STACK NZ Mar #60

18 / 58

Acclaimed from the second it rolled into theatres, BOYHOOD has just been
decorated with six Academy Award nominations. Zoë Radas spoke to director
Richard Linklater about how he put this beautiful, ingenious film together.
R ichard Linklater has the kind of
patience and measured stride we don’t
normally associate with wildly creative
types. Through features such as Slacker (1991),
Dazed and Confused (1993), and Waking Life
(2001), the director has proven his agile
penchant for linking together small subtle
moments, which focus far more on the
philosophical and understated nature of life than
deliberately moving a story forward. In his
Before trilogy (Before Sunrise from 1995,
Before Sunset from 2004, and Before Midnight
from 2013), we learned that he is perfectly
happy to revisit characters years after their
initial meeting – literal years. For his latest,
wondrous epic Boyhood, the filmmaker worked
over the
course of 12 years.
That timeframe means, of course, Linklater
produced several other projects in between
filming – but continuity of tone was never
something which worried him. “I really thought
my job was to tell one story; that film I saw
in my head was one movie and it didn’t really
change,” he explains. “The only thing that
changed in it was the people – they got older.
But I really saw a sameness, I was going for
nothing that would draw attention to itself. I
wanted it to feel like you’re just floating through
life. We go through life and the world around
us changes suddenly, or the look of the world
changes a little bit, not that much, and we
change within it. The other nine or so films that
I did in this 12-year period, there was plenty of
room to express myself in those other stories,
but this was one film that I tried to adhere to
very closely.”
The regular annual meet-ups with actors
Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette and lead
Ellar Coltrane were something the director
describes as “incremental”, and is quick to
point out the distance between Boyhood and
the documentary series which several critics
have compared it to, 7UP. “I love that series,
I think it’s a huge cinematic achievement. But
it’s funny how the people in it are so bloody
self-conscious about themselves... it defines
their lives in a really uncomfortable way for the
majority of them.”
That component makes the series much
more like a previous project of Linklater’s, the
visit
MARCH 2015 JB Hi-Fi
18
FEATURE DVD &BD