The Big Picture - ‘Dazed and Confused’: Making a Modern Movie Classic, With Richard Linklater

Episode Date: November 6, 2020

We want to go back to a more nostalgic, maybe even more hopeful, period in history. So Sean is joined by Richard Linklater and journalist Melissa Maerz to talk about Maerz’s new book, ‘Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused,’ which comes out on November 17 (47:00). To warm up for that chat, Amanda and Sean share their top five Richard Linklater movies (1:07). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Richard Linklater and Melissa Maerz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about dazed and confused. Because that's how we're feeling this week, knocked out by a stressful and tumultuous period in American political history. So with that in mind, we wanted to go back to a more nostalgic, arguably more hopeful period in history. I was fortunate to be briefly distracted from the world's events with a conversation with the great filmmaker Richard Linklater and the author and journalist Melissa Mayers to talk about Melissa's new book, which is called All Right, All Right, All Right, The Oral History of Richard Linklater's

Dazed and Confused. It comes out on November 17thth and you can pre-order it now. It has my highest possible recommendation for a movie book. To warm up for that chat, Amanda and I will be sharing our top five favorite Richard Linklater movies all coming up on The Big Picture. Amanda, we're here. We're here in the year 2020. We're evaluating the state of the world. And by doing so, we're looking deeply into the past, into our hearts, which I think is where a lot of Richard Linklater's films lie. When I say Linklater, what do you think? What do you feel?

I feel like I'm in Texas. I feel a sense of 90s-ness that was very formative for me. I think a little bit because of when I came to it and kind of where Richard Linklater kind of exists on the 90s continuum. And I also think of like calm and confidence. And it's a, for me, it's great to be in this space after the space that we were in on our previous episode this week. There is a, just a chillness in the best possible way that has absolutely nothing to do with my life or my outlook on life or, you know, really anything I interact with on a day-to-day basis, but that is very much a part of the

Richard Linklater universe. And it's soothing right now. It is a different space. I agree. Returning to his movies has been a true bomb in a complicated moment. And I think you're right that there is a kind of a calm, a chill in his movies, but it is not a contentedness. There is still something very searching, I think, in a lot of his calm, a chill in his movies, but it is not a contentedness. There is still something very searching, I think, in a lot of his work. It's just being done in a more deliberate and a more thoughtful way. And he really has an unusual grasp of pace as a director. Not many filmmakers can take their time the way that a lot of his movies do. And obviously, time is like the signature function, the signature tool that he uses. He's

always going into the past. He's always reevaluating what happened in the past and what that means for the future. He has an unusual, I think obsession is probably a fair word to use. Would you agree? Yeah, absolutely. It's the central theme of almost every single film or project that he's done. Yeah. So he's, I mean, this is a, he's 60 years old now, Richard Linklater, which is incredible. And when I saw him on a Zoom yesterday, I couldn't believe just how boyish and enthusiastic he continues to be.

He's a handsome man. You know, honestly, Linklater is a good looking guy. And the thing that I'm reminded of is it's 30 years now since Slacker, which is his first feature length film and obviously one of the most important american independent movies ever made and that movie was extremely innovative in the way that he made it in the way that he funded it in the way that he gathered friends and colleagues around austin to create this kind of tapestry of thought of film that is very non-linear

that is very non-plot but is a sort of a collection of feelings and ideas shared by people that you might see in your day-to-day life. And that's something that he's done in almost every movie. You know, we're going to talk about all of his movies, but he is so fearless in terms of breaking the traditional structures of movies. Yeah, it's a thesis statement in a lot of ways. It's about form and it's about chattiness and just a bunch of people moving around in space in different ways than you normally see on film and speaking in a very specific signature way that is definitely different than anything I had ever seen in the 90s. How would you describe that style of talking that so many of his characters use? So hyper-verbal, hyper-intellectual.

And again, I come back to that idea of confidence. These are people who, you're right, they're not always content, and they maybe wish they had done things differently or want to do things differently, but they always seem very assured of their place and their outlook. And another thing I'm thinking a lot about, they really want to be talking to someone else. These are extroverts, all of these characters. There is an ensemble quality to a lot of Linklater's films, and it is people trying to be with other people, people reaching out, people really wanting to talk and really wanting to have that conversation. And again, another thing that's completely alien to me as an introvert, but there is just that sense of if we keep talking and we keep sharing that, you know, maybe we'll get to a place together.

Yeah, I think if not contentedness, I think connectedness is something that his characters are all looking for, right? They're people that are desperate to be heard, desperate to be understood, desperate to connect with each other. And that manifests in so many fun ways. I think he's really good on love, but he's also really good on friendship. He's really good on work, but he's also really good on play. You can kind of drop him into any environment. And he has done so many just different kinds of movies. Yes. And we'll talk a lot about them. And there's also, you know, we both did top fives. Our top fives are similar, but not the same. And there are a number of films that are just not on either of our lists. And he does try different

genres. He does try different topics. I guess in we'll speak for ourselves. They don't always land for us in the same way, but he's a curious filmmaker and, you know, has obviously just been pushing what he's interested in and the way he wants to tell that story, um, his whole career. Yeah. I, I think it's interesting that he has similarly been fearless in different genre types. So like, for example, you know, the Newton Boys is not going to appear on any of our lists. I'm not sure when the last time

I saw the Newton Boys was. That's sort of a crime movie, sort of a comedy that came out in the late 90s that felt very emblematic of a lot of late 90s movies. It had a lot of handsome, mustachioed indie actors,

you know, McConaughey, of course, but Ethan Hawke, Skeet Ulrich, those types. And, you know, those movies are, I think, were interesting examples of him trying to do something in the mainstream, but in his own style. And there are a lot of different versions of that. You know, I think School of Rock is an example of that that is much more successful, you know, whereas maybe Fast Food Nation is a kind of like issues oriented drama that didn't

land as as well as some of his other movies. But it's just a testament to his willingness to try new stuff to try new tones to to put his his fairy dust on all different kinds of movies which i love i mean we we talk about soderbergh i think it's a very similar fashion on this show somebody who is wants to kind of stretch the boundaries of genre and movie type to create something new to really play with the format and see what you can do inside of 90 minutes to two hours. So, you know, our lists, I think, are pretty similar to one another's. And I think that's reasonable

because he has somewhere between three and five absolute pantheon movies that are just some of the best movies of the last 30 years and will live on for a long time. Dazed and Confused, obviously, is one of them, which is why we're devoting so much time to this film and why Melissa wrote a 400-page book about it, which is just amazing. But I echo your recommendation. It's amazing. As a book about movies and also people reflecting on their experiences, there is a candidness in this book that echoes Linklater

movies themselves and the like kind of mini plots and dramas between the individuals, just chef's kiss, tremendous stuff. I totally agree. I think, like I said, if you're looking to kill some time this fall, it's a hugely enjoyable and fun and rabbit-holy. And I think that's a great point that it is kind of reflective of the Linklater character conversational experience. You know, people who are plumbing the depths of their heart and of their soul to try to be understood. And there's so many people that,

you know, we don't think about it. We gamify movies on this show. We're always talking about the constructs of the industry and where do things stand in the hierarchy. And you lose sight sometimes of the fact that human beings make these movies. And for some of these human beings, this will be the most important thing that they do in their whole lives. That's something that's so cool about unless this book is hearing from people like that. And also just hearing Linklater talk about the experiences that he has. I mean, he's putting so

much of himself into all of these movies. I actually, when I watch his movies now, I feel like I am less of a human being than he is in a lot of ways. I mean, he manages to like recontextualize, reinvent, reframe the events of his life so carefully and so interestingly, you know, whether it's about being a child, being a high school student, being perhaps a man on a train in Europe, encountering a young woman. I mean, all of these different life experiences, they're so clearly ripped from the pages of his life. And yet, he's been making movies for the last 30 plus years. So, like, where did the living happen? You know, he's one of the few filmmakers who I feel like actually has a life.

Most filmmakers are only committed to their films. Yeah, he strikes me, and I really hesitate to use this word because I think it so often is misused or used in a pretentious way, but he is a true artist. And that's one of the interesting things in the book to hear him talk about the way that he puts the films together and the delineation, or quite frankly, the lack of delineation between the movies that he's making and the life that he is living. And it is all just like one large project. There is, and especially the way that he has been able to like build a structure around his movie making and mostly outside of the

Hollywood system to be able to pursue that. There's a really lovely kind of dichotomy between Linklater in the book and Ben Affleck in the book. And Ben Affleck speaks with real respect and admiration for Linklater and for his Days and Confused experience. And Ben Affleck is also just like a smooth talking Hollywood guy. And the way that he reflects on on, on the process of making days and confuse and the way he kind of talks about the industry and the, and the place in it, it is, I, I don't want to be on generous Ben Affleck because I'm the world's number one Ben

Affleck fan. Uh, but it is not calculated, but purposeful. And he is aware of the larger Hollywood game and the historical game that he's playing. And you really feel it like Linklater is just like, here's how I made this movie. And this is, here's my life. And here is how I understand all of these pieces in this like particular self-contained universe. And I guess that's another thing that is just so specific to all of his films is they really do feel, they have universal emotions, but they are very specific worlds. Yeah, I think that you put your finger on something important, which is both in his movies and in the way that he talks about his movies. He doesn't act like someone with something to

protect. I think that there is a sense that maybe not total transparency, but a willingness to be open to show the human condition. I mean, it's hard to talk about his movies without being very direct and kind of emotional. He's very into sentiment. And I think there's a difference between that and sentimentality. You know, sometimes his movies can be sentimental,

but more specifically, he's interested in how people are feeling and what life means to them and how they're interacting with the people around them. That seems like a silly thing to praise, but most movies don't do that. There's a vulnerability to these movies that honestly makes me uncomfortable a lot of the time.

And so I think Linklater is one of the most important directors and one of the most accomplished directors, and I have so much respect and admiration. And even in rewatching sometimes these movies that I think are masterpieces, I like hiding behind a blanket like when is this going to be over because and that that's that's everything to do with me and my vulnerability and intimacy issues and nothing to do with him as a filmmaker but yeah there is a lack of artifice which actually you know is I, unfair because it really undermines

the level of craft and art required to pull off these movies that seem fairly naturalistic. But he's going for the unvarnished, no bullshit, vulnerable moment. And I'm squirming a little talking about it. Yeah, I think he knows how to build a complex and purposeful form around something that is otherwise very emotionally and intellectually direct and that's that's just a good idea that's just a really good idea for filmmaking you know you and I may struggle with our ability to break past our emotions and see you twitching like crazy right now but I think the idea that you can make a movie like Waking Life and build this whole contraption around the animation technique that they use, the rotoscoping technique they use for that movie.

But then the things that are discussed in that movie are blatantly philosophical and doubtlessly intellectual. And to the point that it may alienate some viewers, but I think that balance between structure and sentiment is truly unique to him. So, okay, one of the best guys out. Very happy to talk about him. Top fives, you ready? Yeah.

You want to go first, number five? Sure, it's also your number three. And frankly, I just put this at number five for the purposes of an interesting list. And it could be higher with me. Like, kind of the ranking of these five movies, you know, I actually feel very Linklater-y about them. Just like, whatever. They're fine. They're like all together.

But my number five is Everybody Wants Them. I'm a Leo. Uh-oh. Yeah like, whatever. They're fine. They're like all together. But my number five is Everybody Wants Them. I'm a Leo. Uh-oh. Yeah, I know I'm a little full of myself. But I'm very loyal. Mm-hmm. Confident.

Right. The chart says I'm overly confident, but the truth is I wouldn't easily. Which is like maybe his most honest movie and

for me the most pleasurable of the movies I just like enjoy watching this because it's just about a bunch of like charming athletes and dudes who just like want to hang out and they just like want to be together and they take joy from that and they like talk a lot and make some jokes and, you know, play some games. And, but it's just like, you know,

it is the Paul Rudd, Hey, look at us meet him like in a, in a movie. And that, that does, you know, that theme is through a lot of his movies of definitely being interested in men and male chemistry and male ensembles and charm. And it just seems simpler. I guess this is a little bit later in his career. And so I think he has less angst about just being like, hey, wasn't it great when we could all hang out? And I'll tell you, yes, it was. So I shared a scene from this movie maybe my favorite scene in which Wyatt Russell

plays Pink Floyd for the guys and they talk about Van Halen I don't know man I kind of like Van Halen well yeah Plum you do and you know why you do?

because corporate America is shoving something down your throat and making you believe it because that's what they want you to believe I mean guys it's about finding out who you are in the space in between the notes that they're offering you.

There was a YouTube commenter, I sent this over to Chris Ryan yesterday, that just said, just some bros chilling, that's what life is all about. Muscle emoji emoji sunglasses emoji and on the one hand that might oversimplify i think what he's trying to accomplish in this movie on the other hand just some people chilling is hard to capture that's not easy to make that seem not completely trite and ridiculous i think you know he's just got an incredible way with atmosphere and with like you said, relationships between,

between people and especially between people who are learning to become friends. I think that's another thing that I love that he's so, so elegantly captures in his movies. Everybody wants them. You know, it's so funny that the way that this movie was received was so similar to days then confused where for the people who

saw it when it came out and and and received it on its own terms they were like wow masterpiece you know he just he nailed it but not very many people saw it it was kind of bungled by the studio that released it and then it has had this slow build up in the consciousness of people and obviously the movie is if not a direct sequel to days they confused obviously a very clear there's a clear through line of link laners transition from you know the floyd-esque figure in days of confused into you know a couple of the figures but i think more specifically is blake jenner is that his name the lead guy who kind of comes to college and then joins the baseball team and has this experience at college and is kind of caught between these two worlds of, you know, athletics

and this kind of fraternal nature of those guys. And then also falling in love. And then also the kind of punk rock strand of friends that he develops in the film. That's all out on Linklater's life. And this movie was made 20 plus years after Days of Confused. And basically the same thing is happening. I feel the cult of Everybody Wants Some growing over time. It's so interesting that we never really catch up with these artists. The same is true of painters. The same is true of novelists. They

exist on these very similar arcs. Why do you think that is that we didn't do a good enough job getting the world to know about Everybody Wants Some? There's a great chapter in Melissa's book that is about kind of this slow reception to Dazed and Confused. And it just talks about how Dazed and Confused. And my husband wandered in and just sat down and didn't leave, which is unusual. Normally, he's not a part of these viewing experiences. But he was reflecting on it. He was like, I just watched it so many times in high school. And I think there's a hang element to it. There is a you want to spend time with these people element that typically we associate with TV and that is kind of

structurally difficult in a theater, especially if you don't know about it because the studio bungles the release. But now everybody's at home and needs people to hang out with. It makes sense that there's like a word of mouth. Let me just turn this on and chill for a while. And I don't mean that in a reductive sense. I think that is like the highest compliment that you can. I mean, we have a whole podcast dedicated to it. Just rewatching, wanting to spend time with these people. Yeah, it strikes me as the kind of movie. I don't know where it's streaming right now.

Let me see if I can find that out pretty quickly. I don't think it's on TNT. TNT. Okay. I wonder if this is, this strikes me as kind of like the you of, of movies. You remember that Netflix series you with Penn Badgley, um, where it was Penn Badgley, right? Am I getting that right? Yeah. Okay. So like that show obviously was a lifetime series. It made its way to Netflix. And then everybody was like, this is my new favorite Netflix show. Um, I wonder if you just dropped everybody wants them on a Netflix today,

if it wouldn't become a top 10 hit, because it is exactly what you're describing. That's what we're looking for right now is a good hang. So great pick. That's your number five and my number three. My number five is a little movie called Boyhood. You know what I'm realizing? My life is just going to go like that. This series of milestones, getting married, having kids, getting divorced.

The time that we thought you were dyslexic when I taught you how to ride a bike, getting divorced again, getting my master's degree, finally getting the job I wanted, sending Samantha off to college, sending you off to college. You know what's next, huh? It's my fucking funeral.

Which I think has gone through the typical Academy awards life cycle where when the movie came out it was a massive deal um and because it was 10 years in the making through the life of this boy played by ailer coltrane there was a lot of anticipation about the release and there was a lot of storytelling about the making of the movie right so there was this whole industrial complex kind of the opposite really of the everybody wants some story where we were really in the midst of understanding how they went about making this movie and the movie was really sold on that approach and then people saw the movie some people loved it some people didn't obviously went through the entire award cycle

did not win that the year that it came out but um was very well thought of and then i think it started to kind of slip in people's estimations and then you start hearing like this was pretty gimmicky was it really that good is the lead actor good enough to carry a movie like this you know patricia arquette of course won an oscar for her performance in the movie and it features one of my favorite ethan hawk performances as a uh as a searching father i would say um searching fathers are also a theme of richard linklater's films but in revisiting it this week, I don't know.

I was just, I was crying, Amanda. I was like, this is such an amazing, this is an amazing and honest and sincere approach at like telling a story of what life can be like for a kid. And it's obviously a boy and not a girl. And so there is some inherent bias

in that experience. And I think there are probably more boys that are likely to connect to the story than there are girls, but it's by no means macho or certainly not misogynistic in any way. It's just very particular to a white kid growing up in Texas. And what happens when that kid, his parents experienced divorce, when he falls in love, when he starts experimenting with drugs and alcohol, when he starts to learn about the world around him being much bigger than the very tiny constellation that he has surrounded himself with. I just think it's like an incredible accomplishment. Now, I don't know if that makes it a truly great film, but he did something special, you know, and I think that that's the most I can really ask for from a movie at this point yeah so i would say that boyhood is not on my list um just because for me like the form in

the experiment kind of trumps like the the function just a little bit and i think you put your finger on something when you know you identified it's right there in the title it is a boy and re-watching uh these films i was reflecting on I just have a limited amount of curiosity about teenage boys I just said like at some point it like it runs out and that again is my own limitation and not the filmmakers but I just it's I think I'm a little afraid of them I don't know it's a we could explore that another time but the other thing in terms of this being a feat of filmmaking, which it obviously is, and in terms of imagination and accomplishment, I think that there is another set of work in Linklater's filmography that achieves a lot of the same things in an equally

interesting way to me and is just kind of more emotionally on my wavelength. So that's maybe a good segue to number four. And also frankly, the rest of my list, because I have all, I have the before trilogy. I have all three of them on my list. I think this is like, these are extraordinary movies. And they do a lot of the same things. They are famously made every nine years. And they follow a couple played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy at various phases of their relationship. And it is mostly just them talking and exploring their relationship and exploring what happens to love over time, quite literally. And I, so ordering them is very tricky and I'm supposed to present my number four here. And I have gone with before midday.

I could give it to you. Yeah, I want to hear. Okay, well, let's start at number one, okay? Number one, you're fucking nuts. All right? You are. Good luck finding somebody else to put up with your shit for more than like six months, okay? But I accept the whole package, the crazy and the brilliant, right?

And I have rewatched all of these movies in the past 24 hours, which was just a wild, emotional ride for Amanda Dobbins personally. And again, it's sometimes really uncomfortable because they are extremely, I find them to be like emotionally naked in a way that I try, frankly, never to be. But before midnight, I think is extraordinary. And we've talked a lot about that fight scene in particular. And I think that fight scene is really harrowing and like, and gets at something very true about how couples fight and the emotions and the reactions and kind of the wild swing. And, you know, you're fine one second and then someone else says something and you're just, you're off again. And it, it, and it gets, uh,

pretty ugly. I, I do also before midnight, you're just, you're aware of the strings a little more. You're aware of the writing a bit more. At least I am. And it's because they are so articulate. And I think that I know that in those real fights and in that real life, you don't maybe always get the clarity that they are getting. You would hope so. But, like, no one ever filmed me in one of those. And so I think it's

extraordinary it's at number four just because it's a little i don't know i because it to me feels more like a play than a movie at times just in the sense that i'm aware of like the two characters as characters as opposed to to people um but that is that's just because we have to rank them i think it's extraordinary let's let's do the whole before conversation in full here because um i have my i have before sunset at number two i don't have any of the other before movies on my list that's not really um reflective of how i feel about the other before movies. I think in, in, in an effort to do some list making, I think I just wanted to be able to talk about a couple of more movies, but I kind of

feel the same way that you do, which is that these movies are major, major, major American achievements. They're like some of the best portrayals of people falling in and out of love and in and out of love, um, that have really ever been made. And so like I'm with you. I think my order is just different than your order. I would take sunset over sunrise. And I think you have sunrise over sunset. I do because I just I mean, it's so pure. You had you had big Steve Kornacki energy, by the way.

You were holding a pen and you were talking about how before midnight was at number four and I could see you calculating like why you put things in certain orders. How is Steve? Has he slept? I love him. I don't know. I just, I, you know, it's like a human rights violation at some point. Steve, we send you our best. Our buddies on the press box, I think did a great job of talking about the Steve Kornacki ass cam, which we've had for the last 48 hours of our life the poor guy please never train a camera on my backside if I can stand it but yeah anyhow I think

that you know before sunrise is pure and before sunset feels real and like before sunrise is a is not a fairy tale but it's like a soft lens view of two people falling into something and sunset the older I get it's like a soft lens view of two people falling into something. And Sunset, the older I get, it's very real. It's chillingly real. You know what? Reality and love are almost

contradictory for me. It's funny. Every single of my exes, then they're married. Men go out with me, we break up, and then they get married. And later they call me to thank me for teaching them what love is and that I taught them to care and respect women. I think I'm one of those guys. You know, I want to kill them. But without sacrificing the romance, the romantic nature of Before Sunrise. Before Midnight is a horror movie. I mean, that's like one of the scariest things I've ever seen.

Yeah. Yes. I was thinking about this a little bit as I was re-watching last night, because I know that you're a before sunset guy and Zach also watched before sunrise with me and we're both before sunrise people. Uh, and I, what I like about before sunrise is first of all, I can stand on its own. Uh, and it is just like a really magical two hour achievement of what it's like when you do fall in love with someone and how like goofy and embarrassing and overly verbal you you can be and you're trying so hard and is it going to work out and is it not in that like sense of hope uh and and and that's a really magical moment on its own i kind of feel like the long tail romance of before sunset is is your vibe just a little bit

because of how your own personal love life has gone. And I think that's lovely. And I think that's really great. And hopefully, you know, speaks well of your future, your future prospects are not prospects, but I guess the continuation of your marriage, I hope not prospects. Whereas like my marriage, we're just stuck on like, that wasn't the first romance. Great. I don't know when the other shoe is going to drop on that one.

So good for you. You graduated to phase two and we hope you stay there. I hope so too. I think the thing I like about sunset, and I thought about this a little bit when we were doing the movie draft and thinking about midnight, is there is continuity that is more subtle than it may seem. I didn't rewatch before sunset in full. I did rewatch before sunrise, just like you did. And I hadn't seen before sunrise in a long time. And I

liked it quite a bit. I think there's I have a little bit of a struggle with it because I identify with the Hawk character like a little too much. Like I think that like desperate need to seem smart and to seem, you know, emotionally transparent, but also protect myself. Like that's a very clear personality type. And I really get what Linklater was going for and what Hawk is going for with that character. In two, he's way more like broken. You know, he's way more at a crossroads in his life and realizes that there are things that he did.

And he's still kind of searching, you know, that the pain that he has about her not meeting him. And then that conversation they have in the car in sunset is just unbelievable and so emotionally just vexing you know it's a really rips your guts out and you know he turns away and she reaches for his hair and then he turns away quickly and she pulls her hand back i mean there's just a couple of very small moments but more specifically like in sunrise he about his parents' marriage and why they broke up and how long they stayed together for the kids. And then there is this reflection in the same way. And before sunset, you know, you can see that they're, and this is all true of our own lives. You know, you see these echoes in the

decisions that your parents make and the decisions that your siblings make and the decisions that the people around you make and the way that they influence you and the way that you communicate about them and i think you know it's notable i think also specifically that hawk and julie delpy and richard linklater write these movies together um in the second and third variations the first one is just written by um uh linklater and his writing partner kim krizan i think her name is um and because of that you get a little bit of like where Ethan Hawke's at in his life and maybe some reflections on his then marriage to Uma Thurman and that's interesting and Julie Delpy's reflections on who she is as a woman at that time and

it gives that movie such an extraordinary texture that um I think that's why it resonates the most for me yeah I I was gonna say I I don't think it's an accident that to me, the Jesse and Celine characters are like on the most even footing in sunrise. And, and, and, and so I am kind of like invested a bit more in that. And I think you're right. That sunset is a very profound exploration of like what's going on with the Ethan Hawke character. And, and, and it works out. And I, and I think Julie Delpy is just like extraordinary. Like I'm the number one Julia Delpy stan.

And I also want to say that I think the last scene in Sunset when she sings and then the baby you're going to miss up. I mean, that is the best scene in all three to me. And here's one question I have. Like how are they teaching French women to sing that they all sound like this? Do you know what I mean? Like, what are the songs that they're teaching in nursery school and how can I learn them and learn how to sing like that? Because I mean, obviously they're singing in a lower register. Obviously also it helps that they're French and like beautiful and in a romantic movie at the climactic scene. But I just, I would like to know that there's anything that I can do to like learn that skill at this point in my life?

I think it's a little too late, Amanda. I'm sorry. I don't think, I don't think maybe, maybe several hundred days of consecutive pronunciation of La Vie en Rose would get you there. I don't, I don't know. I don't, I don't think you're ever going to get there. It's a different style of singing. I need like the low, you know what I mean. You want a french folk singer yeah like all the you know dreamy french women with their guitar just like kind of whisper singing to you like she does you it's a whole genre and i just it's an entirely different way of singing that i just wasn't taught i was taught to belt out show tunes in second grade it's not done me any favors let's go one other thing I love about these movies, I noticed this rewatching Sunrise,

speaking of music, is the way that Linklater is so good at integrating his interests and his taste into movies. I never really picked up before on the fact that Ethan Hawke on the train at the beginning of the movie is reading Klaus Kinski's memoir, which is this really kind of complicated fabrication that he and Werner Herzog put together. And then later in the movie, they're in the record store and Julie Delpy pulls out a Kath Bloom record. And she's like, do you know this singer? And then they're listening to Kath Bloom and they're listening, you know, like that stuff is rare for somebody to be. And I'm a fan of curators, you know, and Linklater is an extraordinary curator. You know, music in his movies is so, so important.

And he has such great taste. So I don't know. Those are just showcases for filmmakers, I think, operating at the absolute peak of their powers. And those movies are going to live for a long time. You think we're going to get a fourth one? I don't think so. I don't know. Maybe when they're 80.

You know, I think it was in the there was a New York Times piece about the making of Before Sunrise, like at the very beginning of this year, I believe, even though it seems like five years ago. And the last quote is a joke from Linklater being like, maybe we'll do a more, but you know, a comic version of it. I don't think I personally need to see that. I've already seen a more and had my own journey with that film, but I, you know, you never know. It would be 2022 every nine years is that has been the pace that they've been on. So I don't know if I could go on Celine's emotional journey in 2022. I just, I think she's been through a lot and it's, that's too much for me. You could feel her. She's coming apart in Before Midnight you know she's really that movie is a lot about her crisis so I don't know hopefully

maybe they patch things up I wish them nothing but the best Selene and Jessie they're phenomenal so your list is almost completely done now

so you've got Before Midnight at four you had Sunset at three three and Sunrise is your number one overall yeah

so my number four I'll say very just very quickly is A Scanner Darkly I have three. Three. And Sunrise is your number one overall. Yeah. So my number four, I'll say just very quickly, is A Scanner Darkly. What a waste of a truly good house. So much could be done with it. A family and children could live here. It was designed for that. Such a waste. They ought to confiscate it and put it to better use which is another

rotoscoping animated film that is an adaptation of a Philip K. Dick novel it stars Keanu Reeves and Robert Downey Jr. and is kind of a detective story kind of a sci-fi story definitely a hard left turn for Linklater in terms of the way he makes his movies and what kinds of movies he makes. But I just think of this movie as more representative of the thing I was talking about earlier in the show, which is like just a desire to try new things at all times and to kind of never really worry about failing.

You know, he seems willing to just go wherever he wants. And I thought that that would be a good chance to kind of talk even about some of the other movies that we're not talking about here. Like I think Bernie is one of his best movies. That's a Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey movie. I think Last Flag Flying is underrated and kind of an interesting film. It's like an ostensible sequel to The Last Detail. Then you mentioned you had an honorable mention you want to throw out there too. Yeah. Where'd you go, Bernadette? Just a fascinating experiment that doesn't quite come together for a lot of reasons

and have thought a lot about what Linklater is trying to explore in the Bernadette character after having rewatched some of these films and read Dazed and Confused. But the interesting thing about that character is that she's someone who cuts herself off from everyone and from the whole world and tries to run away from things.

And certainly some of his characters try to evade their issues, but they don't function well in isolation. They are always, like, striving outwards, and I think that might ultimately have been the limitation. But still interesting. i like that he tried it and i i like that cape lanchef performance a lot i do too forever yeah we talked about it when it came out and obviously it was considered you know it had been delayed many times and and i believe was released by anna perno at a time which was very complicated for that studio when they

were going through some transitions the tone is a little bit all over the place at times, but it's just an interesting movie. It's like an interesting try. And he has so many interesting tries throughout his career. You know, you can fire up Suburbia, which is this Eric Boghossian play that he adapted. And is it like a perfect movie? No, not even close.

But it's a fascinating portrait of what indie cinema was in the late 90s, especially in the aftermath of big successes like Dazed and Confused and Before Sunrise. I'm sure some people will be annoyed that we didn't put School of Rock on our list. I've just never really been a School of Rock person. It's not that I'm not a Jack Black person. I certainly like rock and roll music, but it just always struck me as a little bit more of a kids movie. Yeah, I'll be honest. but it just always struck me as a little bit more of a kids movie. Yeah.

I'll be honest. I have come afoul of the Jack Black online fandom before, and I'm not really going to go down that road again, but it's not on my top five. Okay. The other thing that's notable in his filmography before we get to Dazed is, you know, he made me and Orson Welles well before all this Mank business, you know,

he has been just as interested in this cult. dazed is um you know he made me and orson wells well before all this manc business you know he he's was has been just as interested in this cult that's a movie about wells's time running the mercury theater and um he was early on the zach efron train too you may recall back at way back in 2008 um but that's one of the time that's one of the things that link later does right he plucks people out and he makes them into something special he gives them a chance to try to do something unique which takes us to days and confused um so uh richard and melissa and i obviously talked about the movie quite a bit we didn't talk specifically about like the details of the movie itself it was much more about that time and you know what he was going through and the people that inspired the stories and um so let me just say i've said it before many times

i think it's a perfect movie it's it's my number one movie on my list it ranks very highly on yours as well um and i never don't want to watch it i don't know if there are very i don't know if there are very many movies that i feel that way about including movies as good as the godfather and jaws i never don't want to watch dazed and Confused. And I got to figure out why that is. I suspect it's because of when I saw it and kind of what it means to me in that time, the same way you form your musical taste around 12, 13, 14, and that it kind of sticks with you. This is a movie version of that for me, I think. But what about for you? What do you think

about Dazed in the year 2020? I agree with you that it's a perfect film. And it's in rewatching the number of specific references and moments that have been separated from it and live on their own from All Right, All Right, All Right. I think there's like a whole chapter in Melissa's book dedicated to how All Right, All Right, All Right became a thing, which is just that's why it's a great book. It's just that's what you need to know. But, you know, specific quotes and specific, you know, music cues and fashion choices. And it is, it's a world that I have no connection to. I don't have nostalgia for the seventies. I wasn't alive. And, and frankly, I, I'm a person

who doesn't have a lot of nostalgia for high school, which is possibly why this movie is my number two instead of my number one. Because I think, you know, there's romance in every successful Linklater movie and certainly the ones on our list. You have to have some sort of, if not yearning for, then you need to be able to see it in the sentiment that you were talking about. And I think this is, um, anyway, I think that this, even though I don't have that romance, the seventies in this movie, you know, I feel like I was there because I've seen this movie. Like this is, it, it kind of replaced history for me in a way, which like, I would be curious. I bet that Linklater himself has complicated feelings about that. But that's a testament to its craft and the specificities and every cue being right and every actor being right and the energy and it all coming together.

And then I think a lot of people feel the way that you do of they do have a romance for high school and just wanting to be back in that space where you could hang with your friends. And these characters are a bit cruel to each other, especially the women. You can talk about the women in the, in this film, if you want. Um, and they aren't content.

They, you know, there's that famous speech of at the end of like, if this is the best time in my life, then, you know, kill me or whatever. Remind me to kill myself. Remind me to kill myself.

Yeah. But I think that the characters are still, there's a confidence and there's a wistfulness even in the moment. You know, it's like that I'm nostalgic for things that haven't even happened yet from kicking and screaming. And a lot of people feel that way. It just communicates that emotion perfectly. Yeah, I think similarly to boyhood, there's much more attention paid to the male characters. It's coming from Linklater's specific experience.

And one of the things he talks about in the book that I think Melissa pays smart attention to is how the female characters are portrayed, who portrayed them, what their relationships were, even among the women while making the movie. And he expresses like some regret about that, about like cutting out some, some sequences or cutting out some lines from some of those characters and not having kind of like, I think there's a moment where I think in the book, they realize like there's no female lead. You know, it seemed like there had been a female lead

in earlier iterations. And it seems like the movie started out with like a 200 plus page script that obviously was whittled down and down and down. But I don't think that that's necessarily dishonest in any way. And I don't even think it's like offensive. It's just he's making a movie that's largely autobiographical and seen through the eyes of a bunch of guys on a football team. And, you know, that's the kind of story you're going to get. I mean, I like the movie because I do think it kind of trained me to be a high school

student. And I think in some perverse way, it made me want to be like pink insofar as I could be a jock and cool with the smart kids and cool with the stoners. That was like, that's a very oversimplified view of the social strata of young life in this country. But I liked the idea of being a person that got along with everybody and that didn't really want to make waves. I definitely was not the high school quarterback and I was not a huge stoner, but there was a sort of universality, I think, at least for like the American male experience that a lot of people that are my age really clicked with and continue to click with. And like he might have unbeknownst to him, trained people to be a way.

And I don't know if that's something that he necessarily calculated because he was making a time piece, something that was about the past. But that's the power of movies, right? Like they influence the hell out of you. What else? Anything else about Dazed? I just want to say I agree with everything that you said about the female characters. And I think the book does a tremendous job of exploring this.

And also at the end of the day, it's fine. He wanted to make a movie about the male characters and that's great. Like that, that really is okay. I'm not being sarcastic. That's just what movies are going to be about. I still think the Parker Posey performance is just like extraordinary and the, and the air raid and all of it. Like there's, I mean, that's not real. Girls are awful to each other in high school, but they would be awful in less obvious ways. And it would be a lot more like nuanced. There's a lot of psychological terror that is really at odds with a Linklater movie, but that's fine because it's just it is still imprinted in my mind. I hope it didn't teach that many women to behave this way, but that that't matter. It's still, I enjoy it despite its unreality.

I agree. Richard Linklater, one of the best filmmakers around. So if you haven't explored his filmography to its fullest, I would encourage you to do so. That does it for Amanda and I. Before we get to my conversation with Richard Linklater and Melissa Mayers, let's hear a quick word from our sponsor.

Oh yeah, Mitch Kramer. We're looking for you, pal. Your ass will be perfect for the day it's over I'm just delighted to be rejoined by Richard Linklater and joined by my pal writer author editor Melissa Maris, Melissa Maris. Hi, guys. How are you? So good. Thanks. Hey, how's it going? Guys, you're here because, Melissa, you've written this wonderful book and Richard, your movie, Dazed and Confused, lives with us always. And so I'm so excited to talk to both of you about this. But, you know, Richard, I thought we could start with you. I'm curious when Melissa first contacted you and what your reaction was to the idea of spending so much time on a movie you made over 25 years ago. Well, naturally, my first response was, hell no.

Like, God, why would I want to do that? Why would I want to dredge up old stuff like that? And my first instinct is like, no, it's just, oh God, why? But then shortly, I had this weakness for like writers and people who are freelance. You know, I just get it. You know, it's so hard, creative people trying to, you know, piece together, you know, what they do and their professions and everything. I get it, you know? So I was like, and Melissa wrote a very convincing, I don't know, I just really got her passion. She seemed to really care and know a lot. And I'm like, okay, I don't want to crap on people's passions in this world, even though it's going to affect me in some way.

It'd be easier to say no. But I kind of wrote her back. I think I said something like, yeah, kind of a begrudging, like, yeah, you can interview me or whatever. You can tell people. I don't know. Melissa, where did it come from for you? Why this book? Why this movie? Why this style of book in the first place? Yeah, good question.

I mean, obviously, I love the movie. But I think the thing that got me really thinking about writing a book was that I'd read an interview with Rick where he said that he originally wanted Dazed and Confused to be an anti-nostalgia movie. And I thought that's so interesting because it seems like it's become the ultimate nostalgia movie for a lot of people, not just nostalgic for high school,

but nostalgic for the 70s. And now it seems like people really love it in part because they're nostalgic for the 90s. So originally I thought, you know, that's one of the themes I wanted to explore in this book. And I think what I wasn't prepared for was how nostalgic the cast is for making this movie. And I think that's a real tribute to Rick and him encouraging them to be so creative on set. Melissa, you opened the book by noting that Rick lost most of his possessions in 2011. And I was curious if you saw this as an opportunity to create like a new kind of physical memory for things you might have

lost by participating. Yeah, that's a really good question. I mean, my first thought was, oh no. I mean, so many things are gone, like in terms of archives, you know, that a lot of stuff that I thought I wanted to ask Rick about is probably just not there. But in some ways, it was okay, because it's a book about nostalgia, and it's a book about how people remember things in different ways. And I kind of enjoy being able to have people's memories about things that might not match up. So I learned to kind of let go of not having some of those original archives. And Rick did allow me to look through a lot of really amazing archives at Detour also.

We did have quite a bit. I mean, still the stuff I had in my office, not at my home, you know, so yeah, but we did, I did say a lot. Oh yeah, I lost that in the fire, lost that in the fire, gone. But yeah, there was still quite a bit. Right. Do you return to your movies? Do you like the idea of looking back on the things that you personally have made? I'm not, I don't seek it out, but like if there's an anniversary screening or if there's something I don't, you know, some people like, no, I've never seen a movie I've done ever again. I was just listening to a Alfred Hitchcock

interview. I think it was. And he said he never watched me. He never watched them the first time he never watched. You know, can you imagine Hitchcock watching, never watching cycle with an audience ever? Wouldn't you want to just to see where they scream and he goes i know where they scream i made the movie i know exactly where that's confident but uh you fall into it every now and then but uh you know every now and then i've done this and maybe i'm just getting oh i don't i don't do it much but i i watched a film not so long ago just because i kind of missed the cast i was like oh it's a chance for me to hang out with them again. You know, so whatever. Or think about something, but not too much, you know.

Can I add something? I just want to say that when I remember when I sent that first email to Rick and Rick kind of started the email being like, you know, I'm kind of sick of talking about this, but I want to be able to support artists and writers, just as you said. But then toward the end of the email, you kind of started to point me in different directions. Like, have you read this thing, you know, that was written about it at this time? And have you watched this thing?

And I got the sense that toward the end of that email, you were being supportive of my research, even though you might not have been personally excited about diving in again. Yeah. Well, you know, if you're going to do something, do it, you know, like be thorough at least, you know, give a full, you know, if, if the goal is to assist you be thorough, good, bad, or I knew it was going to dredge up some uncomfortable stuff, but you're like, sure. Once you make that leap, you're like, okay, but yeah, you should check that out and that out. Whatever. Melissa, I wanted to ask you if you have a similar relationship to this movie that I do, which I assume people have been telling Rick for years, which is rather than it be a movie about a reflection of what life was like at that time in Texas. It really felt like a field guide for how to be a young person

for me. When I saw it, it kind of trained me and it prepared me for things that I might expect. I didn't have the exact same experiences, but I think people my age, our age kind of were reacting to the movie and mimicking the movie. Was that true for you as well? Definitely. I mean, even though it's set in 1976, I saw it in 1993 when it came out. And to me, it felt like the future. I was just starting my first year of high school and I thought, this is what my future is going to be like, you know, driving around with these cool kids and smoking weed and drinking and stuff like that. And what's funny is now sometimes younger people tell me that they watch it because it seems like a fantasy of what high school might have been like before social media.

But it seems like something that's so far removed in some ways from their own experiences and still a lot of things that they can relate to, too. Yeah, it is a portrait. I look at it and like, God, we would do, we would literally risk our lives to get out of the utter boredom of, you know, of just this place you were stuck, you know? And I see that now with kids, you know, a word you don't hear a whole lot anymore is I'm bored because they've got a phone here to keep, you know, they're not, boredom is a good motivator. Boredom gets you out of the house. It gets you with your friends. It causes trouble. It's dangerous sometimes, but it creates punk rock, you know, it creates things. You know, so we're lacking that right now. I think we need a little more boredom. We've managed to take up every spare

second of people's waking time, you know, so, and attention. So, I don't know, I guess it is a portrait of that, you know, to some degree. It's a different era. It's all that just left us, you know, you can't even, all these communities have, like, the best time you could ever have be right around with people. They kind of made that illegal at some point, you know, like, oh, teenagers, you can't have more than two teenagers in a car at one time unless you're going to you know all these rules is like you can't just pile in a car and ride around like i had these four nephews and they're like no we don't even want our driver's license it's no fun you can't you can't do stuff like that anymore so they've kind of legislated out fun from so much experience that we had. And, you

know, I don't know, it's a bummer. There's a flip side to that too. Like one of the things I thought was so smart and interesting about the book was that, you know, obviously the film is dedicated to nostalgia and evaluating your relationship to youth and the anti-nostalgia that comes with that. But they're clearly with some real trauma that some of the real people that you base some of the experiences on, right? And Melissa, you went back and talked to people from his life and what it was like to grow up in Texas at that time and what people went through. I thought that was so interesting to kind of essentially compare and contrast what was in the film versus the real life stakes that were going on with these kids in Texas. It always sucks, you know, growing up or being

a teenager. And I was basing a lot of it on like a lot of, yeah, there was just the trauma of being a kid through that era, the neglect. I mean, the way you were treated, if they weren't neglecting you altogether, which is, that's not so bad, but, you know, the being paddled and all that, I had to go through some early drafts of the script. Ironically, Matthew McConaughey teaches a class at University of Texas called Script to Screen. And months ago, I agreed, but just yesterday, I was in his class for two hours and 45 minutes. And I found him that very early draft I gave you, Melissa, of the script that you, you know, and I finally looked at that first time in 27 and a half years,

probably. And I realized, oh gosh, that's so dark. There's so much material in that very first draft that it's, it's child abuse. It's a dad beating and punching his kid. It's drunk girls getting taken advantage of. It's just ugly, ugly, yucky teenage stuff. And I think that my first impulse was to throw all that in there. But as it went, it became more of the party movie it wanted to be. But I realized, and a little bit of that is in there it's there's a lot of dark linings to days infused i think amongst the party film that it is um and i think that was there because that was definitely in me it was there was just darkness everywhere amongst all the fun that they were generating so that's kind of how i see that era in my life, you know, or growing up in general, you make your own fun amongst the horror of coming of age, you know.

Were you surprised to learn that Melissa just talking to all these folks from from his life? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I talked to a couple of women who went to high school with Rick, and they were saying it was really hard for them, particularly to watch the scene where the freshmen girls get hazed. One of the women told me that she was in the theater watching the movie and hearing people laugh at that really upset her because she wanted to say, this isn't funny. I mean, she remembered being really humiliated by older girls. She remembered people getting hurt while they were being hazed. She remembered the town coming out and watching this, like parents and teachers coming out and just watching this and not protecting these girls. So I think some people see those scenes and still find it pretty upsetting. Upsetting. I was upset at the time. I remember when I was like in fourth and fifth grade, you would go, it was like going to a local sporting

event or something. Let's go see the freshmanizing. And they were, I remember they were cracking an egg on a girl's butt. And I was like, you go, I remember. And I get my Greek chorus in the movie, Tony and Mike, to talk about it. Like the towns, you know, because I always thought, what the hell is this? This is kind of crazy.

I never understood it. Movies can always kind of be contorted to fit whatever a person's point of view is and how they feel comfortable. And whether those scenes are funny or whether they're meant to be traumatic. I think ultimately the viewer gets,

you know, it's up to them at some point, but Rick with some hindsight and the fact that there has been all this excavation, is there anything that you would have done differently in the movie that you would have portrayed differently? Not really, not really.

I mean, by the time I was making this movie, I was, you know, well over a decade out of it. I was pretty analytical and critical of it in my own way. I think I filtered through so much then. There was definitely more I probably wish I could have expressed in the movie along certain lines.

I failed to whatever degree to achieve that. But not really. I don't really see anything. It was weird looking in Melissa's book that you went actually back to my hometown and interviewed people. That was bizarre to hear their take. I had heard things over the years from different sources, obviously, and old friends. But to see it in print was kind of startling. I thought it was pretty funny, but I don't know. I would have assumed that you helped coordinate some of those interviews, but Melissa, did you just shoe leather your way into Rick's childhood? Well, I think I'd asked Rick for one person's

contact and then that just kind of went to other people. And I asked all of those people, well, who do you think I should talk to? And, you know, not everybody was close with Rick. I just interviewed a lot of people who went to school with him. Older. You know, a lot of the movie, I'm the freshman and all these people are older than me. So it was really not so much about my contemporaries, but like older kids. So I was like reading a lot of these people like, I didn't really know them that well, but they were known to me. I was looking up to them in a certain way,

you know, guys and girls. But what's so interesting is that everybody thinks this movie is about them. Like whether or not you went to high school in Huntsville, but the people in Huntsville really think it's about them. I mean, I was on the phone for hours of people who were like, that character is this guy or like very specific things of like, oh, that guy wore the same shirt. You know, everybody's

kind of convinced that they, that there's some kind of one-to-one, even though I don't think that's the way that Rick intended it. Yeah. How could this guy, they claim to not know very well or get you so well. And, you know, it's like, it's kind of like, I knew something was weird when the movie came out and I was meeting people from other places. Oh, that was just like my high school. I said, where'd you grow up? Oh, New York. I'm like, really? You had, you rode around pickup trucks and did that? Like, oh, we didn't do that. But there was something so general about high school, the high school experience, so generic about the American high school experience, particularly at that time. It's just, how could you miss? The target's huge, I guess,

if you depict any of it. And the way people watch movies, they're looking for connections. So the slightest thing makes it personal. So I don't know. I never thought it was some great accomplishment. It was like, just tell a certain truth and everyone got it somehow. But what's interesting is one of my favorite quotes in the book is this guy who said it was exactly like my high school, except the cars were different and we didn't listen to that music. And I was in a different city and just like keeps going on about all the things that are not like him and somehow he still thinks it's his life. That says a lot. I think that says something. Yeah, you got the vibe of what being that age is like, even if the details are different for people.

I will say you did get a 14-year-old me interested in Foghat, which I don't think would have happened without the movie. So that's like, you know, that's powerful unto itself. You're welcome. Specifically, Rick, I wanted to know, your writing is always very personal and your films are very personal, but you're very rarely correlating them directly to autobiography. And the book is revealing a lot of your story, your life, what was going on with you at the time. And you've done press over the years and et cetera, but nothing really like this. Nothing that I think is this deep and considered. How do you feel having all that stuff come through in a story like this?

I don't know. I guess it's nice to have a 28-year gap to get this full body MRI of your past. So it would have been a little unnerving back in the day. I was kind of hiding from certain things back then. I was just like, you know, didn't say much, but I do speak openly about it being pretty autobiographical. And I do on other films too, but yeah, this one, I always talked a bit like that, but I don't know. Yeah. The book certainly reveals that. Melissa, I feel like the same is also true for the cast, which you mentioned earlier.

The cast is iconic for many reasons, in part the stardom that some people went on to have, but also other people who just became kind of burned in our brains as some of these characters that Rick created. I think you really got people to be quite vulnerable about who they were at this time and what the experience was like for them. Can you talk just about who surprised you and what the experience was of talking to these people as they've grown up now? Yeah. So I interviewed somebody early on who asked me who else I was talking to. And she said, she kind of stopped and said, you know, people have really deep feelings about

this movie. You know, it was almost kind of like she was warning me. She was really, I mean, a lot of people cried during these interviews. People still have really strong feelings about it. And I think part of that is what people have told me is that this was the first movie that a lot, well, first movie period that a lot of these people were in. But the first movie where they were really encouraged to be part of the process, to improvise in some cases, or in a couple of cases to write their own scene. And it came right before a lot of them had to go to Hollywood or go back to Hollywood and really understand what the darker side of the industry was like. So I think for people, it was this golden era. And also remember, a lot of them were in their teenage years and their 20s. So how can you not look back on that time with some kind of sense of

some rosy view, I think. But yeah, a lot of people think like, you know, we'll never make movies again like that. That was the best summer of my life. Those types of comments came up again and again for people. Rick, I know you've been asked a billion times, did you know McConaughey or Affleck were going to be big stars, things like that. But I'm curious if you knew what kind of impact you were going to be having on these people's lives by making this movie. Not really. This was the first time my two films before this were really close to home and they were friends and no one was really aspiring actor. This time I auditioned people. They had agents. It was a studio funding. It felt like the real deal. You know, so I started to get a glimpse like, oh, yeah, this could maybe be a big deal in your life, like redirect your life.

So it's hard to think about because you're just trying to make the best movie you can with the right people. But it was kind of toward the end. I was realizing, Oh, and actors are telling me like, I think I'm going to pursue this. And I was like, Oh wow. They're starting to, this could impact their lives, but it, I don't know. It's such a mixed bag. I don't, you know, I don't know. How much responsibility do you have? On one hand, you're giving opportunities and you hope the world does offer people opportunities. It's kind of how luck and what happens with that. You want to be encouraging and then thoughtful. I think I got better at it over the years. When I worked with young cast 10 years later, I would get their parents and them together and say,

hey, listen, my first rule, you don't have to do this. Just because you had a good time and you did this, I'm not recommending you be an actor. I think you're great and you're great in the movie, but I'm not recommending you throw your life off. If you're good in school, you're pursuing that. I'm not saying, oh, I almost discourage them. Because I know to make it as an actor, you have to love it so much. You have to be so driven. So I kind of wait for them to say what they want to do. Because some kids, they really do lose a few years. Oh, I'm going to pursue this.

But it's not really who they are. And it's just it gets in your way in life, you know? So I don't know. Overall, I'm not really surprised. The ones who have gone on and pursued it and had longer careers, there's not a one of them I'm surprised by. And then I'm really proud of the ones who didn't really pursue it and have done great things, you know, and seem happy. I'm really proud of the ones who didn't really pursue it and have done great things,

you know, and seem happy. I'm really happy for them too. So, you know, whatever. Yeah. Melissa, I wanted to ask you that you spoke to virtually everyone who participated. There were a handful of people that you either couldn't track down or didn't want to participate. Sean Andrews, I think takes the tough side of this story, I think. And a lot of the things that happened with him seem pretty complicated during the making of this movie. But I was curious specifically about some of the people who didn't go on to great fame, how they feel to be kind of associated with this long term for the rest of their life if they're not performing right now or they didn't go on to have as many opportunities

as some of their colleagues did. Is there someone in particular that you're curious about? Yeah. I mean, like Michelle Burke strikes me as like a really, and she's a really like, you know, in the same way that Sean Andrews, I think is kind of a whatever happened to Michelle Burke had a lot of big roles in the mid nineties. And then we didn't really see that much of her. And then it seems like maybe her experience was complex on the movie too. And she reflects on that in your book. How did folks like that feel talking about this experience? Yeah. I mean, I think she's one of those people who looks back on this experience with a lot of really positive feelings and some tougher feelings.

I think she had a tough time on this movie. She feels that she wasn't embraced. She wasn't having a fun time behind the scenes like everybody else was. And she felt kind of ostracized. She said that she felt like it was kind of like high school, just like the movie is high school, that she felt like that behind the scenes. And I think that makes it harder. So much of what makes people great is not just talent, but luck. And I think there's a chapter in the book about what happened to everybody after Dazed and Confused. You think of it being this great launching pad, and it was for some people.

But for some people, it just didn't work out, despite the fact that they're so good in this movie. And so I think that's part of the nostalgia that people in the cast still feel for the film. It was a time when they had so much potential ahead of them. Yeah, it was frustrating for me just as their friend to see, you know, I'd say, Hey, what's going on? Oh, you know, I'm up for this part. It's between me. And, you know, it's always the more person who has, you know, they're back then they would have callbacks. I got to the final callback on this. I got to the final callback on that. I got to the, how many years can you do that? And then, oh, I got a little part in it. You know, it's really tough.

It's really, really tough to have an acting career. You know, you got to, I don't know. So it felt kind of random to me. I think they're all great. But, you know. And so many of them were auditioning for the same roles. First audition. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, there's some funny stories. Well, yeah, they're in the same pool of age, range range and type. So, yeah, they're up against each other. But actors get used to that. Rick, it feels like based on the telling that the young actors were treating this two month filming period in a hotel kind of like their college dorm experience. Did you did you have like an awareness of the mischief going on behind the scenes while you were doing the movie yeah i would i was kind of sheltered from the details i would hear little things all right you know i'd overhear a conversation of the four of the guys they were going to gun ranges and doing all this stuff i'm like i would just hear little things but i was kind of like what was i i was like the coach you know you don't tell the coach what you do and you're off you know even though i'm i'm? I was like the coach. You don't tell the coach what you do

and you're off. Even though I'm maybe the cool coach, I'm still, you don't want the coach to know. You don't want to give them the information. And sometimes they'd be tired. Like Jason, London, we're working six day weeks, mind you. So I'm so busy. You get one day off. I get one day off. But the cast, they might not work every day. They might have three days off in a row and then work one day. It's a big ensemble. So they're getting time off. And I remember telling Jason, like, hey, he goes, I'm really tired today. I'm like, why are you tired? Well, we floated the river. And I find out later they did mushrooms. And I'm like, hey, listen, you can't come back to this moment in history i'm not going to put up a title title sorry the actors seemed tired they did mushrooms yesterday back in 1992

and that was a big deal to them so they're not very good in this scene i was like no this is sports you got to bring it right now there's no you know so i always bring that kind of coach mentality and i kind of wake them up with that, but it was, it was a little, um, there was nothing I could do. Just 24 main actors with their own strong personalities. And I, that, that, that got away from me just right off the bat factions formed. It was high school. You couldn't, you couldn't give them the breakdown speech or.

Which speech? You couldn't give them the breakdown speech or with which speech you couldn't give them the breakdown speech or get them to sign a pledge or anything oh you know i i tried in my own way i said this movie's about partying but make no mistake there's no you're not gonna see me drinking or doing you know like i run a real i'm kind of straight edge when it comes to work so there was no tolerance for that. Of course they broke that. I find out later in their own, you know, kind of responsible ways. They're like, oh, I don't have any lines today. I guess I can drink. Or they told me years later, oh, we were actually stoned in that scene because we didn't have any lines. We were just driving.

I'm like, okay, whatever. Melissa, were you surprised by how candid people were about what they were getting up to? Yeah. I mean, I was kind of moved in some ways by how candid people were like talking to Ben Affleck and having him be like, I was fat and no one wanted to sleep with me. I was surprised to hear him talk about those years in that way. Yeah. Rick says he wasn't fat, but, uh, but yeah, I mean, I think people still have really intense emotions about that time. I mean, Affleck told me that he has, he only has two posters from movies that he's done in his life and his house currently. Um, and one of them is Argo and one of them is Dazed and Confused. Um, his brother framed it for him, um, I think back in 1993. His brother framed it for him, I think,

back in 1993 and he still has it now. And I think that tells you how strongly people feel about this movie. I want to ask you about the structure of the book, because in my experience as a magazine editor, I always thought of oral histories as like screenplays. There's acts, there's stars, there's cameos, there's an arc. Did the two of you guys talk about the value of that structure at all? Or was that all up to you, Melissa? Yeah. I mean, I basically just wrote it on my own, but I kind of wanted it to be a little bit more thematic. I wasn't as interested in an arc because the movie itself doesn't really have an arc to its credit. I mean, I think that's what's great about Dazed and Confused is it's more about a vibe than about

a story. And to me, that's like the main theme of this was about this idea of nostalgia. And that's more what I was interested in than an arc to what was happening behind the scenes. You mentioned you make this great decision to publish the unfilmed or unincluded or dashed segments of the screenplay. When did that come about? Because it becomes like an anchor for a lot of those different sections that you're talking about. Well, there were so many things that I wanted to put in the book because people were responding to them. And in oral history, it's like you either have someone do something really fake where you give them something to read and then they have to read it and you put it in there as they respond to it. I just didn't want to do that. And so I kept thinking like, I'm just going to put this

in there for now until I figure out what to do with it. And then toward the end, I thought, well, why not just let it be what it is? You know, why does an oral history have to be in a certain way? And I just thought that especially the pieces of Rick's diary from that time, the voice is so great in that, that I didn't want to mess with it. And some of those memos too, that I don't think anybody else has seen besides the people working on the movie. The voice in that is so great. And I just love, it really captured to me versus somebody saying, you know, Rick really pushed back against the executives, but actually reading the memo

where you're pushing back is a different thing. So much better. I can't tell you how painful it is to see those. I'm like, God, I'm such a, I'm such a paranoid for good reason. I'm such a, you know, smart ass. I don't know. So defensive, so embattled. It's really painful for me to revisit any of that. Embarrassing too. Some of the things I said, I don't know. It does seem like the soul of a defiant artist though on the page. You're like, no one can tell me what to do. I know what I'm doing here. Well, also, I wouldn't say it's embarrassing at all. I feel like for you to be on your first studio film

and not accept any compromises is pretty punk rock. I respect that. Pretty cool. I agree. Well, that's the thing. But you feel like you're compromised entirely. I mean, you can look at it and say, oh, no compromise. But I could go, I compromised when i my shooting schedule

got cut from 42 to to 36 days i was compromised so you feel you're in a cloud of compromise that's what's weird to when you read like hey i'm making a piece of shit you know the embattled feeling but i think it's it's just where i was operating from the position i was put in i guess where i was operating from and now i look at it and oh, I was so privileged and thankful to get that opportunity. But at the time you are, but you're, I don't know, it does capture the crazed mindset. I think you have to kind of have to get through something like that. You know, I wanted to ask you guys about that specific aspect of it too, because you get about two thirds into the book and then the production of the film ends. And I'm like, wow, there's a hundred pages left and there's so much more story to tell. And so much of what is told is about, you know, how the film was going to be distributed and the soundtrack and how that had these knock on effects for whether or not the studio would buy into making this movie available to the public. I suspect that that was pretty frustrating to go back and revisit some of that stuff, Rick. And Melissa, I thought that was so

smart to make this as much kind of a Hollywood studio tale as it was this coming of age filmmaking story. I mean, how did that evolve and become such a big part of telling the story? Well, I think, you know, I talked to Sean Daniel, who was one of the producers on Dazed, and he kind of laughed and he was like, the questions you're asking me suggest that you're writing a book that who's going to be interested in this. Like, I think he thought I was getting too much into the industry side of things. Just jerks like me are interested. Yeah. Yeah. No, but I was interested too. And I feel like it's, it's a story about an indie filmmaker going to the studio at a

time where this kind of thing was happening to a lot of people. So I think it was interesting to me because of that, because a lot of people don't know that behind the scenes story. And also because movies don't really have those same kind of, it's not that same situation anymore. There isn't a studio like Universal making a $6 million movie like Days to Get Fused at the same time that they're making a movie like Jurassic Park. It just doesn't happen anymore. No, I look back on it and go, oh my God, my fellow filmmakers, myself through that era, we were so taking that for granted. You never think that world's going to go away entirely.

That a studio would say, oh, we have a slate of films. Let's give this kid a chance. Let's make that kind of film. Oh, and then we'll make our big films. I mean, that so went away by the end of the 90s, basically. So it's definitely a last look at something. And also the last era where soundtracks actually sold and people wanted movie soundtracks were kind of an industry thing. Did you see the playing field clearly back then, Rick, in terms of how that stuff was starting to shake out when the soundtrack moves to another label? And then that means something about how much the studio cares about your movie? Or is it only with hindsight that you see how everything shook out?

Oh, no, I could tell it at the time. When you're in it and you're saying, oh, they're giving away. No, you're kind of aware of your stock price dropping every step of the way. And I started kind of low to begin with, you know, that sophomore slump, perceived sophomore slump, you know, I could tell there's a lot of forces against you. It's like, wow, like there's a lot of people at the studio who don't want to like this film. I could just tell. And so they just, they, that was their perception all the way through. Everything I did was seen through such a negative, you know, I never quite got that, but I've experienced it again to varying degrees. And it's just, it's weird. It's hard to put your finger on it. To answer your question,

you definitely know it when you're in it. It's like, okay, the temperature, this isn't good. They're not, yeah, you can tell. Did that reset you on a different course in your career? If you had had a very supportive studio filmmaking experience, would you be making different movies or at least in a different way? Oh, probably not. Not really. I mean, I knew the next film I wanted to do was the film I did next, which was also kind of a studio film. I mean, I did it at Castle Rock and Columbia, even half less than half the budget of days, but completely different experience. But, yeah, I don't I don't know. I think the. Yeah.

Probably. I don't know. I look at it now. It's like you're kind of faded to where you are. You know, I don't think I would have ever flourished in a certain system. And maybe, you know, I had probably delusions of some, somehow that all just working out perfect. And you somehow someone handing you the keys to the kingdom, like, oh, you're one of three filmmakers of your generation that's going to get to do whatever you want in perpetuity. Yeah, sure. Why wouldn't I be that guy?

And it's like you learn, oh, you're not going to be that guy. You're going to have to struggle. And no one will even perceive it as a struggle. You know, you're still lucky. So I don't know. You get over it really quick. But I learned not to have expectations. That's what I really learned.

Once it gets away from you, the thing you can control when you're done with your final sound mix and you finish the movie and that okay well you do what you can but it I just became more and more detached I guess from results Melissa you you make this wise choice to publish the original mixtape that Rick had put together. So you get a kind of sense to see what the arc of the movie could have been just from a music perspective and how it changed over time. I'm curious how you chose to basically insert these little small touches throughout the book to just make it something that is not just a brick of text throughout the whole thing. Well, I feel like the biggest compliment I could get is to have the cast say that it felt realistic, that this story felt like the story they experienced. So I kind of sometimes let the cast tell me what was most important, not literally,

but certain things kept coming up and coming up and coming up with the cast. And one of the things that kept coming up as important to them was those original mixtapes that people, it really kind of set them on a course for what this movie was going to be like. And even though a lot of those songs did end up in the movie, I thought it was interesting to see what did and what didn't. And also interesting to see like the mix of songs that are kind of quote unquote, cool songs and songs that might not be as cool and how you can't really tell the difference. Maybe there is no difference. Maybe there is no uncool. Maybe they're all just great. But I liked being able to see what it was originally going to be versus what it became.

Rick, how do you feel looking back on some of your reflections on the Led Zeppelin experience that you went through in this film? Well, 10 years later, exactly 10 years later, I was granted a second act on that that I feel good about. On School of Rock, I did get a Led Zeppelin song. I did it differently. They were in a different place. So I got my redemptive cycle of life thing, that circle of life, whatever. So that felt better. But no, that was painful. I do lament all the songs I couldn't get in the movie. And usually it was just for money. We couldn't afford certain things. And but yeah, it stings when you can't get what you really think you need so bad. But then you go, oh, well, you know, I got. I like what's there, you know, you adapt, you know, plan B. I learned

not to take things so personal. But yeah, that's just another embarrassing thing, how I would go off about it. Because it, you know, I don't know. Again, it was all personal. You know, in that stage of life, you're like, you're either with me or against me. You know, it's like, this is a big deal.

And friend or foe of the movie. And if you're a foe, you know, can't help you, man. Even if of the movie and if you're a foe i'd you know can't help you man even if you're robert plant you're a foe um yeah by the way i tried to get robert plant to comment for the book and i was told he doesn't normally comment on things like this but uh but yeah i was disappointed I'm not surprised. I don't think he wanted to comment. And then that's kind of the thing, even my beef back then was the lack of, I mean,

here with this little film at a little studio, why should Led Zeppelin care, you know? And it was kind of the neglect, like the fact that we, I don't think we got his attention. It was a no without a thought. And that's what bothers me more in this world. Like not a serious no, just a no. And that's what I was really most disappointed with at the time, I think is just kind of a neglectful no without digging in a little deeper or at least putting a little thought into it. So, but that's their right. They're Led zeppelin they can do

whatever they want you know i don't who are we to judge i want to ask you guys just a couple more questions um i'm curious for your points of view on both of them uh regarding how the film was like marketed and what it did at the box office there's a there's a prevailing theory that if it was a bigger hit it paradoxically might not be this object of affection right now. And maybe there wouldn't, Melissa, maybe you wouldn't even have a book. I'm curious if you both think that there's any truth to that and if it had just had a more traditional level of mainstream movie success that maybe it wouldn't become as so important to people who are discovering it over the years. It's one of those theoreticals, isn't it?

I think in the book, I even say, well, it probably wouldn't be quite the cult film, but things go on to the next generation. Had it been a huge hit, I think that saturates that moment. But then 10 years later, when people who were too young to you, they probably pick up on it without a lot of judgment. I don't know. The fact is, it was kind of an indie success. It was just the reason I was so negative about it or seemed, again, it was that expectation disappointment because we didn't get a studio release.

At the depths of the hell I was in making it, I always thought, oh, well, the film will come out in 800 theaters and we're going to get released like this movie, that movie, that movie. And when they didn't do that, it felt like they had just taken, I'd gone through that hell. You don't go through studio hell to get an indie release.

So I felt there was hardly anything they could do to make up for that. But the fact is, you know, it, for an indie release, it was, it was did well. So, and had it not done that well, you know, it probably wouldn't have ever caught on because, you know, films need to

get out of the gate, I'm finding. You know, if you have a film that really no one sees theatrically, no one sees, it takes it a long time. You only, that audience doesn't really grow out of much of a niche. Trust me. I know this from other films I've done that I like a lot. I was like, oh, it never got that, that big wave. It's, it's going to remain largely unseen except, you know, relatively. You'll always run into people, hey, I love that film, but you're, you're in, you're definitely in the unseen ghetto largely. Well, so what do you think? I mean, everybody told me that it wouldn't have been...

Everyone else's opinion seems to be that it wouldn't have been as much of a cult hit and as long of a cult hit if it had been successful immediately. Like, I think the number one movie the week that it came out was The Good Son with Macaulay Culkin. And I think, obviously, Dazed has had much longer life than that movie. But it just reminds me, you know, in the early nineties before the internet era, things were so much cooler. If someone told you, Hey, check this thing out. You've never heard of it before. Like comic books were like that. Music was like that. Definitely indie films were like that. And I think most of the people I talked to for this book found out about Dazed from like a bootleg VHS copy, sorry, Rick, that got passed around and people watched

it a million times. Yeah. So I think it definitely seems to me like it's better that it didn't get the massive success immediately because it definitely has the following later. Well, no one ever felt marketed to that's for sure. No one felt oversold or this got shoved down their throat. So, I mean, we all agree, you know, the music you love the most is something you discovered that came to you through some channel, usually someone you respect or listen to. And that is the, that is the more organic way to receive something, I guess, in an ideal world, word of mouth. So yeah, there's something to that for sure. So for both of you guys, Melissa, in your reporting, what was the most surprising thing that you learned about this whole experience in the book? I mean, I think how detailed, how specific the movie is to Rick's high school years was very surprising to me.

I mean, I do think that all filmmakers, if they're being honest or being autobiographical in their movies, I mean, there's always just Rick's more honest about the specifics of it. But I think, I mean, hearing about the fire tower, which is the real moon tower that the kids climbed on and, you know, there's a real emporium that was actually called the emporium that people went to and that a lot of the names were real people's names. And there was, I mean, even to the extent of Rick telling me that there was, you know, a real kid who went to your high school who had the ice pick and the door that Picksford has to prevent the parents from coming in. I mean, these are very specific details. So yeah, I think that was surprising and really fun to find out for me. What about for you, Rick? You must have learned something with all these people reflecting on this thing you made so many years ago. I guess I have a unique position on it because I'm so in the middle of it.

I don't know. I guess that it does. The fact that it does loom large in some of their lives and that's kind of I don't know what to do with that. You know, I don't want to feel I don't know. It's a mixed feeling, really, for me. I'm glad they had fun and it was a good you want it to be a good thing in their life. You want everyone you work with on a film cast and crew for it to have been a positive thing. They glad they did it. But yeah, I don't know. I didn't really have any big surprises, really. I felt the vastness of it. I was surprised at the scope of your book that you had talked to so many people.

That was impressive. But I don't know. I don't know. I'm having trouble answering this question. Would you ever submit yourself to this experience again about another film? Not, I don't know if it'd be appropriate for so many others. This one, I don't know. Maybe, yeah, I don't know. I don't know if it would ever come up again quite like this. I do like reading those. In Vanity Fair, you read the thing on Chinatown. I'm a sucker for

that. If it's something I like, even the making of an album, I'll do the deep dive on something I love. So I'm glad this is here for people who love that movie and that Melissa did that. You know, it's there it is. It's all there. It's pretty crazy. You know, I had to actually cut about 200 pages out of this book. What was the hardest cut? Well, there was a lot. I think most of what I cut out was about the formation of the Austin Film Society, which probably, to be fair, if I had to cut something, that was probably the furthest away from Dazed and Confused. But I still find that history fascinating.

I still have those, you know, that 200 pages that got cut out. Yeah, I'm not missing that. I was even about, like, why are you talking about slacker so much? Why are you going through all that? I was kind of going, why is all that there? But then I realized at the end, I was like, oh yeah, well, it is a good depiction of indie to studio, which was really, really poignant at that time. And frankly, that's another thing that's just totally left our culture, that in the American pop culture, you had two very distinct members, an indie label and a major label. We were like

studio and independent. And when you made that leap across that divide, and I was perceived to having made that leap, it's tough. For my generation, that was like, you don't do that, or you do it through fire and you do it through criticism. Now, it's like the best thing that can happen to you out of Sundance is you get hired to do Spider-Man 6 or whatever. And everyone thinks that's a great thing. There's nobody, no critic, no one's calling you to the carpet for that. Back then, in the 90s, you were going to run through a gauntlet of criticism and questioning and sellout. The whole sellout thing is in the air. It was a real thing back then that feels to

me pretty lost right now. I don't see anyone conflicted about, oh, studios are getting in. As a filmmaker, I never had any conflict. I need someone to pay for this movie. I don't know anyone who's going to give me $6 million. It makes totally sense from a filmmaker, but from a cultural perspective, you, you, you know, you take a hit doing that. Yeah. This isn't the first time that idea has even come up.

I mean, I, I personally don't have as much of a problem with it. The, the concept of selling out, but Melissa, I mean, you know, even just from much of a problem with it, the concept of selling out. But Melissa, I mean, you know, even just from like the journalism you've done over the years, like that conversation has shifted so much. Like, is that surprising to you to see that, you know, Rick, you remained fairly independent as a creative person, but made studio movies. Is it is it surprising that that has changed to both of you guys? I'm glad that that went away because it's unfair to the artist. It's unfair to the band or it's unfair to the, you know, I mean, there's a little bit of that now. Like, oh, you know, when the Irishman gets made at Netflix, oh, is that an issue?

It's like, hell yeah, they're going to give him his budget. Of course he's going to do it now. I got no problem with that. If some studio is not going to fund it and Netflix is, I'm glad it exists. Good. That is a good thing. So I never bought into this. It's always someone's purity, someone's little conceptual purity test that they have for you or the world.

And it's not really, it's not a practical thing and it's not based on anything. So I'm fine with that going away. And you know, you never know what cards people, I just said a glib thing about, oh, the guy who leaves Sundance and makes a Marvel film or whatever, but that's okay. You know, a lot of people, they make their, that's what they're supposed to be doing. You know, I admire anyone who's doing what their destiny tells them. And I really do believe if we all kind of end up where we're sort of supposed to be for that reason, you, you, everybody makes their choices, you know? So I don't know. I'm, I'm all for a world that doesn't judge people outside of that, you know?

Well, listen, I want to thank both of you dazed and confused is one of the greatest movies i've ever seen and melissa your book is an incredible testament to the to the greatness of it and i look forward to 20 years from now the everybody wants some uh sequel all right yeah i got some material for you already on that one it's the better movie, technically. Everybody wants one, for sure. Wow. Strong statement. Rick, Melissa, thank you so much, guys.

Thank you, Sean. Yeah, good talking to you, Sean. Thanks to Richard Linklater, Melissa Mayers, Amanda, Steve Allman, and Bobby Wagner. Tune in next week to The Big Picture when Chris Ryan and I will have a special treat for all you crime movie fans. See you then.