Customer Reviews

Light Sleeper [VHS]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Unusual in the usual world of American movie theater. Thought provoking and very consequential, certainly not unpredictable but somehow enriching and very humane. The characters of drug dealers turn out to be very likeable and egzistential.
There are many weaknesses in this plot - violent end seems to be repeating "Taxi Driver" in a sort of casual "Crime And Punishment" way, nevertheless it is very simplistic. Drug dealer is apparently more in a character of Paul Schreader than a realistic immersion into the psyche of a drug dealer. The main character narates too much as if we have a problem to understand his actions, unnecessary in my view. And there is a genuine bad guy as if to create the vent for the eventual explosion at the end. He is reduced to inhumanity perhaps to underline the humanity of others that some of us would have trouble accepting. All in all few weak places and yet because these types of intelligent movies are so rare, it is so much beyond the typical Holywood entertainment sewer. All the actors are doing great work as expected.

Anyone who's seen Willem Dafoe onstage doesn't need to be convinced that the man is a great actor; unfortunately, his film career has been at best patchy. Light Sleeper's one of his best, though, and since Paul Schrader is a man who hasn't been allowed to make as many films as he deserved, it's a pleasure to see both on such good form.

It's one of Schrader's by now sort-of-trademarked studies in urban loneliness, out of noir via Bresson. Dafoe is beautifully quiet and understated as the drug-dealing hero, Sarandon is as excellent as ever and Dana Delany is extremely good as Dafoe's hapless, tragic ex-lover - a very pleasant surprise to one who hadn't been wildly impressed with her female-Alan-Alda trip on the interminable TV series China Beach. Just goes to show that you can mistake bad scripts for bad performances.

It has to be said the final scene is a rip-off twice over - not only is it almost identical to the final scene in American Gigolo, each are all but indistinguishable from the final scene in Robert Bresson's "Pickpocket" (and since Schrader's book "Transcendental Style in Film" was partly about Bresson, I think we can assume that a hommage of sorts is going on here.) Still, respect to Schrader for showing that there was fight in him yet. He went on to make the mighty "Affliction", so clearly the man is not yet ready to bow out. Even a sub-standard Schrader film (I'm thinking of "Patty Hearst") has a lot more soul and imagination than anything by Roland Emmerich.

This is the story of a drug dealer(brilliantly played by Dafoe)wanting to go straight and his relationships with his partner(played by the one and only Susan Sarandon)and a woman from his past.This may sound very banal but Paul Schrader's take on this story-most of the action is at night-is nothing short of inspired.There is also a certain degree of suspense in this nocturnal story as the character played by Willem Dafoe struggles to embrace his elusive dreams;also,the portrayal of the relationship between Dafoe and Sarandon's characters as potentially erotic is brilliant making this an above average and thrilling urban drama.

The previous reviews of this film are great, so I won't praddle on - just want to add a couple notes. Though I'm a Schrader fan and film buff, I was never aware that this "Trilogy" existed and enjoyed this film on its own. This film is not Taxi Driver, one of the greatest American films ever made, but it also does not carry the over-bearing weight of that film, and can be "enjoyed", with an anti-hero which we can more readily identify. The style is minimalist with great visual touches and choices by Schrader (with some moments that are quiet but extremely revealing), fun dialogue and interesting characters. The subtext dealing with aging drug dealer DeFoe's insomniac character LaTour, confronting his "lost dreams" as the "garbage" of his past piles up (set against a New York waste haulers' strike) is compelling and strong thematically. Anybody over 30 who's given a moments thought to their life's choices and where they're going can identify. Sarandon and Delaney are in top form. Yes, the ending is a bit forced with some over-violence and a bit of a leap in logic (the relationship between DeFoe and Sarandan is not established well enough to warrant his expressions at the end). Still, great film any fan of existential cinema should appreciate. By the way...DeFoe's character is named John LaTour - Latour was the name of the Marquis de Sade's valet!

The irony is that while an obvious case can be made that the best way to appreciate Paul Schrader's 1992 drama "Light Sleeper" is to have seen the previous two entries in his "nocturnal alienation" trilogy, "Taxi Driver" and "American Gigolo," those comparisons are the Achilles heel for the film as well. The commonalities between the angry young Travis Bickle, the narcissistic Julian Kay, and Willem Dafoe's John LeTour are obvious since they are loners with a variety of night jobs. But what is more important is the way Schrader's archetypal hero has progressed over the course of these three films to the point where this last version is able to take stock of his life and realize he is actually looking forward to something in his life.

This is rather difficult for LaTour because the omnipresent fact of this film is that his past is close behind. Although he has stopped doing drugs, he does deliveries for his boss lady, Ann (Susan Sarandon), who keeps threatening to go legit and do cosmetics rather than sell drugs. The other person delivering drugs to Ann's upscale clientele is Robert (David Clennon), and he is interested in changing careers too. So far the change is just all talk but LaTour starts wondering about his own future and does not see much of one. When he is not "working" he spends his time filling up stacks of composition books while drinking wine. He has tried being an actor and dreams of being a musician, but apparently has not noticed that he is actually a writer.

The catalyst for change becomes a couple of chance encounters with his old girl friend, Marianne (Dana Delany), who does not really want to remember the good times they shared when they were both addicts. She is back in town to sit by the bedside of her dying mother at a local hospital and LaTour becomes captivated by the idea that she represents the road not taken and an opportunity for him to change his life. But even though he is able to get back into her bed and have a moment of sheer happiness, Marianne cannot see him as a good future. For her, he is only a reminder of a bad past, and although his heart and motives are pure he is a slippery slope for her despite his best intentions.

The problem is that at the moment of crisis it is hard not to see Schrader's film as returning to territory quite similar to the final reel of "Taxi Driver." I liked the optimistic revelations of LaTour's final speech in the film, but how we get from the film's low point to the prospect of a happy ending somewhere down the road is missing the necessary causal connections to make the conclusion truly fulfilling. Fortunately the performances cover the narrative gaps as Schrader spins his little morality play about the decline and fall of the drug culture. There is never really a point where Dafoe's character is a bad person and the same can be said for Sarandon's as well, while it is Delany whose character jumps the rails when she is being asked to anchor another person's life. "Light Sleeper" is the weakest part of this faux trilogy, but it has value both as that last act and on its own terms.

Paul Schrader has created a moving,startlingly good film,worthy of Taxi Driver. An incredible script, shots carefully framed like oil paintings, and exciting performances by Willem Dafoe,Susan Sarandon and Dana Delany make this one of the best Bressonian efforts from Schrader, a true film artist.

This is a brilliant film. The raw, humane, unvarnished look at the life of a mid level drug dealer in Manhattan is uniquely captivating, and Willem Defoe plays the part to perfection. The story itself is underwhelming, common, real. The protagonist's struggles through life are much like anyone else's. Anyone else's in New York, at least. But the context of his life, the rhythms of it, are very different. The random encounters with love and violence touch him as arbitrarily as they touch each of us, and he reacts to them with the same confusion, elation, and pain. This is the film's genius, and it allows an unusually close emotional bond to develop between the protaganist and the audience.

Unfortunately, the DVD is poorly executed at best. It has been chopped without care to the 1.33:1 aspect ratio, which destroys much of the mood of the film. For example, when Willem Defoe reaches out to touch his ex-girlfriend's mothers' foot while she is in the hospital, his hand is cut in half awkwardly on the edge of the screen. Everything is too close up, the characters do not have enough space around them as the edges of the film have been clipped, this changes the detached feeling of the cinematography which is important for the film's effect.

The audio track is just terrible. Especially in the first 1/4 of the film much of the dialogue is garbled and difficult to make out.

Five stars for the film, one star for the DVD.