Product Details

• Actors: Willem Dafoe, Susan Sarandon, Dana Delany, David Clennon, Mary Beth Hurt
• Directors: Paul Schrader
• Writers: Paul Schrader
• Producers: G. Mac Brown, Linda Reisman, Mario Kassar, Ronna B. Wallace
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Live / Artisan
• VHS Release Date: September 8, 1993
• Run Time: 103 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302643635
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #315,828 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

This compelling 1992 drama is often cited as the third film in writer-director Paul Schrader's trilogy of "nocturnal alienation" that includes Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (which Schrader wrote) and American Gigolo. Like those other films, this one deals with a solitary man who works almost exclusively at night, and the film immerses us in the rhythms and psychology of his lifestyle. In this case, Willem Dafoe plays a cocaine addict who has kicked the habit that almost killed him, but still delivers drugs to clients for a dealer (Susan Sarandon) who dreams of opening a legitimate cosmetics business. He meets an old lover (Dana Delany) who fears he will draw her into their old life of drug abuse, but that proves to be the least of their worries. Simultaneously sad, funny, and fascinating, the film inevitably leads to the outburst of violence that has become a kind of signature in Schrader's work. It lacks the visceral impact of Taxi Driver, but few directors can match Schrader's gift for creating fully realized characters on the fringes of a society to which they don't quite belong. Insomnia, in Schrader's world, is a condition suffered by those whose dreams remain elusive, just beyond their grasp. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker

John LeTour (Willem Dafoe), the main character of Paul Schrader's dreamlike but tough-minded new film, is a forty-year-old New York drug courier who knows he has to change his life, yet doesn't quite know how. "You drift from day to day," he writes in his journal, and for most of the picture that's all we see him do. He glides through the night streets in the back of a limo, carrying small amounts of cocaine to upper-middle-class customers and then carrying their money back to his employer, a chic dealer named Ann (Susan Sarandon), who pays him a modest salary. It's an unexciting, shockingly routine existence. The movie is anything but routine. This is an absorbing, superbly confident piece of filmmaking, and the acting-by Dafoe, Sarandon, David Clennon, Victor Garber, Mary Beth Hurt, and a radiant newcomer named Jane Adams-is sensational. (Only Dana Delany, in the pivotal role of LeTour's ex-girlfriend, in uninteresting.) Schrader's theme is the role of chance (sometimes called fate, or fortune, or providence, or plain luck) in contemporary life, and for most of the picture his writing and direction daringly embody the idea of unpredictability. Every scene is built around some sort of surprise: a disorienting visual twist; a reversal of narrative expectations; an unanticipated reaction by one of the characters. Up to the final minutes, when Schrader borrows one motif too many from his earlier "American Gigolo," the picture keeps the audience as well as the hero in a constant state of uncertainty: we don't know what we'll see when we turn the corner. We drift pleasurably, borne by the film's mordant wit and its rigorous, unfakable honesty. (The score, by Michael Been, consists of songs that comment directly on the action; if the music were better the device might be less annoying.) -Terrence Rafferty
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Willem Dafoe: Major Romantic & Erotic Dream Figure, May 20, 2001

By 

carol irvin "carol irvin" (United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Light Sleeper (DVD)

Writer-director Paul Schrader delivers his most satisfying film for me. He is even better known for his work when he solely screenwriters, such as for his unsurpassed "Taxi Driver," directed by his frequent collaborator, Marty Scorsese. For his own solo film though, this is my favorite. Schrader's film work is frequently compared to the late Robert Bresson's films. However, Bresson has always been a little too painterly for me. Schrader is painterly enough and to make it any more so evokes that dreaded word in film: slow. I frankly prefer this film to the Bresson films I've seen, which makes me a film heretic I realize. Urban alienation is at the core of this film, which is true of all Schrader's work, and Willem Dafoe plays a nocturnal drug dealer who doesn't get much sleep (hence the title), probably because his dreams remain so elusive from his grasp, as a metaphor for the overall film. Two women present the immediate conflict in the film. Susan Sarandon plays a drug dealer who Dafoe works for and she tells him that they both need to get out of dealing. She plans to open a legitimate cosmetics business and seems capable of following through on the idea. She is the most in control of her life of the three main characters. Dana Delany plays Dafoe's former lover, who doesn't want anything to do with him because they were substance abusers together in the past. Although he's clean now, he still deals. But is her character as squeaky clean as she now proclaims to be? Dafoe needs to figure that out. Further tension comes about from the eroticism between Dafoe and Delany plus the growing potential for eroticism between Dafoe and Sarandon. Dafoe is absolutely wonderful in this film and becomes a major romantic and erotic dream figure for the viewer regardless of what the viewer thinks of him vis a vis the two women.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Perennial, June 10, 2003

By 

Greekfreak (Pusan Korea (South)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Light Sleeper (DVD)

I can watch this film at the drop of a hat and not mind that I've seen it a million times. It's not my favourite film, and I have more than a few criticisms of it, but overall, it's one that I'm glad I own.

The acting is fine--Susan Sarandon and Willem Dafoe always are--and Dany Delany does a credible job, but the real star is the screenplay, which was written by the director Paul Schrader. It's endlessly quotable, realistic, funny, and at times thought-provoking.

The soundtrack is marred by having the same no-name singer (who's trying so desperately to ape Bryan Ferry) all throughout--and I thought Vonda Sheppard was lousy--but the incidental music is nice.

Completely overlooked, and well worth the rental.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "It's cologne. I'm a sucker for that airplane stuff.", November 4, 2004

By 

J from NY (New York) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Light Sleeper [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This movie really is a mixed bag. I'd been looking for it for years, and I suppose expectations had far exceeded the actual film. Paul Schrader never fails to deliver in terms of gritty reality with some actual morals ("Taxi Driver", of course, is the best example), so maybe I expected another "Taxi".

The amazing thing about this film is the sharp, sharp contrast between the plot and the way the characters act. William Dafoe plays a drugdealer, and Susan Sarandon plays his main connection, but at no point do we see either of them as villains. Eating Chinese, yucking it up, laughing with one another about the old days and certain forms of art, there are moments when you think you're watching a sitcom rather than a movie about a guy with a vendetta trying to climb out of the sewer of dealing/addiction.

John (Dafoe's character) has some real bright shiny moments, and I'm not kidding. It's like he's the Mr. Rogers of drugdealers. This fat guy is whigging out on coke and crystal meth and Dafoe goes, "I remember when your wife was here, when you had a life. Come on". What is he, a drug counselor? The jazz music just don't work as well as it did in "Taxi", because nothing is really going on that seems all that dreadful.

There is a reality check, however, amongst the "Friends" atmosphere the film creates. Dafoe's former lover, who now shuns him, gets strung out after her mother dies and jump off a hotel balcony owned by one of Susan Sarandon's customers. Hence Dafoe's decision to buy a gun.

I have to say I've never seen anything quite like this. It manages to turn drugdealers into characters from "Today's Special". It doesn't glorify it or not glorify it. You have to see this movie to believe it.