The poetic mode of depiction: sense-value and Gideon Koppel's sleep furiously

The article explores Gideon Koppel's sleep furiously (Citation2008) in the context of depiction and documentary. Koppel's film is a particular instance of poetic documentary versed in the aesthetics of depiction. The first half of the article explores the relevance of depiction to ‘documentary’ forms, before examining certain components of the film – the means used to represent the Welsh community of Trefeurig – in counterpoint to the suggested depiction of the filmmaker's mother; zoning in on the intention of the artist qua documentarist. The article explores the aesthetics of particular scenes as indicative of this intention, looking at certain depictions considered as aspects of the poetic mode. In the second part, this discussion is developed around the film's use of an intertitle; a textual intervention; and the possibility that Koppel intervenes in this way to problematise the aesthetics of the documentary form. Finally, the philosophy of emotivism is used to evaluate the contention that sleep furiously, contesting the generic conventions on which its status as documentary rests, negotiates the boundaries between art and documentary. I propose, finally, that sense-value, as distinct from knowledge formation, is the celebrated concern of sleep furiously.