Evidently, if you believe this "making of," THE SILENCE OF SLEEP director Michel Gondry was childhood friends with the feature's DP (Jean-Louis Bompoint), and the movie is based upon strange nightmares Michel began telling Jean-Louis about two decades before SLEEP was released. In order to make his "dreams come true," Gondry had all his acquaintances keep their used up toilet paper rolls for three years, after which the friends cut them up into a cityscape designed by the director for a month-long animation shoot at the director's family farm. This animation was then back-projected so it could be seen by SLEEP actors Gael Garcia Bernal and Charlotte Gainsbourg as they were doing their bits for the feature film. Just as a few jots of info from the books THE CATCHER IN THE RYE and EIGHT MEN OUT were amalgamated in the mind of writer W.P. Kinsella to become the wonderful novel SHOELESS JOE (adapted by director Phil Alden Robinson into the 1989 feature FIELD OF DREAMS), a bit of undigested gruel (as Ebenezer Scrooge would say) coupled with a few thousand used toilet paper rolls was all it took to yield THE SILENCE OF SLEEP.
2 Reviews
Compliments the film well by focusing on the creative development of it
bob the moo10 September 2007
My experience watching La Science des Rêves was perhaps difference from many other viewers while also being the same. Like the vast majority of viewers who enjoyed the film, I was engaged by the visual design of the film. However like many who disliked the film I felt rather cold emotionally towards it and its characters. So for the "making of" film I was glad that the focus (like the film) was almost entirely on the design and animation within the dream sequences.
In this regard it is actually quite interesting to see how it was all conceived and indeed I had a smug feeling about the fact that the film confirmed some of the things I had assumed when I had watched the film about what the basis for the development had been. Despite this being the problem I had with the main film, I did find it interesting here to see the images and ideas produced by Gondry turned into a reality through painstaking work over long hours.
The latter stages of this film deal more with the day-to-day shooting and this is not so good although it is still interesting because it continues to look at the creative development of the film within this part of it. It doesn't offer anything to those seeking to understand more about the film itself but if you enjoyed the design of it then this "making of" documentary will compliment your experience nicely.
In this regard it is actually quite interesting to see how it was all conceived and indeed I had a smug feeling about the fact that the film confirmed some of the things I had assumed when I had watched the film about what the basis for the development had been. Despite this being the problem I had with the main film, I did find it interesting here to see the images and ideas produced by Gondry turned into a reality through painstaking work over long hours.
The latter stages of this film deal more with the day-to-day shooting and this is not so good although it is still interesting because it continues to look at the creative development of the film within this part of it. It doesn't offer anything to those seeking to understand more about the film itself but if you enjoyed the design of it then this "making of" documentary will compliment your experience nicely.
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