Richard Linklater: An OverviewEssay Preview: Richard Linklater: An OverviewReport this essayIn 1989, a book by Rick Schmidt entitled How to Make a Feature Film at Used Car Prices was published. This book was a how-to on making an independent film at a maximum of $10,000, and had become a “bible” of filmmakers in the early/mid 90s such as Spike Lee, Quentin Tarantino, and eventually Richard Linklater.
Linklater originally had plans to become a doctor, studying gynecology at Sam Huston State University, but left college and worked on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. During his time working there, he picked up on a love for literature and film, partially due to visits to a repertory theater in Houston. After his work on the oil rig he bought a Super-8 camera, a projector, and some editing equipment and moved to Austin, Texas. Here he founded the Austin Film Society at the University of Texas.
Linklater created many short films that were the mostly just experiments in filming techniques and testing. In 1989 he finished his first full-length feature, Its Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books, which took about one year to film and another to edit. He filmed the entire film on a Super-8 camera, acted and produced the entire film on his own, and edited it in a public access TV station. The movie had little plot or narrative, as it follows a main character (played by Linklater) travelling about the country, meeting with various people and performing mundane, boring, everyday activities. The film lacked a wide audience and was rarely seen until its release with the Criterion Edition of Slacker.
His release of Slacker in 1991 followed a similar style of Its Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books, but with more dialogue and a hell of a lot more actors. It was Linklaters first major release, costing $23,000 to produce and film. It eventually developed a cult following, bringing in a gross of over $1,000,000. Slacker show us a glimpse of Linklaters developing style, which would change little over the course of 10 years worth of films. Like his first film, it carried little plot, and little narrative. It bounced between the lives of bohemians in Austin, like a flea jumping from one creature to another. But unlike Linklaters first, Slacker showed us much more meaning and thought; peering into the lives and minds of unusual individuals such as a character who steps off a bus and preaches his philosophy to an uninterested cab driver, a JFK conspiracy theorist, a television set collector who actually has a unit duct-taped to his back, or a woman trying to sell a Madonna pap-smear. Although the premise of the film seems boring, but the people we see in the film are surprisingly interesting, but Linklater doesnt want us getting too involved or attached to the characters like in other films. He merely wants us to observe and look into these individuals lives, and realize the similarities, differences, and philosophies in their lifestyles.
A later work, 10 years after Slacker, is another film that shares a similar theme, but adds a small narrative, and milks the philosophy right in the viewers face. This film is Waking Life. The film follows a boy who finds himself in a dream, and he cannot wake up. Throughout the dream, he confronts and hears the teachings of various characters concerning the mysteries of life, such as the concept of free will, and gods plan for us, or what happens after death. Waking Life was Linklaters first film to experiment with the use of a type of animation called rotoscoping. This was a technique where the entire film was shot live-action with a MiniDV camera, and then a team of artists would “trace” over each frame of the film. Every scene was carried a different feel to the animation, trying to capture how we perceive dreams; that we can recall mainly what happened and what we did during the dream, but certain details remain a blur, or they are constantly changing.
Soon following Waking life was Tape. This was a sudden change in Linklaters cinematography style, since it “turns the table” on setting and plot. While previous works like Slacker and Waking life, contain little plot, and wide setting, Tape gives us a big plot, with little setting. This may be because it was based off a theater performance. The entire film was shot on 2 handheld digital cameras, and is about a character named Vince (Ethan Hawke), who has an old high school friend, named Jon (Robert Sean Leonard), come to visit and catch-up on each others lives since they graduated 13 years ago. As they chat and converse, Vince starts to pry into Jon, implying that maybe he raped a girl Amy (Uma Thurman), which ended their relationship back in senior year. Jon objects to this, and says it was merely rough sex and to leave it at that. The tension carries on, and a feud breakout that slowly reveals the characters true selves. The entire film is presented in real time, with no soundtrack, making the film present itself in the stage-esque that the story was originally presented in. But as I mentioned Tape takes place in one setting and one setting only; a hotel room. Since it happens in real-time, we see a very naturalistic feel to the film, making us even more connected to the characters than in traditional film, since we watch this film as if it were an actual documentation of a night at this hotel room. They actually have conversations that dont contribute to the story, but come back to the bigger picture eventually, just like people would in the real-world.
In 2006 came a more well-known work of Linklater, A Scanner Darkly. This was based on a Phillip K. Dick novel by the same name. It follows the lives of a few druggy guys in the not-so-distant future, who are constantly taking a drug known as Substance-D. One of these characters known as Bob (Keanu Reeves), is recruited into a secret police force that not even the co-workers of know each others identity. But soon after Bob joins up with the force, he finds that hes assigned to watch a household of suspects, via secretly hidden cameras. But it turns out that this is Bobs home. Bob is faced with the confusion and moral decisions that may blow his cover, and may betray his friends. But as he continues with his drugged-out life, he starts to wonder whether the cameras or the scanner see more of him, than he actually is willing to see; the him within himself. A
Locations: The Village of Vittoria, a small home in the shadow of the Lillium-encrusted lighthouse.
Directed By: Philip K. Dick
Starring: John Goodman, Michael PeƱa, George Miller, Jim L. Brooks, Chris O’Donnell, and Jason DeMarco
Director: Robert De Niro
Release Date: Sept. 31, 1985 (A&E)
A&E was a big one. The movie brought in a lot of attention, especially in its time period. For many moviegoers, the big movie seemed like a big deal, but with a change of heart. The first movie to take place in a United States state, this was the first time that we really got this major cast to get together to do something new, and at the same time this was the first time that we really saw a new kind of character that we hadn’t seen before.
The film was also one of the largest movies of the year for the age group, when it was released. This year, however, a number of studio executives have turned down big studios that had to come up with huge budget cuts. The new film has the movie studio deal, but for all they promised, the first couple months before shooting was still quite laborious. But as the movie got bigger, producer Robert De Niro realized that something was wrong and decided to make this movie. It takes place during the third week of the fifth year of World War II.
Here too, there’s the idea of rebranding as WWII. The film opens with some of the soldiers who have fought there and the men who have been there in the past. The main character is John Goodman, who is working on his new wife, but that was just John’s idea. The character also ends up being a young girl, who becomes the leader of a new antihero group known as the G.I. Joe’s. But while the movie takes place in the early 1950s, it’s quite a bit younger.
The biggest change is that it’s very much in the military, even though it is the war years, at least from an American perspective. The G.I. Joe’s fight is a part of the Vietnam War. This makes sense. This is the Vietnam War in the United States, and it takes place in a very different style than what we’re used to seeing in other films.
The movie ends up being about Vietnam and the United States, while retaining the focus on action. Many people can relate to the fact that this war is at the center of American history, and that the country that fought it also has some of the greatest history in the world, and that many of us remember it better than the world that fought it.
Directed by Robert De Niro: Robert K. Dick, Phil K. Dick and Michael PeƱa (Lillium), Richard H. Williams (Cinemabass), Joe Shanks (Scorpion Films), and Robert J. Hines (American Psycho).
Rating: 7.9
Review-
Rating: A 8.8/10
Cast: Robert Niro, Joe Shanks, Michael PeƱa, John Goodman
Locations: The Village of Vittoria, a small home in the shadow of the Lillium-encrusted lighthouse.
Directed By: Philip K. Dick
Starring: John Goodman, Michael PeƱa, George Miller, Jim L. Brooks, Chris O’Donnell, and Jason DeMarco
Director: Robert De Niro
Release Date: Sept. 31, 1985 (A&E)
A&E was a big one. The movie brought in a lot of attention, especially in its time period. For many moviegoers, the big movie seemed like a big deal, but with a change of heart. The first movie to take place in a United States state, this was the first time that we really got this major cast to get together to do something new, and at the same time this was the first time that we really saw a new kind of character that we hadn’t seen before.
The film was also one of the largest movies of the year for the age group, when it was released. This year, however, a number of studio executives have turned down big studios that had to come up with huge budget cuts. The new film has the movie studio deal, but for all they promised, the first couple months before shooting was still quite laborious. But as the movie got bigger, producer Robert De Niro realized that something was wrong and decided to make this movie. It takes place during the third week of the fifth year of World War II.
Here too, there’s the idea of rebranding as WWII. The film opens with some of the soldiers who have fought there and the men who have been there in the past. The main character is John Goodman, who is working on his new wife, but that was just John’s idea. The character also ends up being a young girl, who becomes the leader of a new antihero group known as the G.I. Joe’s. But while the movie takes place in the early 1950s, it’s quite a bit younger.
The biggest change is that it’s very much in the military, even though it is the war years, at least from an American perspective. The G.I. Joe’s fight is a part of the Vietnam War. This makes sense. This is the Vietnam War in the United States, and it takes place in a very different style than what we’re used to seeing in other films.
The movie ends up being about Vietnam and the United States, while retaining the focus on action. Many people can relate to the fact that this war is at the center of American history, and that the country that fought it also has some of the greatest history in the world, and that many of us remember it better than the world that fought it.
Directed by Robert De Niro: Robert K. Dick, Phil K. Dick and Michael PeƱa (Lillium), Richard H. Williams (Cinemabass), Joe Shanks (Scorpion Films), and Robert J. Hines (American Psycho).
Rating: 7.9
Review-
Rating: A 8.8/10
Cast: Robert Niro, Joe Shanks, Michael PeƱa, John Goodman
Locations: The Village of Vittoria, a small home in the shadow of the Lillium-encrusted lighthouse.
Directed By: Philip K. Dick
Starring: John Goodman, Michael PeƱa, George Miller, Jim L. Brooks, Chris O’Donnell, and Jason DeMarco
Director: Robert De Niro
Release Date: Sept. 31, 1985 (A&E)
A&E was a big one. The movie brought in a lot of attention, especially in its time period. For many moviegoers, the big movie seemed like a big deal, but with a change of heart. The first movie to take place in a United States state, this was the first time that we really got this major cast to get together to do something new, and at the same time this was the first time that we really saw a new kind of character that we hadn’t seen before.
The film was also one of the largest movies of the year for the age group, when it was released. This year, however, a number of studio executives have turned down big studios that had to come up with huge budget cuts. The new film has the movie studio deal, but for all they promised, the first couple months before shooting was still quite laborious. But as the movie got bigger, producer Robert De Niro realized that something was wrong and decided to make this movie. It takes place during the third week of the fifth year of World War II.
Here too, there’s the idea of rebranding as WWII. The film opens with some of the soldiers who have fought there and the men who have been there in the past. The main character is John Goodman, who is working on his new wife, but that was just John’s idea. The character also ends up being a young girl, who becomes the leader of a new antihero group known as the G.I. Joe’s. But while the movie takes place in the early 1950s, it’s quite a bit younger.
The biggest change is that it’s very much in the military, even though it is the war years, at least from an American perspective. The G.I. Joe’s fight is a part of the Vietnam War. This makes sense. This is the Vietnam War in the United States, and it takes place in a very different style than what we’re used to seeing in other films.
The movie ends up being about Vietnam and the United States, while retaining the focus on action. Many people can relate to the fact that this war is at the center of American history, and that the country that fought it also has some of the greatest history in the world, and that many of us remember it better than the world that fought it.
Directed by Robert De Niro: Robert K. Dick, Phil K. Dick and Michael PeƱa (Lillium), Richard H. Williams (Cinemabass), Joe Shanks (Scorpion Films), and Robert J. Hines (American Psycho).
Rating: 7.9
Review-
Rating: A 8.8/10
Cast: Robert Niro, Joe Shanks, Michael PeƱa, John Goodman