Sleeper (1973 film)


Sleeper is a 1973 American futuristic science fiction comedy film, directed by Woody Allen and written by Allen and Marshall Brickman. The plot involves the adventures of the owner of a health food store who is cryogenically frozen in 1973 and defrosted 200 years later in an ineptly led police state. The film contains many elements which parody notable works of science fiction and was made as a tribute to comedians Groucho Marx and Bob Hope.

Plot

Miles Monroe, a jazz musician and owner of the "Happy Carrot" health-food store in 1973, is subjected to cryopreservation without his consent, and not revived for 200 years. Two scientists revive him. They are members of an underground rebellion. The U.S. in 2173 is a hedonistic, automated police state, ostensibly ruled by a dictator known only as "The Leader", about to implement a secret plan known as the "Aries Project". The rebels hope to use Miles as a spy to infiltrate the Aries Project, because he is the only member of this society without a known biometric identity.
The authorities discover the scientists' project, and arrest them, where they are taken for interrogation and torture. Miles escapes by disguising himself as a robot, and goes to work as a butler in the house of socialite Luna Schlosser. When Luna decides to have his head replaced with something more "aesthetically pleasing", Miles reveals his true identity to her, whereupon Luna threatens to give Miles to the authorities. In response, he kidnaps her and goes on the run, searching for the Aries Project.
Miles and Luna fall in love, but Miles is captured and brainwashed into becoming a complacent member of the society, while Luna joins the rebellion. The rebels kidnap Miles and perform reverse-brainwashing, whereupon he remembers his past and joins their efforts. Miles becomes jealous when he catches Luna kissing the rebel leader, Erno Windt, and she tells him that she believes in free love.
Miles and Luna infiltrate the Aries Project, wherein they quickly learn that the national Leader had been killed by a rebel bomb ten months previously. All that survives is his nose. Other members of the Aries Project, mistaking Miles and Luna for doctors, expect them to clone the leader from this single remaining part. Miles steals the nose and "assassinates" it by dropping it in the path of a road roller.
After escaping, Miles and Luna debate their future together. He tells her that Erno will inevitably become as corrupt as the Leader. Miles and Luna confess their love for one another, but she claims that science has proven men and women cannot have meaningful relationships due to chemical incompatibilities. Miles dismisses this, saying that he does not believe in science, and Luna points out that he does not believe in God or political systems either. Luna asks Miles if there is anything he does believe in, and he responds, "Sex and death — two things that come once in a lifetime — but at least after death, you're not nauseous." The film ends as the two embrace and kiss.

Cast

The image of Timothy Leary is used for Our Leader

Production

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 a brief shot of the main building of the Denver Botanic Gardens and of the concrete lamp posts.
The Sculptured House, designed by architect Charles Deaton, is a private home known locally since the film was shot as the "Sleeper House" located on near Genesee Park, west of Denver. The Mile Hi Church of Religious Science in Lakewood, Colorado was turned into a futuristic McDonald's, featuring a sign counting the number sold: 795 followed by 51 zeroes.
Author Christopher Turner has suggested that the orgasmatron, the electromechanical device that Monroe encounters, was a parody of Wilhelm Reich's orgone accumulator.

Reception

Sleeper opened at the Coronet and Little Carnegie theatres in New York City on December 17, 1973. It received positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a 100% approval rating based on 34 reviews, with an average rating of 8.03/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "In Sleeper, Woody Allen's madcap futurist comedy, practically each joke and one-liner hits its target."
Vincent Canby, in The New York Times, called the film "terrific", saying it "confidently advances the Allen art into slapstick territory that I associate with the best of Laurel and Hardy. It's the kind of film comedy that no one in Hollywood has done with style in many years, certainly not since Jerry Lewis began to take himself seriously. Sleeper is a comic epic that recalls the breathless pace and dizzy logic of the old two-reelers." Roger Ebert gave the film 3½ out of four stars, saying Allen "gives us moments in Sleeper that are as good as anything since the silent films of Buster Keaton."

Accolades

In 1973, the film was awarded the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation at Discon II, the 32nd World Science Fiction Convention, in Washington, D.C.
In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted Sleeper the 30th Greatest Comedy Film of All Time.
In 2000, American Film Institute included the film in its list AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs.
In October 2013, the film was voted by readers of the UK's The Guardian as the tenth best film directed by Allen.

Film as tribute

Aspects of the film's storyline are similar to the plot of the 1910 H. G. Wells novel The Sleeper Awakes.
In 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, Kim Newman writes that Sleepers "vision of the future informed by films like , A Clockwork Orange, THX 1138, and Z.P.G.."
Douglas Rain, who provided the voice of HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey, voiced the medical computer in Sleeper.
In a 2007 interview, Allen stated that Sleeper was made as a tribute to the comedians whom he deeply admired: Groucho Marx and Bob Hope.