Dazed & Confused
Just great, I thought. Did I want to spend an hour and a half with a bunch of potheads doing that annoying falsetto stoner laugh, or worse yet, spouting a bunch of pseudo-philosophical bullshit that only makes sense to the similiarly impaired? I skipped the original theatrical release; the movie remained unseen by me until one lonely summer Saturday night four years after its release. I had just had a fight with my girlfriend. We were setting up my new apartment. I can't recall what the fight was about, exactly. She sped away and I was left with an empty apartment. I sat and brooded for awhile, then decided to go rent a movie. Something lighthearted and funny, as they say.
That damned happy face gazed at me from the shelf at Blockbuster. "Pick me, buuuud." I was resistent. I read the synopsis on the box and was not encouraged. Then I figured I might as well spend time with people who were at least having a good time. I sure wasn't. Fictional people, but what the heck. I just prayed the movie wouldn't be too stupid.
My viewing that night not only cheered me up, but began what has become 12 years of admiration.DAZED AND CONFUSED has become one of my all time favorite films, especially since Criterion issued a deluxe 2-disc set in 2006, complete with a greatly anticipated (and candid) commentary track by writer/director Richard Linklater. The set also includes screen tests and interviews with the actors while they are in character. Hearing them speak of their roles, learning from them and the director as to the care in preparation that was taken in the creation of these parts has really deepened my appreciation. You really get to know these people. Certainly, they will remind you of people you've known.
They're not just types, but three dimensional portrayals, filled with nuance and a refreshing lack of flash. There were no big stars in the cast. At the time, Ben Affleck (O'Bannion), Matthew McConaughey (Wooderson), Parker Posey (Darla), and others were just starting in their careers, perhaps debuting in their first professional gig. They and others would go on to varying levels of fame, but in DAZED they were just faces, their anonymity perhaps working in their favor during the original release. This ain't no star vehicle, no megastar ensemble. Everyone is just right in their carefully written parts, chosen because they were right, not because they were stars.
Linklater sets his film on the last day of school in 1976 in a Texas suburb, one similiar to where he grew up. Fairly autobiographical. The director's attempts to capture place and especially time are letter perfect. Very careful attention is paid not only to all the artifacts of the period: the clothes, the cars, the trinkets, but also the attitudes. Everyone seems shellshocked, hence the film's title. Years of turmoil had raged across American soil. Wars, assassinations, and the disgrace of the President left everyone more than a little dazed and confused. This was the mid-1970s, a chunk of that most curious of decades.
Curious for me beacuse even though I was around, I was just a child. In '76 I was seven years old. A first and second grader, way younger than even the youngest in this movie. But I remember the scene, the mood. The "Spirit of '76" banners indeed were everywhere. The older kids chased us around the neighborhood just as it happens in this film (not paddling us, thank goodness). I spied some of them smoking in the boy's room, the alleys, behind the backstops on the baseball field. I was too young to know what they were smoking, but I'll bet it was often the herbals the characters in DAZED partake. These characters, especially the perpetually high Slater (Rory Cochrane), almost make a religion out of the practice. They're not thinking of schoolwork, they're constantly planning the next meet-up, the next party. And there will be beer and particularly some mary jane there, dude. They won't be fazed by a house party that is foiled when someone's parents figure out what's up for the evening. They'll just find a new venue, perhaps an open field with a large moon tower. Nothing's changed much, although getting the word about about such gatherings is sooo much easier with texting these days. In '76, you had to find a pay phone (and hope you had a dime in your pocket).
My high school years were not exactly like this. I did not get high and though I did drink here and there, it was never to get blitzed. My co-workers at my first job at a fast food joint were all potheads, but I wasn't interested. I didn't often go to many parties like the ones seen in DAZED, either; my social calendar was primarily filled with church activities. You know, pizza and Coca-Cola while Amy Grant played in the background. Choir practice. But many of my high school classmmates did schedule keggers in the woods west of town. Maps would be passed out on Monday morning advertising the following weekend's festivities! I attended one or two reluctantly, mostly feeling like Mike (Adam Goldberg), Tony (Anthony Rapp), and Cynthia (Marissa Ribisi)-out of place.
But, DAZED gets it all right, regardless of the time period. Kids will be kids. Cliques will form, those who think too much (and verbalize to that effect) will be relegated to the social margins. As Linklater states, "(during your high school years) it just isn't sexy to have a worldview." The more affluent will run mainly with their own. Those who just want to party will likely be accepted, at least part of the time. There will also be at least one guy, like Randall "Pink" Floyd (Jason London), who will run with pals in different social circles. He'll josh with his teammates on the football team, play poker with the intellectuals, smoke with the stoners.
As you watch this movie a few times, you inevitably will start seeing yourself in one or more of the characters. I identified with Pink, as I did have close friends in wildly different strata. I could certainly commiserate with Mike, the tortured, overanalytical guy; Tony, always pontificating on Life; and Mitch (Wiley Wiggins), the freshman who's getting a quick lesson in high school politics. I knew guys like Benny (Cole Hauser), straight-arrow jock; Jodi (Michelle Burke) the cheerful, down to earth girl who just wanted to have fun without anyone getting hurt; Darla, the bitch on wheels who delighted in tormenting those who dared carry fake Gucci purses and the like, and many others.
What makes this a movie a classic for me? It sounds merely like a filmed party, right? There isn't any real interest in a "plot" here, as the camera meanders from one character to another, just like it did in Linklater's first film, SLACKER. We get to spend about 18 hours with a wildly diverse bunch, all beautifully realized. What separates this film from legions of others is the tone. This is no drenched in nostalgia wallow. As Linklater states on the commentary, the 70s were a crappy time, but it was the "only time we had." Every teenager finds him or herself in a similiar dilemma.
This look back at a simpler time is presented in a way that might be described as curious. Like maybe the aliens from Michelle's (Milla Jovovich)song came down and filmed the proceedings, the mores of a different culture. It plays like the coolest documentary you've ever seen. DAZED rarely goes for the best camera angle, the most romantic point of view (other than a close-up of somone rolling a joint). It just documents. Moves the camera around to capture what people are doing, but something off to the side may be more interesting.....? Maybe we'll drift over there, maybe not. Linklater's filmmaking style employs many of the techniques used in 70s films, so as to add to the feel. I kept waiting for the trademarked panning shot that dissolves into something else, like we saw in so many films of that era, but didn't get it. If you watch the sequence in 1978's SUPERMAN, where the superhero is kneeling in the desert over a lifeless Lois Lane, you'll recognize it. Otherwise, Linklater nails the look.
The soundtrack is rich with what is now called classic rock, with familiar songs by Aerosmith, Skynyrd, Alice Cooper, ZZ Top, KISS. Also, lesser knowns like Black Oak Arkansas. Every track is well used, not just narrating but also offering commentary to a scene. Lots of directors do this. What I like here is how Linklater creates this sense that these songs are constantly on the minds of the characters, ringing in their heads with their every move. Note Wooderson's swagger into a pool hall as Dylan's "Hurricane" fills the soundtrack. Actually, the deft use of Ted Nugent's hypnotic "Stranglehold" is an even better theme song for McConaughey's character, suggesting this seductiveness that the character oozes, even though he's actually just a 20-something hanger-on still carousing with high-schoolers.
The best thoughts I've read about DAZED AND CONFUSED described the film this way: for all of the film's accuracy in depicting 70s suburbia and its associated ennui, this is not a film of how it was, but how it is remembered. Like a dissconnected daydream. Linklater admits that DAZED was his opportunity to "make things right" by giving characters the cool muscle cars he never had, the follow-through on getting back at class bullies, etc. As we age, we tend to idealize those high school years.
When I watch this film now, I approach it as if it is one of the character's latter day musings. Decades later, long out of high school. Let's say Pink, in 2009, is stuck in a boring meeting, or maybe just kicking back after a long day. His mind takes flight, recalling his halcyon youth, idealizing all those good times after the football game, all the beer blasts, the illicit encounters in the woods. Maybe they happened, maybe they didn't happen quite the way we see it here. But he's making it right, just like Linklater did. He smiles and remembers uttering the film's immortal line, "If these are the best years of my life, remind me to kill myself."
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