“The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure, while always arriving.”
—Richard Linklater
Hey there!
This newsletter is going to be a bit special because it’s all about American director Richard Linklater, whom we really love. Anyway, here are 8 things we wanted to share with you this week:
A few days ago, the New York Times published a great interview with him about his latest movie "Hit Man", but about everything else—click and read. “I’m an introvert who gets put in extroverted situations occasionally, and I can play that role. But roles I currently play? I don’t know. It’s nice to care less about it as you get older.”
If you want to get to know him better, the documentary “21 Years: Richard Linklater” is definitely a good way to do it (you can watch it on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, etc.). Big stars such as Matthew McConaughey, Ben Aflec and many others started with him.
Favorite Movies: Without blinking an eye—'Before' Trilogy, Waking Life and Boyhood.
As you probably know, Linklater has also played small roles in his films many times, one of our favorite is his character in Waking Life, where he tells the main character where to get out of the car. At the end of the film, they meet again and we can't get enough of the dialogue they have. In short, if you only watch one movie by him, definitely watch this one.
A little digression—by the way, we wrote a new blog this week about finding new ways too, you might find it useful.
If you've seen Linklater's films, you know that they are mostly based on deep dialogues, which we love, because you can keep coming back to them. If you like to read such things after listening to them, here you can find, for example, screenplays of all three films from the 'Before' Trilogy: Before Sunrise Screenplay, Before Sunset Screenplay, Before Midnight Screenplay.
If you are looking for new music, songs from his movies are definitely a good choice too.
“That’s the essence of what he cares about, that real life is good enough and it doesn’t need exaggeration. It’s not Wonder Woman – it’s a woman. The reason why these performances exist is because of his respect for Julie and Patricia, of him wanting to make room for them. A lot of men do it for men, but a lot of men don’t do it for women,” said once Linklater's court actor Ethan Hawke about his manner and approach to his work. That explains a lot.
That's probably all for today, although we could write and talk about this topic for hours—maybe another time, or write us your experiences with Linklater's work in the comments and let's grow this newsletter together.
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Matej and Nada