"Richard Linklater focused not on the things that alienate teenagers but on the qualities that quietly unify them: boredom, horniness, a lack of power, fear of rejection, and the endless optimism that, once night falls, something cool might happen.
I'm sure the oral history from behind the scenes of every movie you've ever enjoyed would make for a good article, but not necessarily a good book. A good book needs a three-act structure, and arcs for its story and its characters.
DAZED AND CONFUSED is a perfect fit as a book of oral history, because the three acts and the arcs are baked right into the dough:
1) Hot indie filmmaker gets his first shot at a studio production; 2) How did that go? and 3) How did it affect his career after? Also 1) A bunch of young actors, mostly from New York and Los Angeles, are assembled and brought together in Texas for several weeks; 2) How crazy did all that isolated immaturity and hormonality get? And 3) How did that experience affect their lives and careers after?
All compelling questions, and all thoroughly and entertainingly unpacked.
Melissa Maerz, a veteran entertainment journalist, knows how rich her material and structure is, and wisely steps out of the frame after establishing each shot (chapter). Like with a film, the secret to a good book of oral history is as much in what you leave out as what you put in. And Maerz proves to be an instinctive expert hand at this, making the reading feel freewheeling, like a good drunk dorm-room bull session but never out of control, like a bad drunk dorm-room bull session. When listening to hours upon hours of recorded conversations, this can be a far more difficult undertaking than it seems.
DAZED director Richard Linklater, thirty-one when he made the movie, comes across as a complicated but ultimately sympathetic figure and thoughtful figure, constantly trying to walk fine lines between his inherent conflicts: hewing to his own vision while trying to accept sometimes stultifying studio oversight as the price of getting the movie made, for example. Then he’s got to walk the equally intimidating tightrope of giving his young, sometimes distracted actors room to express their true selves freely and grow in their art while keeping them wrangled enough to get through a day’s shooting on time and under budget. And he tries hard to stay true to his teenage experiences while not angering the people he grew up and cares about, people whose personalities informed those of the movies characters to the point that he borrowed their real names for the movie.
It all worked, except when it didn’t. One of ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT’s great sections is about how he was sued, a decade after the film’s 1993 release, the real-life Wooderson, Slater and “Pink” Floyd sued Linklater who using their characters with compensation or permission. As it turns out, they weren’t really angry about that as they were that they hadn’t gotten any money from DAZED AND CONFUSED. And, as befits their characters, they got drunk one day and egged each other on into it. Their case, predictably, went nowhere, and one of the best parts of the book is each admitting to Maerz that suing Linklater was pretty stupid, that it earned them a lot of justified scorn, and hey, no hard feelings, we just took a shot at a score, you know?
“If you have friends who are writers, buckle up,” Linklater tells Maerz. “You’re going to find yourself as some kind of a character in someone else’s story, and it can be unnerving, how you’re characterized in someone else’s thing. We’re all aghast when we see what a small part we play in other people’s lives. We’re all the lead character in our own lives, and we’re only supporting characters in other people’s lives, and that hurts.”
Other chapters have that same feeling of We Mostly Had A Blast But Here’s What I Wish I Knew Then What I Know Now. You know, sort of like how we look back on high school, and on the 1970s. There’s one that should be titled How Not to Be a Future Star, about one of the two cast members who didn’t play well with others: Shawn Andrews, who played Kevin Pickford in DAZED. The recollections are as short and slashing as razor swipes. Said Jason London: “There’s a reason we all called him Prickford.” And, of course, the Who Hooked Up With Who and Who Still Pines For Who material is too juicy to resist.
Another chapter deals with the bittersweet career trajectories of DAZED’s cast members. Few of the cast members pegged as breakout stars (Jason London, Rory Cochrane, Michelle Burke) hit anything resembling those heights. The biggest star going in, Milla Jovovich, hit a rough patch after her role was minimized in the movie in the wake of poor cast citizenship (she took up with Shawn Andrews during filming, even marrying him briefly later, and the two isolated from the others). Few would have guessed on the first day on the set that Ben Affleck and Matthew McConaughey would be the future superstars.
To this day, there is resentment and bewilderment over how things turned out for some. And no small measure of pathos. In the afterword, Esteban Powell, who played Carl Burnett, says “he trolls the internet for low-paying jobs to make up for his lack of health insurance.”
I could go on and on, but the bottom line is this: DAZED AND CONFUSED is a great movie. And ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT is a great book in the same way: wise, stoned, sober, thoughtful either way, funny as hell, bittersweet. Like life. Or maybe just how we choose to remember it. As Maerz points out: “That’s just the way nostalgia works: It is not a collection of memories, but a reinvention of memory itself. It’s misremembering your own life on purpose.” How true. And how effed up. And how memorable.
Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused
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Jim Thomsen
Great Account of a Great Movie
Reviewed in the United States on 24 November 2020Verified Purchase
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The best companion behind a great movie.
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Tucson Bluesman
Save your money and watch the movie.
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Andrew Bray
Incredibly well researched, incredibly written - a must have for any film fan
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A. Castro
Disappointing approach to a masterful film
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