Richard Linklater on his movie career and a connection to each movie he directs. He reveals how he relates to Billy Bob Thornton's character Morris Buttermaker as well as Dewey Finn played by Jack Black in School of Rock.
Plenty of directors manage to resist putting a great big stylistic thumbprint on every film they make, so you know it's them, but few of them are as talented as Linklater. It's hard to spot any themes running through his work, just great stories, performances, writing and direction.
Nice to hear someone who is very talented also acknowledge the breaks they got simply as a result of accidental timing of when they happened to be doing something.
Don't you love this guy? I love this guy and his entire oeuvre (and him as a great, humble persona). Thank you, Richard, for putting something internationally respectable on the table of American Independent film, alongside Cassavetes, Orson Welles, et al. but from "Gen X", in the last 30 yrs. Great interview.
Luke Carroll Thats probbaly the main point. I'm sure there are many people who watch easily in the hundreds. There have been days where I watch 5 movies in a row.
coby edwin He's not THAT successful, but he has definitely created at least two cinematic masterpieces (Waking Life, Dazed & Confused) and many excellent ones, and he's definitely a millionaire (12 million net worth). The main four French New Wave directors, Truffaut, Godard, Rohmer, Chabrol, when they were critics for Cahiers du Cinema in the 1950s, claimed that they couldn't even remember the last time they hadn't all watched at least 3 movies a day. They were totally obsessed with the cinematic art form. Regardless of what day it was, they would get their 3 films in just as surely as they would get their 6 to 8 hours of sleep. They lived and breathed film and it should come as no surprise that all four have created many cinematic masterpieces themselves.
the whole point of his story is that he is not "simply TALENTED". It's more about hustle, practicing and studying than anything else. I know that your comment meant good, but let's not always use the word "talented" because it's way more than that.
Not since Francis Ford Coppola has a director made a movie that is arguably close to being considered a "perfect" movie, but Linklater has and it's called Boyhood. The ONLY criticism I've heard about that film is either minor, superficial, or stupid (often times all three in one).
I don't think the themes are hard to spot at all. They are all about living- I think a key to his works (without me being an expert or anything) could be the myth of sisyphus
