21 YEARS: RICHARD LINKLATER
US, 2014, 78 minutes, Colour.
Interviews with: alphabetical order, Joey Lauren Adams, Jack Black, Louis Black, Julie Delpy, Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass, Zac Efron, Ethan Hawke, Nikki Katt, Greg Kinnear, Matthew Mc Connaughey, Michael Mc Kean, Parker Posey, Steven Chester Prince, Anthony Rapp, Keanu Reeves, Jason Reitman, Marissa Ribisi, Kevin Smith, Billy Bob Thornton.
Directed by Michael Dunaway, Tara Wood.
This is an especially interesting documentary, focusing on writer-director, Richard Linklater.
The film fills in his background, coming from Texas, a loyal citizen from Austin, especially in his subsequent history of developing the Austin Film Club and its wide consequences. It shows aspects of his family, his education, his early work, his moving into films without doing film school training.
The selection of talking heads is particularly helpful. And many of them are given extended time to talk about their admiration for Richard Linklater but also for the qualities of his filmmaking, his rapport with his actors, and their comments on working with him in their performances. Matthew Mc Connaughey serves as a kind of anchor for the range of interviewees, good-naturedly talking about his performances – and his surprise at not being cast as Bernie. The star of Bernie, Jack Black, also has a lot of opportunity for comment, especially for his role in School of Rock.
The film goes back to Slackers, 1992, making a very good case for its creativity, its way of storytelling, introducing a variety of characters, looking at their stories and then moving on to further stories. The film then moves on to Dazed and Confused and its young cast and its representing the atmosphere of the early 1990s in Texas.
While these films get a good deal of attention, there is also a focus on the casting of the making of Bernie, and Keanu Reeves talking about the animation in A Scanner Darkly.
Ethan Hawke is also one of the major contributors, having worked with Richard Linklater in quite a number of films, especially the Before… trilogy. Julie Delpy also contributes her opinions on these films.
There are a lot of clips from the film’s under discussion and, surprisingly, Linklater’s venture into commercial filmmaking, The Bad News Bears, especially with interventions by Billy Bob Thornton.
This film was completed just as the 12 year project, Boyhood, was in its final stages of production. Linklater won many awards for boyhood and has continued his successful career.
