Natalie Johns Introduces Her Film "Max Richter's Sleep"

"Whether or not I realized it, I was also testing my own capacity for the sleeplessness required to capture the film."
Notebook

Natalie John's Max Richter's Sleep is playing exclusively on MUBI starting March 19, 2021 in many countries.

The irony of my own exhaustion as I embarked upon the making of this film is not lost on me. I was about to board a flight to Indonesia from Los Angeles when I got the call from executive producer, Julie Jakobek, asking if I wanted to write a treatment for this film. Of course I did, though I wasn’t quite sure how I’d do it with two projects in full swing and the Los Angeles Sleep dates a little over a month away. And so, on a 20-hour flight, already exhausted and sleep-deprived, with Richter’s Sleep in my ears, I began writing.

I’m no "night owl." I wake with the birds, full of life and hope. By the time I crawl into bed at night I’m a cynical creature. I find deadlines that require all-nighters to be pure pain. In Jakarta, I’d scout or shoot all day and then write, jetlagged, until the early hours of the morning, falling asleep in front of my computer. I enjoyed staying up, listening, and slipping into this waking-dream state—I drifted between thoughts of the film and my own life. It was in this liminal state that I first realized there was something much bigger going on with these compositions. I became enchanted.

I hadn’t yet learned about the deeper origins of the work or Yulia Mahr’s own creative reflections on the liminal experience she’d had years before while live-streaming Max’s concerts abroad. I only knew that these compositions had a mind-altering and "settling" effect on me and that I wanted to know everything I could about the work.

Whether or not I realized it, I was also testing my own capacity for the sleeplessness required to capture the film. In solidarity with Richter and the musicians who performed throughout the night, and in the hope of imprinting a lucid dream state onto the footage, I decided we’d only shoot the film between nightfall and dawn—making an already unconventional documentary project just a little more challenging.

Documenting life has taught me that there is always a deeper story that wants to reveal itself to you, you just need to listen for it. As an independent filmmaker, I’m used to people not understanding what I’m trying to do and telling me it can’t be done: until it’s done. Because of this I recognized Max and Yulia’s purist intentions behind a potentially non-commercially-viable project. In my experience, work like this is not born from a place of ease. If it’s real, it’s almost always born out of the complexity of lives lived full of big dreams, big ideas, hope,… love.

I don’t think I fully grasped the magnitude of Sleep and the impact it has on those who experience it until I was deep into the process of documenting it. The powerful elixir in this work is the experience of Richter’s compositions in a communal setting, which was conceived by Yulia. What happens when we begin to dream all together? When we are vulnerable, together? Even as a documentarian of real life, I’d never actually filmed anyone falling asleep in front of the lens before. So one of the biggest challenges of the film would be to make it without disrupting its sleeping audience, who are, in Mahr and Richter’s words, “an extension of the work.”

I worked with a team of incredibly talented and committed collaborators, and set them free to float, roam, film, and connect with those who were interested in sharing their experience. A palpable calm overcame each member of the team, evident in the fluidity and unobtrusiveness of the images we captured. The dream state seemed to have imprinted itself on the material. Lead editor, Dom Whitworth, the only other team member who had the rare opportunity to experience a Sleep concert prior to embarking on the project, kept us pushing the material as far as we could go into this otherworldly realm. We wanted to maintain the space of the experience and allow you to drift between the deepest corners of your own mind and the story. I’m most proud of the fact that we were able to achieve this and maintain cinematic engagement. The film does not feel separate from the work—it is another way to experience it.

Yulia Mahr shared footage from earlier Sleep performances she directed and at times filmed, and two decades of exquisite Super 8mm personal archive filmed by her, as well as cinema vérité footage of Max composing and performing. Yulia gave all of her footage with no limitations on what to use or how to use it. This gesture of trust and generosity from another filmmaker enabled me to show all of the sacrifices I know are required for such an ambitious project.

The beauty of this story is that it called me to look beyond what was right in front of me; to show the infinite possibility that is inherent in a great work of art. 

If you’ve collaborated with me, you’ll know—and hopefully love me—for my use of encouraging catchphrases. One of my old favorites, “if you don’t Sleep, you don’t dream,” never felt more true than now. I do hope we return to a world where communal experiences of art, like Sleep are once again possible.

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