The Science Of Sleep

[cowboykurtis]

i remeber once seeing a synopsisfor the SCIENCE OF SLEEP on imdb -- its been removed -- does any one have any other rescources that breaks the plot of this film down -- if so -- post it and i wll be happy. thank you in advance for any one who decides to do a good deed.

[El Scorchoz]

I read it, it's pretty entertaining but there's so much of it that's in dream sequence, by the end I think it loses a bit of its power. It kind of just wears off a bit. The damn's script is in 3 different colors.

[MacGuffin]

Bernal Signs Up for 'Science' Class

Gael Garcia Bernal, who is generating buzz for his role as Ernesto "Che" Guevara in "The Motorcycle Diaries," is revving up for the new project from the director of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."

Bernal will star in Michel Gondry's "The Science of Sleep" alongside Charlotte Gainsbourg and Alain Chabat. The logline is being kept under wraps because of revisions currently underway in Gondry's script, but it is known to switch back and forth from dreamlike sequences to reality. [MacGuffin's Note: See below]

The Focus Features project is scheduled to start shooting by year's end in France.

Bernal also stars in Pedro Almodovar's "Bad Education," from Sony Pictures Classics.

Your next film, The Science of Sleep, is about man held hostage in a dream.
Yes, the main character develops a technique to control his dreams. He's in love with a girl, and he tries to use the dream to be with her in a way. But even in the dream, it doesn't work. He gets so involved in his dream that he gets stuck between the dream and real life. And the people in the dream don't want him to wake up, because they're afraid he won't come back to the dream and they won't exist anymore.

Again, this sounds very personal.
It's very personal, and I wrote the screenplay.

[Bethie]

Gondry and his obsession with dreams. geesh. I don't know what I'm going to do with him.  



Thanks for those pictures of Julianne.   8)

[Ghostboy]

First image from The Science Of Sleep (courtesy AICN):

[Pubrick]

First image from The Science Of Sleep (courtesy AICN):

it's also the last image.

[polkablues]

That's so weird... my dreams all involve staring at Gael Garcia Bernal through peepholes.  And all along I thought that was unusual.

[modage]

Another Surreal Film Coming From 'Eternal Sunshine' Director Michel Gondry
Source: MTV


While Michel Gondry has created fantastical worlds onscreen — his arresting visual images have elevated him to auteur status in the realm of music videos (Björk, White Stripes) and independent films ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind") — the idiosyncratic filmmaker has also achieved the improbable in the real world.

What other film director can say he's compelled Jim Carrey to drop the buffoon routine and actually act; played drums on a Kanye West song ("Diamonds From Sierra Leone"); and displeased Radiohead so much — with his abstract clip for "Knives Out" — that they denied him permission to use the video in his "Directors Label" compilation DVD?

Predictably enough, Gondry's affinity for reality-bending is also evident in his third feature-length film, "The Science of Sleep."

The director, who is currently putting the finishing touches on the picture, said the story centers on a daydreamer who retreats into his visions and begins to confuse them with reality. "It's about dreams and rejections," Gondry said in his thick (and often impenetrable) French accent. "[The protagonist] has a very vivid dream life and his real life is more of a disappointment. He meets his neighbor, who he starts to fall in love with ..." he paused, as though feeling he was about to reveal too much. "Most of the film is in reality, but parts play out in his dreams."

Gondry's previous features, "Sunshine" and 2001's "Human Nature," both utilized the absurdist gifts of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, but "Sleep" was based on an idea from a friend and was written entirely by Gondry. "I participated in [the premise of 'Eternal Sunshine'], but writing is scary on your own," he said.

Due in March, "The Science of Sleep" stars Gael García Bernal ("The Motorcycle Diaries," "Y Tu Mamá También") as the over-imaginative dreamer and Charlotte Gainsbourg — daughter of late French pop star Serge Gainsbourg and British singer Jane Birkin — plays his love interest. Gondry has said in the past that the film is a loose interpretation of the "Everlong" video he shot for the Foo Fighters in 1997, where a man saves his girlfriend from hellions in a dream world. An English-language film with a mostly French cast, the story is set in Paris in an apartment building Gondry used to live in (the film also stars French actress Emma de Caunes, who, incidentally, appeared in the contentious "Knives Out" video).

Asked about the film's tenor, Gondry acknowledged it will have comedic elements but he said he's averse to labeling his films. "All my movies have elements of comedy, but it's hard to define," he said. "When we did 'Eternal Sunshine,' we weren't aiming for any particular [tone]; we were just trying to tell the story the best way possible. Obviously, when it goes to video, people have to decide whether it goes into the comedy or drama section, but other than that, you don't have an obligation to fit it into a category."

Music is always a vital element in Gondry's films (the "Sunshine" soundtrack features Beck, the Polyphonic Spree and a score by Fiona Apple producer Jon Brion), and the director has tapped his longtime pals in the White Stripes and California garage rockers the Willowz to lend the movie some pop. "We'll do a video for the [White Stripes 'Instinct Blues,' which appears in the film], it's such a great track," Gondry said, noting that he'd like to make as many videos with the Stripes as he has with Björk ("Instinct Blues" would make five; he's made six with Björk. See "White Stripes Teaming With Lego-Lovin' Michel Gondry Again"). Gondry also recently helmed Kanye West's clip for "Heard 'Em Say" (see "Kanye, Kids Run Amok In Surreal Macy's For New Clip").

Another music project, "Block Party" — his concert film of the 2004 event hosted by comedian Dave Chappelle that featured performances from the reunited Fugees, Kanye West, Common and the Roots — is also scheduled to hit theaters next year (see "Fugees — Yes, Even Lauryn — Reunite For Dave Chappelle's Block Party"). While the DVD is still many months off, Gondry says that eight hours of footage was shot, so the expanded disc is likely to contain a bounty of extras and bonus materials.

And although they're in very early stages, Gondry said he has two more film projects on tap, both of which are in his favored realm of quasi-science-fiction. The first, "Master of Space and Time," is a comedic time travel film with Jack Black attached as a quixotic scientist ("He gets up to no good," Gondry said) (see "Jack Black Goes After 'Space And Time' — And The President"). The other is a yet-untitled French-language film that also includes a time-travel premise, albeit one that's more autobiographical in nature.

"It's about my friend in my old band [Oui Oui] in the early '80s. It's set in 2005 and we meet our [1980s] selves in the present and interact," he said, laughing. "It's a completely stupid story!"

[tpfkabi]

this sounds very interesting, as does anything Gondry's involved in.


have Radiohead ever talked much about why they hate Knives Out so much?
i effing love that video. luckily i taped it off MTV when they used to play MTV2 stuff in 30 min. spans.
(and the actress is very cute if i remember correctly)

[ono]

The only thing I can think of is in the book Radiohead: Back to Save the Universe, it's mentioned:

Apart from anything else the song nearly managed to consume the band itself, taking no less than 373 days and 313 hours to complete.  As Thom, not surprisingly, told Mojo: "For the longest time, I really, really hated that song."

[modage]

yeah, what do they want?   its a crappy song.  plus, its not like the video could've come as a surprise to them.  they had to have approved the director & the concept, showed up at the shoot and had a pretty good idea of what it was going to be like.  its not like they can claim to have been completely obvlivious to what was going on. 

[Gold Trumpet]

yeah, what do they want?   its a crappy song.  plus, its not like the video could've come as a surprise to them.  they had to have approved the director & the concept, showed up at the shoot and had a pretty good idea of what it was going to be like.  its not like they can claim to have been completely obvlivious to what was going on. 

I think Thom is pissed Gondry duped him into smiling for the video.

[takitani]

Sundance synopsis:
 

THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP

France, 2005, 105 Minutes, color

Director:
Michel Gondry

Screenwriter:
Michel Gondry

Life seems to be looking up for shy and withdrawn Stephane when he returns to his childhood home with the promise of a great job. Wildly creative, his fanciful and sometimes disturbing dream life constantly threatens to usurp his waking world. While the job fails to meet expectations, he does strike up a relationship with his neighbor, Stephanie. As their connection blossoms, the confidence he exudes in his fanciful dream life begins bleeding into his real life. But just as everything is looking up, his insecurities raise their ugly head, and he faces a dilemma that the science of sleep may not help him solve. Michel Gondry's science fiction doesn't explore outer, but rather inner, space, playfully reflecting the interaction between the worlds we inhabit: nature, society, and the mind. The Science of Sleep utilizes rudimentary techniques to craft a thoroughly complex vision of the lead character's brain, filled with the anxieties, hopes, fears, and yearnings that lie in all of us. Gael Garcia Bernal perfectly radiates these emotions as Stephane, a man trying to take control of his dreams because his life is slipping away. Densely packed with imagery and symbols as well as soulful emotion and humor, The Science of Sleep weaves a dreamlike narrative ripe for examination and enjoyment and further establishes Gondry as a master of cinematic language.— Trevor Groth

http://festival.sundance.org

[modage]

a few behind the scenes pictures are up: http://www.twitchfilm.net/archives/004838.html

[takitani]

And the bidding begins!

The second – and perhaps last – bidding war at Sundance 2005 has begun over Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep.

(There will be other bidding situations, but skirmishes, not wars.)

It actually started before the film screened, as Paramount Classics' (or whatever it will be called) John Lesher started the conversation about embracing Gondry not only for this film and beyond. Fox Searchlight and Focus Features also initiated conversations before the movie was over.

The lobby of the Eccles had that "war room" feel following the movie, though everyone but Warner Indie's Mark Gill had exited, awaiting cell conversations leading to all night negotiations, before the Q&A had ended.

In one corner, Warner Indie... near by, 13 members of the Paramount team huddled... Bob Berney's Picturehouse crew huddled behind a chalkboard, out of the eyeline of the others, the new First Look team hung out talking numbers with owner Henry Eschelman, various Searchlighters, Focused folks and other assorted players played around the rest of the Eccles lobby.

How will it come out? Earlier in the day, word around town was that John Lesher was interested in the film in great part because he wanted to develop the relationship with Gondry, reflecting his former life as an agent. But the movie is more than a relationship. There is, in my opinion, between $7 million and $10 million to be made on domestic theatrical with the right marketing. But this is also one of the problems with anyone who makes a deal with Lesher here at Sundance. With no head of marketing currently in place and the coming head of publicity stuck in her current job for another four months, who going to sell the movie.

The buzz around is that ParClassics dropped out of the bidding on Little Miss Sunshine specifically because big Paramount marketing chief Gerry Rich didn't see a way to sell the movie to make the numbers necessary to make it work. And he really shouldn't have to. He is a big studio guy and films here at Sundance need indie minded marketing, as Paramount learned last year with Hustle & Flow, whose marketing was taken over by the big studio and which struggled to get to break even.

How serious is Searchlight? RiceUtleyGilula didn't stick around to watch the film, but left Josh Deighton to be their eyes.

Focus seems to be the most natural fit, with a successful history of dealing with foreign language product and a pipeline need.

The film will probably be priced out of range for Picturehouse and certainly First Look. And while Warner Indie made great hay changing March of the Penguins dramatically and getting well deserved awards for Paradise Now, it's not clear that they are ramped up for a wild ride movie from a director who is not going to adjust to them.

There will likely be an answer by morning. How far will the players go in bidding? Not as far as Little Miss Sunshine, but it is likely to be more than $4 million and it is likely to be the last film at this year's festival to fetch that kind of price.

http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/

Pretty cool for a film that features three languages.