Dazed and Confused
Here's a full review I did a while back of Dazed & Confused, unpublished elsewhere. It's a version of this post from last February
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My first experience with Dazed and Confused came in high school, where it constituted a key part of the recommended video diet for males aged 14-18 at the time along with Half Baked, Austin Powers, and Billy Madison. Several years later that juxtaposition seems both odd and wholly appropriate. Richard Linklater's paean to innocently troublemaking youth is a much more down-to-earth, humane, and emotional movie than what seemed to me its cinematic peers, but at the same time what more enthusiastic audience could exist than exactly those depicted in the film?
Certainly Dazed & Confused is an anarchically hilarious teen/stoner comedy with an impressive ensemble cast of future studio stars. Upon closer viewing, though, it's also clear that Linklater betrays directorial traits more readily recognizable over a decade later, but also evident in Slacker, his landmark indie portrait of Austin bohemia released two years prior. As made clear by the narrow time frame in which the narrative takes place (24 hours, give or take, much like Before Sunrise/Sunset, Waking Life, and Slacker) character and setting are privileged over plot. Not that gags and surprises don't abound, but our interest is held much more by personality than by adventure, romance, or betrayal.
The writer/director's talent for witty and caustic yet poignant dialogue is strong enough that he's able to spend much more screen time on talk than action without allowing the pace to sag. While a similar emphasis on digressive dialogue might be expected in the arty examples given above, it's also apparent in recent fare like the more traditional Bad News Bears. Indeed, Linklater portrays athletes very similarly in both Dazed & Confused and that unjustly panned Billy Bob Thornton vehicle. A former athlete himself, the director doesn't go in for any overt jock-bashing, but both films make clear that personal relationships and life experience are to be prized far more than victory or even commitment on the playing field.
Perhaps the most striking thing about the characters Linklater presents us with, and what may ultimately give the film its wide appeal, is that he has very little interest in judging or punishing any of them. Certainly Dazed & Confused has its heroes: Mitch, gaining social acceptance by his elders; Pink, attempting to form an identity beyond what others expect of him; Mike and Cynthia, shedding their geek status and mixing it up at the beer bust. On the other hand, except for O'Bannion who has violated the social code by attempting to beat on the incoming freshmen two years in a row, even the sleazeballs make out pretty well in the end. Consider Matthew McConaughey's Wooderson, the mustachioed, quasi-pedophilic creep whose main passion seems to be cruising for jailbait ("That's what I love about these high school girls, man..."). His entrance into the Emporium pool hall at the head of his posse with Bob Dylan's "Hurricane" blaring on the soundtrack is as glorious as a coronation.
Of course, that's not to suggest that Linklater omits the cruel banalities of the milieu. There are plenty of authority figures providing harassment, parents throwing wrenches into party plans, and painful whacks on the backside handed out by the older kids, but as the film progresses we understand that these experiences are a sort Manichean counterpart to the scenes of late night/early morning bliss to come. Ah, if only real adolescence felt so fair and reasonable as we experienced it.
---
My first experience with Dazed and Confused came in high school, where it constituted a key part of the recommended video diet for males aged 14-18 at the time along with Half Baked, Austin Powers, and Billy Madison. Several years later that juxtaposition seems both odd and wholly appropriate. Richard Linklater's paean to innocently troublemaking youth is a much more down-to-earth, humane, and emotional movie than what seemed to me its cinematic peers, but at the same time what more enthusiastic audience could exist than exactly those depicted in the film?
Certainly Dazed & Confused is an anarchically hilarious teen/stoner comedy with an impressive ensemble cast of future studio stars. Upon closer viewing, though, it's also clear that Linklater betrays directorial traits more readily recognizable over a decade later, but also evident in Slacker, his landmark indie portrait of Austin bohemia released two years prior. As made clear by the narrow time frame in which the narrative takes place (24 hours, give or take, much like Before Sunrise/Sunset, Waking Life, and Slacker) character and setting are privileged over plot. Not that gags and surprises don't abound, but our interest is held much more by personality than by adventure, romance, or betrayal.
The writer/director's talent for witty and caustic yet poignant dialogue is strong enough that he's able to spend much more screen time on talk than action without allowing the pace to sag. While a similar emphasis on digressive dialogue might be expected in the arty examples given above, it's also apparent in recent fare like the more traditional Bad News Bears. Indeed, Linklater portrays athletes very similarly in both Dazed & Confused and that unjustly panned Billy Bob Thornton vehicle. A former athlete himself, the director doesn't go in for any overt jock-bashing, but both films make clear that personal relationships and life experience are to be prized far more than victory or even commitment on the playing field.
Perhaps the most striking thing about the characters Linklater presents us with, and what may ultimately give the film its wide appeal, is that he has very little interest in judging or punishing any of them. Certainly Dazed & Confused has its heroes: Mitch, gaining social acceptance by his elders; Pink, attempting to form an identity beyond what others expect of him; Mike and Cynthia, shedding their geek status and mixing it up at the beer bust. On the other hand, except for O'Bannion who has violated the social code by attempting to beat on the incoming freshmen two years in a row, even the sleazeballs make out pretty well in the end. Consider Matthew McConaughey's Wooderson, the mustachioed, quasi-pedophilic creep whose main passion seems to be cruising for jailbait ("That's what I love about these high school girls, man..."). His entrance into the Emporium pool hall at the head of his posse with Bob Dylan's "Hurricane" blaring on the soundtrack is as glorious as a coronation.
Of course, that's not to suggest that Linklater omits the cruel banalities of the milieu. There are plenty of authority figures providing harassment, parents throwing wrenches into party plans, and painful whacks on the backside handed out by the older kids, but as the film progresses we understand that these experiences are a sort Manichean counterpart to the scenes of late night/early morning bliss to come. Ah, if only real adolescence felt so fair and reasonable as we experienced it.
Labels: Film
Posted on Tuesday, January 09, 2007
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