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'I'm always looking for a structure that you can hang a lot of ideas on.'
Action-driven plots don't appeal to Linklater. His films focus on characters and encounters, and examine the connections they make – or the lack of them. He eschews conventional time-scales too: Slacker and Before Sunset take place during one day; Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise and Tape over one night. He is influenced less by Hollywood than by the French New Wave directors of the 50s and 60s, such as Jean-Luc Godard and Eric Rohmer. Like them, he uses a naturalistic style to create his own brand of intensity, even if some of his laid-back, stoner characters seem quintessentially American.
Linklater develops the ideas for his films over long periods, and will generally be working on more than one idea at any time, making notes on cards and shaping the films in his mind. With Dazed and Confused, his teenage movie, he spent five years planning before he realised that circumstances were right. He wrote it quickly, which is typical – 'As I've planned it all out in advance, the actual writing of description and dialogues comes pretty easy to me,' – and drew strongly on his own memories. The resulting film is alive with colourful figures – beloved by fans but less popular with some of Linklater's former schoolmates, who have tried to sue on the grounds that they are being wrongly identified with them!
Linklater has used his own life as a starting-point for other films too. Before Sunrise, he says, was inspired by a night he spent talking to a woman he had just met: 'I wanted to make a film about this romantic rush you get when you first meet someone you're attracted to.' And Waking Life grew out of an experience he had as a young man, when he dreamed a series of dreams and false awakenings. The film 'swam around' inside his head for 20 years. Then he saw some friends animating footage of digital video, and realised that he had found the film's technique.
Trusting instinct
Linklater sees the long gestation period as crucial, because it allows him to trust his instincts during writing and shooting. He generally writes his own scripts, either alone or with a co-writer, but whatever the official writing credit, the script will change during rehearsal as he works with the actors to develop the story. 'The director's job is to make it work on film ... finding new meaning, finding new lines, more humour, whatever. You get a lot of people together and you're going to find humour in any situation. That's part of the process.'
Another key part of Linklater's process is making deft connections between his characters and ideas. He often teases the audience with echoes of scenes in his other films. In Before Sunset, for instance, the Julie Delpy character describes an experience that was also discussed in Waking Life; the opening shot of Waking Life is itself almost identical to the opening shot of Slacker. It's a fair bet that his forthcoming animated film, A Scanner Darkly, will offer his fans a few such enjoyable frissons.
Linklater may not connect with consistency, but he consistently connects.
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