Insomnia in films

 Memento is the story of a man who's wife has been murdered and his journey for revenge. The only problem is that he has a severe memory problem, meaning to remember his investigation he must take pictures and tattoo facts onto his body. No exactly about insomnia, it does however illustrate the way it effects your memory. The film is very disorientating, in my images I may choose to add this feeling to immerse the viewer, but then I'm not sure yet if I want to create strange images or document what I stumble upon.

 

Fight club follows an insomniac on his downward spiral into madness. It's very illustrative of the condition and how it feels to be in the state. Quotes like 'when you have insomnia you're never really awake and you're never really asleep' and 'nothing's real. Everything's far away. Everything's a copy of a copy of a copy' are vivid of the feeling. The whole film is filled of surreal happenings and objects, but its never realised if this is all in his imagination or real, this is alike with 'dreaming while awake'. After so long being awake you start to seem things that replay themselves from movies or pictures in front of you, things out of the corner of your eye make you jump a mile, and the most usual object can look completely different. I will also consider the unkind lighting throughout alot of the film, its always very stark. Maybe if I were to use a flash it would add this effect, also colour gels and filters could you be used?

The Machinist follows the story of a factory worker that hasn't slept in a year. Eventually he begins to question his sanity when strange things start to happen. The overlying question of the whole film is, is it all in his head or not? As in Fight Club the imagery is very stark and empty, it shows the dark side of insomnia; how the smallest things can frighten you and things appear completely different. Maybe I could research more dark photography and directors like David Lynch to incorporate more of a terror quality into the photographs?