boyhood deserves all the praise that's
been getting
despite being kinda boring I'm filming
this couple days after the Oscars I'm
very very upset that boyhood did not win
Best Picture
if you haven't heard of boyhood it's a
movie directed by Richard Linklater of
slacker and dazed confused and school of
rock that has been filmed off and on for
a period of 12 years following a young
actor from age 7 I believe to age 19
boyhood has been making headlines during
the award season and critics everywhere
are just going head-over-heels praising
it and despite all the praise that's
been getting just as many people are
forming their own backlash it's calling
it you know boring because let's face it
it doesn't fit a traditionally narrative
format it doesn't have the same you know
3x structure or four act structure
every one of our sets format that so
many Hollywood movies like to present to
us it's very very episodic you go from
one year to the next
charting this very organic very
believable but also very not narrative
ly satisfying series of moments in this
boy Mason's life going from his mother's
series of alcoholic stepfathers to her
strained relationship with Ethan Hawke
her ex from this boy's first flirtation
with drinking and girls and college and
you know finding his place in life
basically it's roughly the same arc that
most middle-class white straight
cisgender kids would go through there is
a conversation we had about framing this
universal truth through the lens of a
white cisgender and upper-middle class
male but I'm not gonna have that
discussion the suggestion I want to have
is why I don't think this is boring why
it works despite not fitting a narrative
structure I'm harping on this because I
know a lot of people whose main
criticism was I don't need to see life
in a film I live it every day well um
not quite one thing that I feel the need
to point out is that there is actually a
tradition of this sort of movie it has
been done before over much longer
periods of time the best example were
probably be the series that Francois
Truffaut
oh did on the character of Antoine
dwinelle now the first one being the
foreigner blows and then going through
five movies following that same
character through different points in
its life like up into his middle age
again following a fictional character
but over the span of several different
movies not you know collecting them
together into one push through maturity
but even more interesting is the up
series of British series of
documentaries following fourteen kids
through their adulthoods and by now
they've covered half a century of their
lives and you don't even have to go to
indie film to see this the Harry Potter
series you also get to see a bunch of
young actors aged over the course of a
series of films but you know Harry
Potter has a plot it has a story
boyhood doesn't necessarily have a story
of course Linklater never really seemed
comfortable with the traditional story
format a look at his first film slacker
equally episodic but instead of covering
12 years it covers a single 24-hour
period in Austin and this isn't the only
time he's actually played around with
time
look at his before series he's very
interested in using film as captured
time he's certainly not the only one who
does this but he's definitely made it
one of his main motifs one of his main
tools I think the biggest problem that I
have with boyhood is that Linklater left
the key to watching it in one of his
other movies boy who had started
production in 2002 the year before this
movie came out waking life like slacker
waking life is also a series of people
spouting various degrees of interesting
philosophy
only its rotoscoped and animated this is
a couple years before Linklater really
fine-tune his rotoscoping technique and
A Scanner Darkly so there are a lot of
rough edges to it but I think it's
definitely worth the watch in particular
for this one scene these two guys are
sitting down and one of them starts
explaining the film theories of Andre
Besson and you know Besson is like a
Christian so he like believes that you
know God obviously ended that like
everything he believes for him reality
and God are the same you know like and
so what film is actually capturing is
like God incarnate creating now listen
to link matters reading of bazan here
you know
like this moment you know totally but
like we walk around like it's not
holding rock around like you know there
are some holy moments than there all the
other moments that are not holy right
right but like this moment holy right
and if like film can let us see that you
know conject frame it so that we see
like ah this moment you know holy and
it's like holy holy holy moment by
moment so taking a piece out of time and
making it holy what I find the most
interesting about buoyance production is
that it's a period piece made in the
period it was shot link light has done
period pieces before dazed confused was
about the 70s but it was shot in the 90s
me and Orson Welles took place in the
30s but it was shot in the 2000s but in
boyhood the first scenes take place in
2002 and they were shot in 2002 and
they're little things around the edges
that make you realize that this is 2002
same for 2003 2004 2005 and on and on on
up until now it's doing exactly what
bazan was describing it's taking these
moments of time these moments of history
not just the personal history of Mason
and his family but the history of our
society and just saying this is now this
is now hold a holy holy it's basically a
shared family album of fictional
characters now bazan was French critic
who thought that this immediacy in film
was what set it apart from other mediums
in the ontology the photographic image
under his on sited family albums as a
prime example of what photography can do
family albums preserved moments in time
not at the prestige of an art form but
with a simple mechanical process bazan
wrote photography does not create
eternity as art does it embalms time
rescuing it simply from its proper
corruption to use another Linklater
movie as an example film is high school
kids and we are all Matthew McConaughey
I get older they stay the same age
so now twelve years of Ellar Coltrane 's
life will stay the same age what do you
think they're boring or profound these
moments have been preserved more
interesting ly they're preserved in a
way that makes you think about their
preservation of course they are
documenting a fictional family so there
is that layer you have to deal with
boyhood has the freedom of fiction so it
could potentially have made its story as
wild as possible but do we really need
that do we really need a powerful
through line of a strong narrative to
actually make it work I mean that's what
we're all trained to look for in movies
not just as bodies members but as
writers and directors and
cinematographers a strong story fine
finish all loose ends tied up in a neat
little bow poetic justice in two and a
half hours because you can go a lifetime
without getting poetic justice
but maybe it's in seeking a narrative
that we cause our own unhappiness one of
the climatic scenes and one of the most
powerful and probably the one that got
Patricia Arquette her Oscar is this one
you know what I'm realizing my life is
just gonna go like that this series of
milestones Mason's mother's worst day of
her life 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 funeral she's gone through
the steps of raising a child and can't
look forward to any new landmarks she
doesn't have a narrative anymore because
again we like easy narratives boyhood
doesn't have one the kid and boyhood
doesn't grow up to defeat Lord Voldemort
through a series of sub clauses and wand
ownership Harry Potter had weird ending
but he does grew up to become a fuller
more independent more insightful more
mature person than he was at age seven
and that itself is beautiful it's
constant
the moments it's just it's like it's
always right now you know maybe we
should look at life as a series of
moments maybe we should just rejoice in
the now that we live in but again
there's that refrain if I want to see
life in a movie I'd live it yeah but you
can't live 12 years in three hours
boyhood is a great movie because of how
it compresses time more importantly it
reminds us to recognize how we create
our own narratives how we organized our
past and our futures like Mason's mother
we have a tendency to think that our
lives only have worth that there's a set
path to them
there are predetermined plot points
because those are the kinds of things
that make it into movies and therefore
those are the things that have
importance and in desperately seeking
that grand narrative structure we forget
how beautiful now is that it is always
always always now well okay now is not
now for me because I'm recorded this a
couple days before I put it online and
it's entirely possible you're watching
this several months after I put it
online so now it's not now now is back
when I was recording this and okay then
I was gone it's it's not now anymore I
don't know