Sleep

1964 · United States · 94 min

Director: Andy Warhol
Producer: Andy Warhol
Cinematography: Andy Warhol
Editing: Andy Warhol

Cast

John Giorno

What it is about

Sleep shows John Giorno, Andy Warhol's lover at the time, asleep for more than five hours. There is no action and no narration: the camera stays largely fixed on the sleeper's body, and the sense of continuity comes from a more intricate editing process than it first appears. It is a silent black-and-white film, conceived as a kind of anti-film.

How it was made

Warhol began shooting in 1963, spending weekends at a farmhouse in Lyme, Connecticut, with a Bolex 16 mm camera. The camera only allowed reels of about three minutes, and Warhol spent months learning to use it effectively. He shot around eight hours, of which he reportedly used only about thirty minutes. Sarah Dalton, who had worked with him on silkscreens, edited the film, following his instructions to repeat shots for long stretches. Although it was shot at 24 frames per second, it is projected at 16, the speed of silent cinema.

Reception and legacy

The film premiered in January 1964 in New York as a fundraiser, with only nine people in the audience, two of whom left during the first hour. Film Culture voted Warhol its Independent Film Award for Sleep and other works. Warhol reused images from the film in later artworks, and for its fiftieth anniversary Finnish filmmaker Juha Lilja made a remake.