A lot of people can't really name their favorite, because they have so many. I have many that I really love, love, like very much, and so on and so forth, but to name a favorite, all around, ready to view at any given moment, I can honestly say that Dazed and Confused is most definitely that one film.
I recently stumbled upon the trailer on the Apple website for Fix, starring Shawn Andrews who played Pickford in Dazed. I just stared, shell shocked, that this actor who hardly ever works, unfortunately, is about to be in a movie that looks great, and I haven't seen him since he painted the faces of a town statue black and white with Gene Simmons' tongue. That was the beauty of this film that I learned as I was becoming an actor. The idea that Richard Linklater, who directed the semi biographical piece, could find these new young actors, who were actually talented and not simply rising stars. Shawn Andrews made a huge impression in a film that was small, with simple ideas, based on a foundation of youth during a time where kids had crazy fun and did stupid things in the face of boredom and repression.
Pickford is just one character in a cast of about fifteen principals where, if you watch the movie, you sit there and go 'Holy crap, she's in this?!' Parker Posey, Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey, Milla Jovovich,Adam Goldberg, Rory Cochrane and Anthony Rapp all put up early career jump start performances. I mean, Matthew McConaughey was actually pretty damn good, playing stoner Texan Wooderson, living in his high school past, chasing high school girls, and is totally happy with his choice in lifestyle. He should just stick with those kinds of roles, (that being his big breakout actually) because he was fantastic. Ben Affleck plays the asshole who got held back a year or two. Again, perfect. Anthony Rapp, of Rent fame, plays the brain, with his sidekick and conscience Adam Goldberg chiming in with perfectly delivered quips at opportune moments. Parker Posey is flawless in the super bitch senior role, hazing freshman girls rigorously, out of sheer joy of the power trip.
Then there is, of course, the iconic Slater. Rory Cochrane has created the most lovable stoner in history. His "dollar bill" monologue, which I actually used for an audition piece as a freshman at Syracuse Drama, is delivered with such conviction, that one is just enthralled in listening and actually believing that all that about George Washington growing pot as a cash crop, could actually have been plausible. Cochrane fit the role of Slater like a glove, and his nuances, physicalities, and adherence to the spirit of the script and its message was balanced perfectly. To create a character that lasts through the decades says something about how well he told the story that Linklater wanted to tell. He changed himself completely, albeit into a slacker pothead, but delivered a performance that rings true today: the goofy, pot dealing clown, the laughter in the turmoil of confused high school seniors, the simplicity of Dazed personified.
As for production value, I think Dazed is really visually stimulating, and on a small budget, Linklater makes the most of 'less is more.' He spent less time on camera tricks and more time on bringing us into 1976, with well lit shots of the Emporium game all, crappy Taxas convenience stores, and the moon tower party. Two shots stick out in my mind, one being a upshot of the interior climb the kids do inside the moontower ladder. it's a vertical shot watching the kids climb from below. Easy, but creative. The dialogue that accompanies the shot, delived by a drunken Slater: "Look at the bloodstains!" Costumes also superb, especially our main character, Mitch, who wears what looks like a shirt print from his Mom's wallpaper. Bellbottoms galore, and a shot of the girls zipping up their superhigh waist jeans with a grip wrench. There's some car chases, some low riders cruising the strip, and some great tableau shots. Linklater captures the characters in their element, totally at ease, but it's always a well constructed shot, with minimal camera movement. He focuses the audience right onto what he wants them to see, which is friends talking to each other, and people interacting.
The allusions to the same questions asked by every high school senior about to enter the "real world" are the main dilemma in Dazed and Confused. Defining the "every other decade" theory, comparing the lame '70's to the rockin' '60's and believing that the '80's would be "radical," when we all know whilst watching what really went down. The feeling of being stuck, in physical location and in the role you play. The star quarterback, Randy 'Pink' Floyd (get it?) not wanting any of the things expected of him by his football circle, wanting only to have a fun time with his friends. His "top priority," as he says. The stoner, the pretty girl, the slut, the brain, (Adam Goldberg's character) longing to just get into that random fight just to feel alive, like all of this has a purpose. All the stories told in this film are relevant to every generation of high school kids who ultimately want to have a great time, breaking the rules, with all of their friends, before they part ways.
Linklater brings out simple qualities in his simple yet hilariously poignant script that brings these young characters to life. Linklater is all about the people, the relationships, the little things in life that can happen to you to change your perspective. He's definitely on top of the indie world, and in 1993 when Dazed was released, it's effect on cult film following was tremendous. It's listed in the top three cult high school films of all time by Entertainment weekly, and if you mention it to someone, 9 times out of 10 they don't just know of it, they've seen it a million times and love it. The movie was small, and in a time when indie films weren't such high brow under-goings as they are now, grossing slightly over 7 Million in the USA was a travesty. But what was left were some very memorable quotes, great film moments for a lot of young actors who are now "somebody's," and led hundreds of thousands of American youths to teen drinking and substance abuse in the name of boredom and the need to escape the now. So, good luck to Shawn Andrews, who made an impression on me then and who's next film, which seems to be in the same vein, will put him back on the map.
As Wooderson put it, "you just gotta keep livin' man. L-I-V-I-N." The heart of Dazed and Confused is more than just making a hilarious movie to watch whilst smoking the gonja. There's a message that Linklater understood, and still does understand, frustrated youth. His cast of characters, as they roll through this one last day of school in 1976, find that they can break their own mold and be whoever they want to be, defy those who tell them otherwise, don't take everything too much to heart, and just keep livin'.
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