| Sleeper | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster by Robert McGinnis |
|
| Directed by | Woody Allen |
| Produced by | Jack Grossberg |
| Written by | Woody Allen Marshall Brickman |
| Starring | Woody Allen Diane Keaton John Beck Marya Small Susan Miller |
| Music by | Woody Allen |
| Cinematography | David M. Walsh |
| Editing by | O. Nicholas Brown Ron Kalish Ralph Rosenblum |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
| Release date(s) | December 17, 1973 |
| Running time | 88 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English Yiddish |
| Budget | $2 million |
| Box office | $18,344,729 |
Sleeper is a 1973 futuristic science fiction comedy film, written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman, and directed by Allen. The plot involves the adventures of the owner of a Greenwich Village, NY health food store played by Woody Allen who is cryogenically frozen in 1973 and defrosted 200 years later in an inept totalitarian state. The film contains many elements which parody notable works of science fiction.
Contents |
Miles Monroe, a jazz musician and owner of the Happy Carrot Health-Food store living in Manhattan in 1973, is cryonically frozen without his consent, and not revived for 200 years. The scientists who revive him are members of an underground movement: 22nd-century America seems to be a police state ruled by a dictator, about to implement a secret plan known as the "Aires Project" (sic). The underground movement hopes to use Miles as a spy to infiltrate the Aires Project, because he is the only member of this society without a known biometric identity.
The authorities catch onto the scientists' project, and arrest them; Miles escapes by disguising himself as a robot. He goes to work as a butler in the house of socialite Luna Schlosser (Diane Keaton). When Luna decides to have her "robot's" head replaced with something more "aesthetically pleasing," Miles has no choice but to reveal his true identity to her. Luna is frightened, and threatens to turn Miles in to the authorities. In response, he kidnaps her and goes on the run, searching for the Aires Project.
Miles and Luna start to fall in love, but Miles is captured and forced to undergo brainwashing. He forgets that he comes from 1973, and becomes a complacent member of futuristic society. Meanwhile, Luna finds a group of commando-rebels and joins the underground movement. The rebels kidnap Miles and force him to undergo reverse-brainwashing, whereupon he remembers his past and joins their efforts.
Miles and Luna successfully infiltrate the Aires Project: they learn that the Leader was killed by a rebel bomb ten months previously, and all that survives is his nose. The nose has been kept alive, and the members of the Aires Project, mistaking Miles and Luna for doctors, want them to clone the leader from this single remaining part. Instead, Miles steals the nose and "assassinates" it by squashing it under a steamroller.
The film was shot in and around Denver, Colorado. The outdoor shots of the hospital were filmed at the Table Mesa Laboratory of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. There is also a cameo appearance of the main building of the Denver Botanic Gardens and of the signature concrete lamp posts. The Sculptured House, designed by architect Charles Deaton, is a private home known locally as the "Sleeper House" or "Flying Saucer House" located on Genesee Mountain near Genesee Park, west of Denver. The Mile Hi Church of Religious Science[1] in Lakewood, Colorado was turned into a futuristic McDonald's,[2] featuring a sign counting the number sold: The digit 1 followed by more than twenty zeroes.
The film contains several plot points which parody or spoof several well-known works of science-fiction, most notably H. G. Wells's The Sleeper Awakes and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Another direct homage/parody is the use of actor Douglas Rain (best known as the voice of the HAL-9000 computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey) to voice the evil computer in Sleeper.
There are two known cuts of Sleeper. The first, seemingly original cut, contains a dinner scene shortly after Miles and Luna return to the house where Miles was originally taken after revival. In the dialogue-less scene, Miles eats in time with a piano soundtrack while Luna watches him in amazement. In another cut distributed in the US, this scene is absent but another, in which Miles shaves using a high-tech mirror and accidentally tunes into the view from the mirror in another bathroom, is present in its place. The latter cut is on the MGM 2000 DVD, which has both a widescreen and full-screen version of the film, a trailer, Spanish dubbing, and French subtitles. The network television version cuts the scene in which Miles and Luna discover a 1990's newspaper with the headline "Pope's Wife Gives Birth to Twins".
American Film Institute Lists
|
||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||