Shot in a hotel room in 2004, Sam Taylor-Johnson’s single-take film of David Beckham sleeping is an intimate and deceptively tender portrait of the then Real Madrid midfielder. Currently on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London, David runs at 107 minutes and was at least part-inspired by Andy Warhol’s own five-hour loop of John Giorno in slumber (Sleep, 1964). In bold contrast to the design and execution of these works is a clip called The Awakening: in 2019, Twitch user JesseDstreams accidentally fell asleep while live streaming from his living room. Waking up, he found over 200 people were paying to watch him doze, a substantial increase from the handful he usually gamed with on the service.
