WAKING LIFE

US, 2001, 101 minutes, Colour.
Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Richard Linklater.
Directed by Richard Linklater.

Over many decades Richard Linklater has written and directed a great variety of films, beginning with Dazed and Confused and the slacker culture, moving into more reflective films especially like Waking Life. He has used an animation style, the visuals of the characters resembling the actors who voice the characters – which can be recognised especially with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy and memories of the Before Sunrise and Before Sunset films.

While the film has a brief running time, it is packed with characters and incidents – but, more importantly, a combination of visuals and philosophical talk. It is too much to take in at one sitting, probably better viewed in small pieces, the way that it has been written and filmed.

There is a great deal of existential reflection. There is a great deal of reflection about the universe, creation and sustaining creation. The young man at the centre of the film, a 21st-century Everyman, seems to be dreaming but is also awake in his dreams, asking questions of everybody that he meets, hearing a myriad of replies, exploring the realities of existence and American living.

The characters in conversations can be very academic, they can also be quite realistic. Ultimately, there are also questions of art, religion and the interrelationships, especially about the religious dimension of films.

Richard Linklater was to continue with a wide range of films – but, especially, his project filmed over 12 years with the development of a boy to his adolescence, Boyhood.

1. The impact of the film? Animation? Voices? Philosophical ideas?

2. The title, life, life experience? The young man asleep, his dreams – his waking life?

3. The animation, characters, action, colour and style, the flow? The voice cast? The range of the musical score?

4. The prologue, the little boy and girl, numbers and puzzles?

5. On the train, the central character, a young Everyman, his dreams, the music and the practice of the school, his arrival, the lift from the man with the boat, on the street, the note, then hit by the car, in the house, breakfast? His going on his walk and meeting so many characters? The levitation view over the city and its recurrence?

6. The range of characters: the man driving the boat, crayons and colouring beyond the box, departures and arrivals? Being somewhere? The course of life?

7. The lecturer, existentialism in the 21st century, themes of hope and despair? Quotations from Jean-Paul? Sartre, years of creation, forces and fragments, implications of the soul equalling reality and action? Never write ourselves off? We are made of our own decisions?

8. The girl, the talk, language, transcending isolation, issues of frustration, anger, love, the brain and memories? Words as mere symbols? Connecting as a spiritual communion?

9. The discussion of evolution, of everything, biology, anthropology, culture? Over the years and the telescoping of evolutionary time? 21st century and seeing it in small telescope development? Digital, analogue, neuro-biology? Neo-human? New consciousness leading to purchase of truth, loyalty?

10. The man on the street, walking, filling his car, themes of chaos and dread, the role of the media, highlighting tragedies, wanting us to accept peoples? People as passive observers? Voting? For puppets on the right, on the left? Setting himself alight?

11. The couple in bed, memories of an old lady, waking life? Timothy Leary, the brain living on for 12 minutes? The role of dreams? Existing and other minds? Issues of reincarnation, a world with newer souls, population increase? Reincarnation as a political expression of collective memory? The leaps of science and art? And crosswords – and the answer is available, by telepathy?

12. The prison, coloured red, themes of torture and pain, the coarse language?

13. The discussion of free will, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas? God and foreknowledge? Laws and systems? The percentage of water – the image of the individual in water? Omniscience and freedom? The history anecdote? We are our free choices? The brain and the transition of decisions to muscles? Electrical laws? The initial Big Bang – and everything else according to the laws of physics? Probabilism versus determinism?

14. The driver, the microphone, going red, denouncing dehumanisation, systems of control, human conditioning? The 21st century not a century of slavery?

15. The old professor, saying yes to all of existence?

16. The black man, liminal experience, norms, the cosmos and paradoxes?

17. The two women, getting older, 30s and becoming more human, endless curiosity? The photo, the stories composed to give us identity? Human cells changing every seven years and yet we retain identity?

18. The monkey showing the film, noise and silence, human doubt, negating the old, creating the new? Art – and to begin again?

19. Talk of suffering, the man in the bar, lack of life too much like the suffering? The gap between geniuses and ordinary people, greater than that between chimpanzees and ordinary people? How to achieve potential? The fear of laziness?

20. The man writing the novel, no story, only people and moments? Whether the writer was in the story or not?

21. The bar, the last stop before Las Vegas? The noise, the tires, the ban on packing the tires? The shirtless man with the knife? The man at the cash register, the gun, firing, the value of carrying the gun – resulting in the mutual shooting?

22. The phone and the dream, the young man and television surfing, the range of programs, shamans? The lucid dream state, discovering the relationship to the universe and to selves?

23. The church, dreams, mind and body, the two states of consciousness, perceptual images, neurons and sleep, working perception and action?

24. Asleep in life, life is a waiting room? The man with the guitar, singing? Combining the infinite possibility of dreams with waking life? Dreams are free – life for a minimum wage?

25. The recovery of lucid dreams, controlling the dreams, the words of the Guru? Recognising the dream, sleepwalking and wake walking through dreams? Testing by hitting the light switch? On or off, 360 vision in a dream?

26. The Holy Moment? The theatre, the screen? The discussion about film? The literature, the value of story? Recounting the story, film is specific, the imagination is free? Andre Bazin, the Christian God and the reality of God? The film and God manifesting, God incarnate in film? Film a record of the changing face of God? The role of Hollywood? François Truffaut? The best scripts do not mean the best films? The look, the eyes and silence, the two heads forming clouds?

27. The four walkers, the young men, discussing society, destruction, ideology? Contrasting the is with the could be? The black man on the light pole? Action and no theory? Or the opposite, no action and/or theory?

28. The theme of suicide, drink and the devil?

29. The train carriages, dreaming that we are dead? The probing of the planets, artist excitement?

30. The two teens, the industry landscapes? Human or not?

31. The lamplight, the redhead, jostling, auto-pilot for survival? The young woman, wanting life, vivid life, the life of an ant? The confrontation between souls, according to D.H. Lawrence? Life is soap opera, living action, seeing what we want to see, asking what it is like to be a character in a dream? Dealing with a lot of people with ideas? The quality of the environment and experience? So much information imparted? Passive receiving?

32. The train, music, the bridge, the man with the curly hair? All co-authors? Alienation is exciting, participation in life more than in 100 novels – Thomas Mann? Jeanette Giacometti and his accident? The nature of self awareness?

33. The night office lights, the dream in the parking lot, we dream it as an image, a mental model? The girl at the payphone, not remembering the young man? The discussion about Billy Wilder, and Louis Malle, his dream film, losing 2 ½ million dollars?

34. Life continuing in a post portal state?

35. The supermarket, recognising the man with the boat , his not recognising? Suggestion of a parallel universe? Returning from the valley of death – and the microwaving of the burritos?

36. The older woman, life reaching, magical moments, connecting is all that matters?

37. The garden, the painter, the old lady, the arch and defence, the artist at his portrait?

38. Last words, sweep me up, the city of the night, the streets, piano, dancing?

39. The pinball alley, again the question about the man with the boat car? The discussion about false awakenings? Continued waking into yet another dream?

40. Thinking we are dead, the man at the pinball, his story about Philip K Dick, the woman and her boyfriend, the police all having the same names as in the book? Philip Dick listening to them? Dick, the issue of money, going to the gas station?

41. The discussion about the priest, Philip Dick’s story as in the book of Acts of the apostles, 50 A.D.? The allusion to time, all happening in 50 A.D.? Gnosticism, the Demon, illusion, waiting for the second coming? The dream, psychic, levitating? The discussion about Lady Gregory, the explanation of her life, her talk about the universe – and not 50 A.D.? It is now: eternity?

42. Time is the invitation to eternity? We say “not yet”, 50 A.D., not now in 2001? Life is from no to yes? The journey to embrace? Dog, dead, whose, smelly…?

43. Life is not a dream but a visitation? Being trapped in the dream? “Just wake up”?

44. The day, the city, the walk, the house, the car, shaking, levitating – into the sky and disappearing? Into heaven?