Interview [Written]: Richard Linklater

A Rope of Silicon interview with screenwriter-director Richard Linklater whose latest movie is Boyhood which opens in New York and Los Angeles this weekend.

I think I read it in another interview, but in Boyhood you tend to avoid showing the major moments, focusing more on the reaction and result of those moments.

RL: [Staring at the ceiling] Yeah… I don’t know what that is, I just think you lose people sometimes when you — Those major moments in our lives, they almost feel like, at least me personally, I always felt like I was an extra [in a movie]. First kiss, graduation, weddings, funerals… I don’t think they’re yours really, you’re sort of cast in them.

So I’m always going for the moment that feels like it’s totally yours, of your making, of your memory, of your choosing, of your doing, which means you’re kind of doing yourself a favor and avoiding cliched territory. Not that you can’t put a new twist on it. You can do something original in there, potentially, but with something that’s been done to death and so poorly. Who knows?

Yeah, because how many times have we seen a guy go after, and get, the girl? We can all relate to that part of the relationship, so you don’t really need to show it. What’s unique is what comes after it. With Boyhood specifically I thought the closest you even get to cliche, or something we have seen before, is the dinner table scene, but that’s a major moment in the film.

RL: Yeah, it’s just drama. It’s a family kind of breaking up and stuff, but kind of how you’d remember it. Life goes along at a certain tone, then there are these little punctuations, occasional aggressiveness, violence, erratic behavior around people you’re stuck with. In my life, being a young man growing up, where and when I grew up, there was a fight or a threat or, you know, people kind of threatening here and there, it felt real.

When it comes to that, how much of this is meant to be looked at as a memory? With that scene I just mentioned, if someone were to say, “Oh it’s so cliche and melodramatic,” my response would be to say, “Well, you remember those moments as a little more exaggerated.”

RL: The whole movie is kind of — you see it as a memory, probably. It’s kind of like, “Why am I remembering this moment, or that moment, or why am I remembering this part about that?” those real high notes, on the scale of drama.

Memory isn’t exact. It’s this re-staging, recreation every time you have the memory, it’s not a rewind button, it’s a theatrical production. So, yeah, it’s funny how things sift through your mind and your memory over the years, so it probably would be exaggerated. You would conflate things, so I think that’s pretty valid.

For the rest of the interview, go here.

And for more, go here to read a Vanity Fair article in which Linklater reviews each of his movies.

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