FILM: HENRY MILLER – ASLEEP & AWAKE

Considered a ‘literary innovator’, author Henry Miller influenced everyone from Jack Kerouac to Henry Rollins. His books did much to free the discussion of sexual subjects in American writing from both legal and social restrictions.

I’ve always loved reading Henry Miller. I was very happy to have recently come across a short documentary about the man called, ‘Henry Miller – Asleep & Awake‘ (1975, Tom Schiller), which was made when Miller was 81 years old.

In this fantastic documentary which takes place almost entirely in Henry Miller’s bathroom, of which contains photographs and posters Miller curated on its walls, Miller discusses many interesting and extremely personal topics.

Kon Ichikawa’s controversial erotic  Japanese film, Kagi (which was based on a book by Junichirô Tanizaki) is discussed in great detail as Miller recalls having defended it when he voted for it to win the coveted Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1960, over Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’ Avventura. In turn Antonioni and Ichikawa were forced to share the prize due to a tie vote. Henry Miller also wanted Kagi to win the prestigious Palme d’Or (Golden Palm), but the film didn’t make the final round of voting so he ended up casting his final vote for Fellini’s magnificent La Dolce Vita, which helped garner that film the prestigious Palme d’Or (Golden Palm) that year.

Miller warmly remembers every picture and the tales associated them.

Towards the end of the film, Henry Miller walks out into a dirty New York street. He tells the director of his distaste for New York having been brought up here, and how it’s changed over the decades. He poetically and dramatically concludes the conversation: “I don’t know how I ever survived, or why i’m still sane… in fact, I don’t know now whether i’m really awake or dreaming. My whole past seems like one long dream, punctured with nightmares”.