Rob Stone
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231165532
- eISBN:
- 9780231850407
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231165532.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
From Slacker (1991) to The School of Rock (2003), from Before Sunrise (1995) to Before Sunset (2004), from the walking and talking of his no/low-budget American independent films to conversing with ...
More
From Slacker (1991) to The School of Rock (2003), from Before Sunrise (1995) to Before Sunset (2004), from the walking and talking of his no/low-budget American independent films to conversing with the philosophical traditions of the European art house, Richard Linklater's films are some of the most critical, political, and spiritual achievements of contemporary world cinema. Examinations of Linklater's collaborative working practices and deployment of rotoscoping and innovative distribution strategies all feature in this book, which aspires to walk and talk with the filmmaker and his films. Informed by a series of original interviews with the artist, in both his hometown and frequent film location of Austin, Texas, this study of the director who made Dazed and Confused (1993), A Scanner Darkly (2006), and Bernie (2011) explores the theoretical, practical, contextual, and metaphysical elements of these works along with his documentaries and side-projects and finds fanciful lives and lucid dreams have as much to do with his work as generally alternative notions of America, contemporary society, cinema, and time.Less
From Slacker (1991) to The School of Rock (2003), from Before Sunrise (1995) to Before Sunset (2004), from the walking and talking of his no/low-budget American independent films to conversing with the philosophical traditions of the European art house, Richard Linklater's films are some of the most critical, political, and spiritual achievements of contemporary world cinema. Examinations of Linklater's collaborative working practices and deployment of rotoscoping and innovative distribution strategies all feature in this book, which aspires to walk and talk with the filmmaker and his films. Informed by a series of original interviews with the artist, in both his hometown and frequent film location of Austin, Texas, this study of the director who made Dazed and Confused (1993), A Scanner Darkly (2006), and Bernie (2011) explores the theoretical, practical, contextual, and metaphysical elements of these works along with his documentaries and side-projects and finds fanciful lives and lucid dreams have as much to do with his work as generally alternative notions of America, contemporary society, cinema, and time.
Rob Stone
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231165532
- eISBN:
- 9780231850407
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231165532.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines the use of rotoscoping in Richard Linklater's Waking Life (2001) and A Scanner Darkly (2006), in order to realize metaphysical enquiries on film. Within the field of ...
More
This chapter examines the use of rotoscoping in Richard Linklater's Waking Life (2001) and A Scanner Darkly (2006), in order to realize metaphysical enquiries on film. Within the field of metaphysical enquiry, the key question for characters in the cinema of Linklater appears to be whether the world exists outside the mind. This prompts conceptual musings on the interaction of the mind and the body gives rise to the monologues and dialogues of Slacker (1991) as well as informing those in Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004). It also inspires the banter and debate of the protagonists of Waking Life, and the manic monologues of Barris (Robert Downey Jr.) in A Scanner Darkly. The use of rotoscoping for these films, and the relay discussion of metaphysics in these films, is apt because the animation adds an extra level of transcendence sought by saints and philosophers alike to the reality of live action footage.Less
This chapter examines the use of rotoscoping in Richard Linklater's Waking Life (2001) and A Scanner Darkly (2006), in order to realize metaphysical enquiries on film. Within the field of metaphysical enquiry, the key question for characters in the cinema of Linklater appears to be whether the world exists outside the mind. This prompts conceptual musings on the interaction of the mind and the body gives rise to the monologues and dialogues of Slacker (1991) as well as informing those in Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004). It also inspires the banter and debate of the protagonists of Waking Life, and the manic monologues of Barris (Robert Downey Jr.) in A Scanner Darkly. The use of rotoscoping for these films, and the relay discussion of metaphysics in these films, is apt because the animation adds an extra level of transcendence sought by saints and philosophers alike to the reality of live action footage.
Rob Stone
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231165532
- eISBN:
- 9780231850407
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231165532.003.0007
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This introductory chapter provides a background for a study of Richard Linklater's cinema. Born in 1960 and a self-taught filmmaker, Linklater's cine-literacy and philosophical knowledge has often ...
More
This introductory chapter provides a background for a study of Richard Linklater's cinema. Born in 1960 and a self-taught filmmaker, Linklater's cine-literacy and philosophical knowledge has often seen him classified as the most European-minded of the American filmmakers who came to prominence with low-budget features in the 1990s and, partly for this reason, he remains one of those most critical voices of contemporary America. The most dominant theme in his cinema is the employment of the slacker-protagonist, which offers imagination and reflection as alternative priorities to competition and profit. In his emblematic debut film Slacker (1991), he used slacking not as laziness, but as a refusal to engage with the fast-track consumerism and aggressive foreign policy of President Ronald Reagan and George Bush Senior. Another noteworthy characteristic of Linklater's cinema is his deployment of rotoscoping, which involves the tracing and animating of live action footage in order to explicitly represent metaphysical enquiry. This is particularly seen in Waking Life (2001) and A Scanner Darkly (2006).Less
This introductory chapter provides a background for a study of Richard Linklater's cinema. Born in 1960 and a self-taught filmmaker, Linklater's cine-literacy and philosophical knowledge has often seen him classified as the most European-minded of the American filmmakers who came to prominence with low-budget features in the 1990s and, partly for this reason, he remains one of those most critical voices of contemporary America. The most dominant theme in his cinema is the employment of the slacker-protagonist, which offers imagination and reflection as alternative priorities to competition and profit. In his emblematic debut film Slacker (1991), he used slacking not as laziness, but as a refusal to engage with the fast-track consumerism and aggressive foreign policy of President Ronald Reagan and George Bush Senior. Another noteworthy characteristic of Linklater's cinema is his deployment of rotoscoping, which involves the tracing and animating of live action footage in order to explicitly represent metaphysical enquiry. This is particularly seen in Waking Life (2001) and A Scanner Darkly (2006).
