Sightlines · how to watch
How to watch Sleeper
1973 · Woody Allen · Sleeper on Sightlines
5 things to watch and listen for on a first viewing, without spoilers, and 3 more once you have seen it. Each names something you can see or hear, the pattern it belongs to, and what noticing it gives you. How these keys work.
On a first viewing
Watch how often the camera holds Allen's whole body in frame. (camera)
David Walsh shoots the physical comedy in wide and full shots rather than close coverage, so falls and pratfalls keep their full geography.
Payoff: You can see exactly what happens to him, which is the difference between a gag landing and a gag getting lost. In the reading: the movement-image. Deleuze calls this the movement-image: perception flowing straight into action, the oldest and cleanest circuit in cinema, which is exactly what a pratfall performs.
Notice how bright and clean the future's architecture looks. (light)
Walsh shoots 2173 in hard daylight and clean whites rather than the shadowy menace dystopias usually reach for.
Payoff: The brightness makes the regime look antiseptic and a little absurd rather than frightening.
Watch how long a shot holds before the next gag. (cutting)
Rosenblum's editing lets each sight gag run to the beat of its own completion rather than cutting away early for pace.
Payoff: The timing itself is doing the comedy. A cut half a second sooner would kill half these jokes.
Watch how many jokes come from a single oversized object. (staging)
The vegetable-field sequence builds an entire set piece from one giant banana peel and one sustained location, rather than cutting between many props.
Payoff: A whole scene of physical comedy can run on a single prop if the staging gives it room.
Listen for traditional jazz clarinet under futuristic scenes. (sound)
Allen scores the future with forty-year-old New Orleans jazz he plays himself, rather than anything electronic or futuristic-sounding.
Payoff: The music argues for old human pleasures against the regime's sterile design, before a single line says so.
The 3 rewatch keys open on this page when you choose "Seen it?".
Carry this in: Watch the geography of each gag. The camera waits for his whole body to finish the joke.