Sleeper - Wake up call
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Jazz-loving Woody Allen contributes his own musical score to one of his early classics, Sleeper. Selwyn Harris revisits the film that was overlooked at the time but stands up remarkably well after all these years.Sleeper (1973) comes from what is generally perceived as the first phase of Woody Allen’s directorial career before he started to take comedy more seriously. It’s certainly the best of his films from this period and arguably one of the high points of his career. Sleeper draws on both the genres of futuristic sci-fi (it’s loosely based on H.G. Wells’ novel When the Sleeper Wakes) and silent era comedy à la Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. But there’s also the winning combination of superbly witty dialogue, N’Orleans jazz soundtracked slapstick and biting satire, the likes of which we haven’t seen from Allen since. In other words it’s a film in which he plays his best hand. He’s stretching himself too, moving out of his comfort zone (in terms of the sci-fi theme) but at the same time playing to his real strengths. Sleeper has a fantastical, surreal dimension that is sadly missing from the soporific, provincialised Allen of late.
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