Woody Allen's film Sleeper is a humorous social commentary framed as a slapstick comedy. Set to music reminiscent of a nickelodeon, Sleeper alternates slapstick chase sequences similar to those of the Keystone Kops with conversations in which Allen's character, Miles Monroe, answers questions about the past by providing hilarious commentary that deliberately gets the facts wrong. He describes Bela Lugosi, for example, as the former mayor of New York and Charles de Gaulle as "a very famous French chef" who demonstrated how to make soufflés and omelets on his own TV show (Allen).
The device of having Miles wake up 200 years in the future with no one left from his era except himself gives Allen the opportunity to comment on 20th-century American society in a tongue-in-cheek manner that adds a great dimension of comedy to the film. One of scientists proposes the theory that citizens were forced to watch TV back in Miles's day if they were found guilty of a crime against the state, and Miles replies, "Yes, that's exactly what that was" (Allen). Then there were sight gags that were not explained but that were funny simply because the viewer knows current cultural stereotypes. An example of this is when Miles starts up the Volkswagen that has been left idle for 200 years and it starts up immediately, reflecting the popular opinion that Volkswagens are very well built.
Running through the film in the midst of the gags, slapstick, and action parts of the movie are serious discussions about life, death, and the politics of society. Even religion makes its way into what is otherwise a fairly silly movie in many other respects. Diane Keaton's character, Luna, asks Miles if he believes in God, and he gives her a flip answer-"I'm what you call a teleological existential atheist; I believe that there's an intelligence to the universe...with the exception of certain parts of New Jersey" (Alle
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