Wide Awake (2006) User Reviews

Winsome confessional narrative, decent intro to the problem of chronic insomnia & terrific montage work

[roland-104 · 8/10 · 3 January 2007]

The filmmaker, Alan Berliner, has suffered from lifelong insomnia. He gets only two to four hours sleep most nights, and as a result he feels fatigued and irritable nearly all the time. On the other hand, this night owl does his most creative work while everyone else is asleep. So his insomnia pattern is highly reinforced by his proved nocturnal productivity. In any event, this film demonstrates his problem and calls upon the collective expertise of five well regarded sleep scientists to enlighten him and the viewer about the general problem of insomnia.

The film serves another purpose as well: to present the story of Berliner's life, his autobiography, or at least parts of it. He covers everyone from his grandparents to his new infant son. We get to visit with his mother and his sister and see his baby pictures, as well as stills taken in 1984 when he was just getting rolling in film-making. Berliner also shows off his very impressive collections of film clips, photos, sound effects, newspaper clippings, and found objects (a drawer full of wristwatch parts, for example). What we have here is an impassioned, driven, obsessive fellow, overworked by his own decree. Imaginative, fast paced visual sequences in this film demonstrate that Berliner is, among other talents, a first rate film editor, an astonishing master of montage.

I invited two internationally known sleep researchers – Robert Sack and Alfred Lewy - who happen to be good buddies and faculty colleagues of mine, to attend this screening with me. We spoke together over a beer after the film, which both of them thoroughly enjoyed. Dr. Sack, who created the sleep medicine program at my medical school, OHSU, is in fact eager to acquire a DVD copy of the film for use as an instructional aid.

Drs. Lewy and Sack both felt that the film was really more about Alan Berliner than about sleep disorders. For example, the doctors call attention to the fact that specific treatment options are alluded to in only hazy terms. The use of melatonin and bright light as treatments for delayed sleep phase syndrome (DSPS), which is what Berliner suffers from, are not spelled out in any useful detail (e.g., melatonin dose and optimal timing; type, timing and duration of exposure of bright light).

All three of us (Lewy, Sack and I) also have our doubts about Mr. Berliner's level of motivation for treatment, given the upside of his disorder, i.e., his record of nocturnal productivity. Anyone in such circumstances could hardly be faulted for having trepidations about correcting DSPS. Also, any behavioral pattern marked by such chronicity – 30 to 40 years perhaps in the case of Berliner's insomnia – is difficult to change by any means.

Curiously, Dr. Sack notes, few "night owls" - or, for that matter, "morning larks" (those with the opposite disorder, Advanced Sleep Phase Syndrome, people who wake up very early and go to sleep early as well) - seek treatment. Most somehow adapt themselves to their disorder, tailoring their lives accordingly, as Berliner has so obviously done. Clinically, Drs. Sack and Lewy tell me, there is an overlap between mood disorders and sleep phase disorders (though we saw or heard no evidence that depression is a problem for Berliner).

All-in-all I would say that this film (a) is highly entertaining, and (b) works fairly well on both the level of confessional narrative and as an introductory overview of the problem of deeply entrenched insomnia. The film was produced by HBO and will be shown on the HBO channel in May, 2007. My grades: 8/10 (B+) (Seen on 12/30/06)

Good doc about insomnia

[AGale10495 · 8/10 · 26 June 2007]

I had a bout w/ insomnia quite a few years ago, and this movie really does hit the nail on the head. Turned out worrying and stress were the cause, and I learned to relax and finally fall asleep. But this movie definitely brought back memories.

I can only hope Alan finally found some methods that helped him get some sleep. I've found that exercise, drinking warm milk or herbal tea before bed and not working right before bedtime really helps (try relaxing before bed by reading fiction or watching TV). I would also recommend he stop taking sleeping pills, though I'm sure the doctors have done that or at least managed his prescription better.

Brilliant!

[petholm · 10/10 · 18 November 2006]

This documentary is a a stroke of genius! The way Alan Berliner illustrates his points by using everything from commercials, file footage, old movies, scenes from some of his other documentaries an interviews is great. And he obviously takes great care in choosing just the right shot, whether it lasts 10 frames or 10 seconds.

There is never a dull moment and every shot and cut adds a layer to the story which keeps the story progressing. His use of sound sets the pace and creates different moods during the documentary and his sense of humor is always present. It's in his choice of shots, sounds, the very skillful editing and his persona throughout the documentary.

Now I am just waiting for the DVD :-)

Here's why you didn't like this film.

[pmsfo · 10/10 · 3 November 2009]

1. You have been raised to feel that self-introspection is nothing short of vanity and it is wrong. The fact that Alan Berliner has made a film that is about HIS sleep problems (not the field of sleep problems in general) are evidence (to you) of his self-indulgence and narcissism. (those who commented that they would have like to learn more about sleep problems in general - go take a course).

2. You are an anti-Semite. Interesting how so many of the critical comments here drop clever little Yiddish-isms ("kvetching," "shlub," etc.). Alan Berliner is a New York Jew - deal with it. If you don't like his accent or his hairy back don't watch the film.

(Full Disclosure: I didn't sleep well last night for some reason and I am irritable. Well actually I know why I didn't sleep well -- I was up late watching "Wide Awake." HA!)

Fun, personal and enlightening

[runamokprods · 8 July 2013]

Another of Alan Berliner's quirky, funny, but thoughtful and enlightening documentaries. This one chronicles his attempts to find an answer for his insomnia, and examines whether his tendency to be a night owl is a problem that keeps him out of sync with the world and his family, or a harmless quirk of personality that helps him be creative. The film manages to convey a good deal of scientific information about sleep and sleep rhythms, but Berliner's wry, very personal telling keeps it from ever feeling dry or purely informational. As someone who is a night owl myself, I found this fascinating, sometimes a bit sad, and always entertaining.

I know some here have complained that Berliner is too whiny, but to me, much like Woody Allen, that's just part of his openly neurotic and funny personality. I don't feel (in this or in his other films) that we're meant to take his whining all that seriously. His willingness to be slightly annoying and screwed up on camera is also part of what makes him (for me) funny and human.

One to take a nap through

[Chris_Docker · 2/10 · 31 July 2006]

Insomnia affects nearly all of us from time to time. With one person, it is a condition so persistent and serious that he warned his wife about it before married he got married. Wide Awake is about Alan Berliner, made by him, and starring him in all his insomniacal glory.

Collages of images and archive film clips are intercut with interviews of the filmmaker, alone or in discussion with various people, including psychologists. It ends up as a very personal perspective, rather than a documentary on sleeplessness. We see glued-together pop-art sequences of his filing boxes, piling up and unpiling, or a baby at different points in its aimless rearranging of press cuttings on a bare floor. Still and moving images are vaguely connected to the theme of time. The neurotic tempo of the film has a soundtrack to match (with many ticking clocks), and a quality that recalls the feeling one might have when repeatedly woken up, say by chitchat or an irritating noise. Berliner, presumably, lives permanently in a state of mind akin to this.

At one stage, the cadence changes. Berliner, who religiously avoids caffeine, takes part in an experiment on himself by drinking a cup of coffee. He becomes a very hyper individual, as if having drunk coffee to excess or ingested amphetamine.

Apart from this transient surge, things maintain a normality of collages; the birth of his son (presumably to symbolise sleepless nights - as well offering a backdrop of the artist's 'life'); his baby's first yawn; and so on. My favourite scene is where he delivers a lecture to some students in the form of a movie, and films them with an infra-red camera to demonstrate that some of them fall asleep (I suspect the humour was unintentional.) Berliner makes some argument about this not being due to their boredom - although I was unconvinced.

In more capable hands, the film would be firmly in the 'art for art's sake' category, and one can think of films like the Cremaster series that hold our fascination with their quirky visual imagery. Unfortunately, Berliner seriously overestimates his ability. His building-block sequences with inanimate objects look barely worthy of an amateur with no more than a passion for what they do. His monologues about his condition are delivered with a Woody Allen-esquire confidence, as if they were either witty or profound or both (and in the hands of someone like Woody Allen perhaps they would have been - at least if they were short); but Berliner is neither witty nor profound. The self-obsession he finds so enthralling is simply irritating, his delivery rarely varies from a monotone drawl, and he lacks any shred of what might be called charisma. "Really, it's becoming ad nauseam," says his wife, and I agree. (I'm sure she was referring to something else, but it seems very apropos.) "My biological clock needs to go to the repair shop," Berliner announces, which would tempt me to many a caustic remark, such as, "Set your watch two hours fast so you miss this film," or, "Put your mobile on silent so it doesn't disturb your nap during the movie," but I feel it would be unfair to accord Wide Awake the honour of even thinking about further.

This very self-absorbed mish-mash of a movie lacks any structured approach or psychological insights into the phenomena it claims to address, and the interviews with his wife and mother suggest that, if you gave them a camera, they would at least be wide awake enough to make a better film than this one. Berliner treats us to several minutes of him declaring, "There'll be plenty of time to sleep after I die." Apparently he wants to get it 'just right' so he says it, "in a devilish kind of way." Watching him is like a waking hell - only less enthralling.

Sleep through this, and you give yourself an extra 80 minutes well spent that you nearly wasted if you bought a ticket in the first place.

A Movie To Sleep By

[groggo · 2/10 · 14 January 2008]

See Alan Berliner talk to the camera, over and over again. See him talk about sleeplessness, see him visit specialists, see him toss and turn in bed, see him talk to shrinks, see him annoy his mother and sister who are fed up with his relentless obsession over insomnia.

Then listen to the film-length parade of clichés, the sweeping, breathtaking banality of blaring truisms and hackneyed phrases, much of them delivered by sleep 'experts': 'sleep is vital'; 'babies are better with sleep'; 'the amount of sleep you need is probably genetically pre-determined'; 'the more rest and relaxation we get, the greater our mental efficiency'; 'each person's biological clock is different'; 'yawning is associated with drowsiness'; 'if people haven't had enough sleep they'll sit there and be bored'. This kind of profundity is hard to handle all at once.

If a documentary can be described as something that explores a subject and leaves us moved by it, affected by it, educated or instructed by it, or disturbed by it, then this film is NOT a documentary. I'm not sure what it is, but it looks suspiciously like an embarrassing exercise in self-indulgence.

Alan Berliner is so wrapped up in himself that he films his new-born son Eli and waits breathlessly, not in excitement at the miracle of his birth, but for the moment when L'il Eli will yawn for the first time. He holds a camera on him and the yawn comes after five minutes of life. Berliner, the relentless crusader, is encouraged that his son may not be cursed as he was, a sleep-deprived schlub who hears someone tell him (on film, in 1989) that 'as long as I've known you, you've always been tired.' Even 20 years ago, this guy was recording himself for posterity, hoping, perhaps, to one day say something unusual or interesting.

There's something wonderfully ironic about this flick. I found myself wanting to go to sleep at approximately the half-way mark.

Annoying

[hhfarm-1 · 2/10 · 20 September 2007]

Alan Berliner presents this as a documentary about sleep deprivation/ insomnia. Some of it is about that but the rest is just another of Berliner's efforts to talk about his himself and his family. It's like most of his other work: trite, self-indulgent, unfocused, clever, boring.

If you're interested in Berliner, here's a chance to meet his wife, sister, mom, baby, & some friends. They talk about Alan; Alan talks about Alan; his mom complains that it's not her fault that he can't sleep; his wife bitches at him about several things; Alan talks with several doctors.

It's mostly just a bad home movie with many many sleep-related clips from old movies. It should be about 15 minutes long, even with some clips. Instead it's feature-length.

What's interesting about Alan isn't really explored ie. His amazing organizational skills and his collections "This drawer has spheres; this drawer has triangles, ..." Do your best to avoid it, unless you want to see Alan and his family.

This film isn't about insomnia; it's about WHINING

[edshepp · 1/10 · 15 June 2007]

This movie is worthless. If I'm going to spend time watching a documentary about insomnia, I expect to get some insight from it, to learn something. I definitely did not get that from this film. Instead I got a filmmaker who finds his "insomnia" much more fascinating than it is, and who constantly makes whiny and banal commentary about it. And I got lots of chatter from a bunch of supposed experts telling me things I already knew--things like, "when you miss sleep, you become irritable" and "there's no drug that will allow you to sleep a few hours a night and function optimally." In other news, the Dutch have taken Holland.

I would have liked to have seen the film go deeper into sleep problems, the effects of sleep, biological clocks, that type of thing. I would like to have seen much less of the filmmaker talking about himself as if he's some bizarre, unique specimen and occasionally spouting the most ludicrous psychobabble. I found it disappointing that, as the movie ground on, I kept thinking things like, "what about light therapy?" and "isn't he just a night owl?" and then seeing those things touched on briefly (very briefly) later. A good documentary would have held my attention and brought up these issues for me.

One glaring thing that the filmmaker doesn't address deeply enough is one of the first things you think of when insomnia comes up: caffeine. There's a scene where he talks about how he doesn't drink coffee(!), that he hasn't had a cup in 20 years or so. Because it makes him "jittery" and he "wouldn't sleep for days" if he had it. (Isn't caffeine only in your system for ~6 hours or so?) But the crew convinces him to have a cup. I considered that a bit odd--if you're uber-sensitive to caffeine, shouldn't you start with, say, a bar of chocolate instead of a cup of coffee? Anyway, so he has his cup of coffee, and, miraculously, he perks up. He gets a sparkle in his eye and is more animated. Now, you'd think he would start talking about how his heart's pounding and he's shaking and sweating like crazy, but no. He's just more awake. Of course, this scene isn't followed up, so we're left to wonder whether the coffee affected his sleep. (And I was left with the view of the filmmaker as a whiny hypochondriac who would rather bore people with his "insights" about insomnia than do something so simple as drink some coffee. Or get a prescription for modafinil, which, strikingly, goes unmentioned in a documentary about sleep!)

A horse's ass

[onepotato2 · 1/10 · 10 September 2007]

In Nobody's Business Alan Berliner jr interviewed his own father who was charming and had a full personality. He was also a cantankerous man who was almost immediately tired of his sons questions in the movie. In Wide Awake, it's easy to see why. Alan Berliner jr is no Alan Berliner sr. Time spent getting to know Sr was pleasant, damned funny and a little bittersweet, time spent with Jr is just unbelievably annoying.

This movies ostensible focus is Alan's sleeplessness in the face of his new son (but not really, because he's been a night owl his whole life). This would be fine if Alan had any real intention of solving the problem. Instead we get defensive pointless scenes that build to nothing. Alan thinks he's being charming when his family complains about his selfish obsessiveness, and he cuts to himself with a self-impressed smirk on his face.

What is most grating is Alan's disinterest in changing despite his needy, self-involved kvetching. So what was the real idea behind this movie? The professed idea is a lie. Alan is probably just so selfish he wanted to be the topic of a movie done in the style of Nobody's Business. It doesn't work.

This is a man who obsessed about having a son to the point he divorced his first wife to find one who would continue the lineage. Here Alan insists he loves his son more than anything. So put your actions where your mouth is Bozo, and get up when he cries, jackass! In nearly every sleeping sequence we have to endure the sight of Alan's unpleasant hairy body. Hey guy, sleep with a shirt on for the sake of humanity.

The world is a lesser place now that Alan Sr. is gone. Alan jr benefits from none of his fathers qualities, and so you can't hang an enjoyable movie on him. You can however hang an unfocused, repetitive, poorly recorded and conceived piece of self-regard.

My apologies to the rest of the Berliner family who seem like lovely people, but your son/brother is an ass.

Rather annoying documentary

[unicus · 3/10 · 13 August 2009]

Personally I found this documentary to be quite annoying. I find the topic of insomnia very interesting; I'm sure most people have encountered periods in their life with lack of sleep without a known cause.

However, I was disappointed with how this documentary turned out.

The constant use of images, footage and sounds to prove a point might very well illustrate and underline the fact that Berliner is an obsessive and manic man, but it creates a staggered flow to it all, and often steals the attention from the point of the whole thing.

In the end I consider this documentary a testimony to Berliner's obsessive behavior. The way he categorizes everything, the way he uses archived footage in this documentary, the way he behaves after drinking his cup of coffee after 30 years (Placebo gone wild?), the way he treats his infant son, the way he focuses on his sleep, etcetera, etcetera.

In what way did the "expert" doctors help this documentary? If anything, I found them to disturb the storyline of this movie. Often because their expert opinions is drowned in Berliner's own thoughts.

Now I might come off as a hater. I've never seen Berliner's other works, and I have no reason to dislike him in any way.

The fact remains that this documentary did not in any way impress me other than peoples patience and support for this guy.

That empty showing room of students falling asleep might just prove my point.

Thought it Might Cure my Insomnia for a Moment

[pmpmn9 · 3/10 · 30 May 2019]

I've had insomnia for years. I thought there might be some answers or help in this movie, but no, it's just some egocentric guy whining about his own issues with sleep...or lack thereof. And I actually fell asleep about 15-20 minutes in. But at around 57 minutes, I was abruptly jolted awake by the sound of yelling. Alan, his wife, sister, and mother were sitting around a table yelling at each other and they wouldn't stop. I was so annoyed at how irritating they sounded, that I decided to turn it off. I have no intention of watching it (or trying to) again.

This movie SUCKED ASS

[brownplayboy310 · 15 February 2009]

This moron is so damned annoying that he complains about not getting enough sleep, then says he won't drink coffee because it makes him hyper. Oh poor guy! EVERYBODY has problems sleeping, if you work a lot and have a high stress life then you just force yourself to deal with it! The whole movie he whines about being tired all the time! The whole movie is stating the obvious. To show how sleep deprived people are he films college students who are forced to watch a boring movie with the lights off, and says "some of these people actually fell asleep" as if he's surprised! What a moron, PLEASE don't waste your time watching this pretentious Jewish fool babble on and on.

a day-mare on arthouse street

[lee_eisenberg · 5/10 · 13 January 2024]

I first learned of Alan Berliner many years ago when I saw a short film about his father. I was recently making a list of movie to see ranked by director, and I remembered Berliner, so i included him. I decided to watch his 2006 documentary "Wide Awake". The documentary is basically eighty minutes of Berliner talking about his insomnia, using assorted clips from movies and TV shows to make the point.

I guess that if the goal was to draw attention to the issue of insomnia, then it worked. Otherwise, it was too weird to follow. Maybe Berliner was being deliberately ironic: he might've been trying to put the audience to sleep!

In the end, if you're into arthouse stuff, then this might appeal to you. Otherwise it'll have you yawning.