
Wim Wenders
Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer.-Early life:Wenders was born in Düsseldorf. He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine and philosophy in Freiburg and Düsseldorf...
congratulated Schrader, stating that his direction was in a league with that of Japanese
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
director Yasujirō Ozu
Yasujiro Ozu
was a prominent Japanese film director and script writer. He is known for his distinctive technical style, developed during the silent era. Marriage and family, especially the relationships between the generations, are among the most persistent themes in his body of work...
, who both Wenders and Schrader admire. In a 2005 interview, Schrader called Light Sleeper his most personal film.
Reviews
"Schrader knows this world of insomnia, craving and addiction. And he knows all about people living in a cocoon of themselves. […] In film after film, for year after year, Paul Schrader has been telling this story in one way or another, but never with more humanity than this time." – Roger EbertRoger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
, Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
"[…] a small but absorbing mood piece […] even when the film doesn't gel, one is held by Willem Dafoe's grimly compelling performance." – Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman is an American film critic for Entertainment Weekly, a position he has held since the magazine's launch in 1990. From 1981–89, he worked at the Boston Phoenix....
, Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
"[…] stylish film noir […] But the story meanders, and it echoes Taxi Driver and American Gigolo so closely that Schrader is working less than fresh variations on over-familiar themes." – Geoff Andrew, Time Out Film Guide
External links
- Interview with Schrader from Filmmaker magazine