Lo spacciatore

Paul Schrader's love/hate relationship with close to down-and-out male individuals living in New York City continues in 1992's Light Sleeper. Schrader casts a dim eye on most of the proceedings in the place, but his revisiting of New York City in Light Sleeper, and whatever knowledge past you have of 1976's Taxi Driver, shows a clear fondness for the place; a fondness to keep going back and exploring new characters, operating under new situations and working with new problems floating around inside of their heads. In Light Sleeper's case, it is Willem Dafoe's John LeTour, a middle aged man whom deals drugs; meets some pretty desperate individuals in the process; cannot connect that well with the women he wants most; is stalked by police men and generally tries to balance his on-going loneliness with his inability to really find his place in life.

Light Sleeper is a wonderfully down to Earth and thoroughly intense film. With hindsight, one might think of it as a Trainspotting without all the hyper-kinetic energy. The film begins, quite literally, with a focusing on a road as we flow through New York; this is before developing into a ground level documentation of life flitting between streets, apartments that inhabit drug users and dealers, grotty nightclubs that house further users plus hotel suites which spell danger. The easy way to summarise the male lead we're given in Light Sleeper would be a comparison to Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle, as penned by Schrader. LeTour is a loner; he keeps a diary, although possesses better handwriting skills; attempts to talk and follow women he simply cannot have; and generally wanders. There is even room for the characters to pay reference to the rain at certain times, and its importance. Like Taxi Driver; the film is a gathering, only not of an individual's visions of what's around him, but of the interactions and of the people that exist around him.

This idea is best explored in a scene set in a hospital. LeTour is visiting the mother of a certain Marianne Jost (Delany), as another relative, whilst in the intensive care room, sits asleep in a chair. LeTour walks in and sits down. The camera freezes on him sitting there, almost certain death in the air by way of the dying mother and the fact there are those he hands drugs out to whom will perish at some point in the near future. It's only after a while that he glances over at the relative, and it's only then that the camera will slowly track left to encompass, indeed recognise, she's even sitting there. It's an interesting touch by Schrader, and reminiscent of Taxi Driver by being a sort of polar opposite: we see, indeed recognise, what LeTour sees but only until HE does so first. We do not get it in that raw, unflinching and 1st person style the 1976 masterpiece delivers, but we do get it in some manner of speaking.

Light Sleeper knows what it is and knows exactly how it wants to unfold. The film isn't a conventional thriller, of sorts, about a drug dealer and a world of crime and the interactions that go on, even if it does end in a conventional manner by way of a bloody shootout. Rather, the film is a stark character study of a man on the way out; of a man wasting his life away through drugs, not as a junkie – something LeTour stresses to certain people he meets, but as a dealer and that any relation you might have to the stuff will most probably end you up in very bad shape. As a raw character study, we pick the lead up in his late thirties and cover him for about a fortnight. The damage has been done; we learn of his past troubles and whatever back-story we require by way of speech to other people, and we learn it all at regular, very well spaced intervals.

The film's attention to LeTour's element of unrequited love in his life is additionally well handled, somewhat seamlessly incorporated into the text by way of a series of nervous and unfortunate encounters. We first meet the aforementioned Marianne when LeTour's chauffeur driven saloon stops to pick her up out of the wet. By way of Dafoe's wonderful acting, LeTour is juddery and the professionalism driven image that we have of him up to this point, by way of short sharp encounters and knowing exactly what to say to different sorts of lowlifes, is shattered somewhat when he lies to her about continuing dealing drugs and screws up the whole interaction. The lyrics in the music and the manner in which the character regresses over a photo-album in the following scene could have been explored and executed in a far worse-a manner. The film's remaining scenes of obsession and rejection surrounding these two are well incorporated into the text.

I think Light Sleeper's crowning glory is its real attention to the finer things. There's a scene in which LeTour's consistently outrageously dressed female drug contact Ann, (Susan Sarandon, fresh off a wonderful role in Thelma and Louise) who is the the person that supplies all of the drugs to LeTour along with Robert (Clennon), from their pseudo-upper class decorated apartment, asks LeTour for a lunch meeting the following day. I got an odd sensation after the interaction had ended that a lesser film would cut straight to the lunch: person 'A' proposes something to person 'B'; person 'B' accepts and then we cut to the rendez-vous. Light Sleeper rejects the causality, opting for notions, interactions and ideas to rest on the back-burner whilst the lead carries on for a while interacting further with other people before the day is out. Make no mistake, there'll be no light napping during this picture.

Paul Schrader is a director whose films should be seen more often. He is a man that never compromises and tackles adult themes with great panache, as he has amply demonstrated throughout his distinguished career. He was long associated with Martin Scorsese, but when he decided to go on his own, he showed his talent was there all the time.

Mr. Schrader's films have a sense of style that are not easily matched by many of today's filmmakers. He knows what seems to work, and what not. His movies show a sophistication, as we mere mortals, are invited to participate, even though we haven't received the invitation in the mail.

Most comments in this forum are excellent, so we won't even attempt to add anything that hasn't been said before. "Light Sleeper" is supposed to be one of Mr. Schrader's favorite films, and it's clear to see why. He has infused the film with characters that are easy to see why they are portrayed on the screen. Willem Dafoe is obviously an actor held in high esteem by Mr. Schrader. As John LaTour, Mr. Dafoe is at his most introspective self. His character shows a complexity that is hard to match.

The rest of the cast is excellent. Susan Sarandon is perfect as Ann. Dana Delaney is Marianne. Mary Beth Hurt, Victor Garber, Sam Rockwell, David Spade, are seen in supporting roles.

The great atmospheric music of Michael Been is heard in the background and it helps add another layer in the texture of the finished product. Edward Lachman does an amazing job with the way he photographed the film that includes a lot of night time scenes in Manhattan.

Take a look at the film, as Mr. Schrader will impress, even a casual viewer.

With Schrader it always comes back to this. Lonely nights and aimless wandering, always just a step short of being swallowed up in the abyss. But it's always the worst at the brink, where guilt starts eating up inside.

So a jazz ballad about lonely nights, this is what people probably call noir in this. About a man who has come a long, painful way to get nowhere, is tired and looking for his harbor. He's a drug dealer, so we get the awkward encounters in seemy places and travel through other people on the same way down as he has been before.

Sarandon is radiant, fierce but fragile, but this is Dafoe's show, it wouldn't have been the same without Dafoe. He's right inside the character, where the desperation piles up. See how his face lights up when Sarandon invites him to lunch, how he passes through peoples' lives without staying, as though time is running out.

Two instances reveal the betrayal (one involving sex and a madonna painting), both involving mirrors that lie. The reflections reveal people who don't have time to get involved, how everyone's strange when you're a stranger. See if you can spot them out.

It is ultimately about the working out of karma, and how our present hells have been long in the digging. Eventually he has to atone with the one thing he's running out of and can't spare, time.

Paul Schrader's finest film to date, and firmly lodged in my top 10, this is a surprisingly overlooked and underrated gem. Often touted as a "modern noir" movie, I really don't consider it in that genre at all.

The heart of the film is a reworking of the themes embodied in Schrader's earlier film "American Gigolo", where a man is forced to confront the fact that the life he is leading is fundamentally unsatisfying, reassess what he wants to do, find out who his real friends are and ultimately get redeemed through love.

Willem Dafoe's character Le Tour's journey is a slow but inevitable one, as his drug-dealing days are numbered due to his boss Susan Sarandon (also splendid) "going straight". Most of the scenes take place at night (hence the noir tag), but this is partly a consequence of the drug-dealing aspect and partly to capture the unreal mood of a man who doesn't know where he fits in to "normal" life. The device whereby Le Tour spends many hours writing his thoughts in an exercise book, throwing it away when he fills it, then starting another one, is so strong and startling that I put aside my usual dislike of narration. The soundtrack is also excellent and fits and expands the mood very well.

The best scene is probably the one in the hospital cafeteria, where Le Tour has a conversation with his ex-girlfriend that he hasn't seen for a long time - immaculately acted, tremendously understated with so many things going unsaid... The final scene, although Schrader nicked it from a French film, and used it before in "Gigolo", is still very powerful, based on the idea that whether a man is in prison or not is completely unrelated to whether he is free.

When the subject of modern noir films is discussed, there are always a small group of films that is mentioned. "The Last Seduction", "Blood Simple", "L.A. Confidential", etc. All worthy selections in their own right. Even better, I think, is "Light Sleeper", which is a noir film right down to the core of its being. Taking place almost entirely in afterhours Manhattan, it's the story of John LeTour (Willem Dafoe), a drug courier who works for Ann (Susan Sarandon), delivering cocaine to upscale clients. LeTour wanders around the city, chauffered about in a black sedan by a silent driver named Carlos. It's a lonely existence, one that has "noir" written all over it. But this isn't a shallow or violent or ironically self-aware redux of noir films. Much like another recent Schrader-scripted film, this plunges right into the heart of the story, not standing back at all, undetached. Unlike other recent noir films, such as "The Usual Suspects", this film's soul lies not in convoluted twists and turns, but in redemption. LeTour spends the film searching for a meaning to his life, looking in the wrong place, and eventually finding meaning and hope in a somewhat unlikely place. But in the end, he realizes that it's all he has left to hang onto. A beautiful film.