2.02.2005
what bothers me about richard linklater...
... is that he treats "poignancy" as if it were an exploitation genre.
...yes, i just watched before sunset... and yes, following his insufferable waking life, i sorta wanted to hate it. but what bothers me, i hope, is deeper than simply an art-dude aversion to sentiment. i love, for example, cameron crowe's humble and well-intended say anything. i want to describe where i think linklater goes wrong, & i apologize if i seem fickle and reactionary (i really think i'm not)...
in sunset, as in the majority of linklater stuff i've seen, what really irks me is the immense choreography that goes into his personal version of "sincerity." his films always strike me as existing in some sort of "reality drag"-- a hyper-real world of constant epiphanies which i, as a spectator, am under strict obligation to admire. linklater takes the little insights that make life meaningful, and crams a billion of them into some sort of emo-philosophical mixtape. he disguises his own coercive presence with long camera shots, everyday settings, plotlessness and digressive dialogue-- arriving at a kind of "reality chic." inevitably, i end up feeling an inverse manipulation. the artiface of a linklater film arises out of his oppressive desire to escape it.
the presence of ethan hawke, of course, doesn't help. as an actor, hawke combines the hot-shot anti-charisma of tom cruise with the overblown, artsy neurosis of quentin tarantino. it's hard to listen to him when he won't stop moving his hands. julie delphy swims against tide and manages to find the film's few charming moments (walking up the stairs at the end, for example). but inevitably the ghost of linklater posesses her, and as soon as she's found a certain stride, she's shuffled off to the next poignant revelation.
my frustration with this film doesn't arise out of cynicism. i believe in love, i believe that two people can spend a decade wondering about what happened to one another, etc. what i don't believe is that life's romantic majesty springs forth at a rapid-fire pace. what offends me is the way linklater constructs, engineers and eventually consumes my potential sense of wonder. in a film like before sunset, the spectator is spoon fed the sort of soapy, metaphysical fantasy he/she has been dreaming of since that first day at the liberal arts college. but there is no air to breathe in this world; no space to contemplate what is occurring. linklater is so busy orchestrating the everyday that he forgets its deep and meaningful boredom. he dismisses the real-deal poignancy of hesitation and deep-rooted conflict (note how hawke's poor son is brushed aside with a few shallow lines about "what he's willing to sacrifice for him," etc.). he leaves you with the rhetoric of sentiment with little indication of the layered, laborious and often brilliant process of legitmately constructing it.
...yes, i just watched before sunset... and yes, following his insufferable waking life, i sorta wanted to hate it. but what bothers me, i hope, is deeper than simply an art-dude aversion to sentiment. i love, for example, cameron crowe's humble and well-intended say anything. i want to describe where i think linklater goes wrong, & i apologize if i seem fickle and reactionary (i really think i'm not)...
in sunset, as in the majority of linklater stuff i've seen, what really irks me is the immense choreography that goes into his personal version of "sincerity." his films always strike me as existing in some sort of "reality drag"-- a hyper-real world of constant epiphanies which i, as a spectator, am under strict obligation to admire. linklater takes the little insights that make life meaningful, and crams a billion of them into some sort of emo-philosophical mixtape. he disguises his own coercive presence with long camera shots, everyday settings, plotlessness and digressive dialogue-- arriving at a kind of "reality chic." inevitably, i end up feeling an inverse manipulation. the artiface of a linklater film arises out of his oppressive desire to escape it.
the presence of ethan hawke, of course, doesn't help. as an actor, hawke combines the hot-shot anti-charisma of tom cruise with the overblown, artsy neurosis of quentin tarantino. it's hard to listen to him when he won't stop moving his hands. julie delphy swims against tide and manages to find the film's few charming moments (walking up the stairs at the end, for example). but inevitably the ghost of linklater posesses her, and as soon as she's found a certain stride, she's shuffled off to the next poignant revelation.
my frustration with this film doesn't arise out of cynicism. i believe in love, i believe that two people can spend a decade wondering about what happened to one another, etc. what i don't believe is that life's romantic majesty springs forth at a rapid-fire pace. what offends me is the way linklater constructs, engineers and eventually consumes my potential sense of wonder. in a film like before sunset, the spectator is spoon fed the sort of soapy, metaphysical fantasy he/she has been dreaming of since that first day at the liberal arts college. but there is no air to breathe in this world; no space to contemplate what is occurring. linklater is so busy orchestrating the everyday that he forgets its deep and meaningful boredom. he dismisses the real-deal poignancy of hesitation and deep-rooted conflict (note how hawke's poor son is brushed aside with a few shallow lines about "what he's willing to sacrifice for him," etc.). he leaves you with the rhetoric of sentiment with little indication of the layered, laborious and often brilliant process of legitmately constructing it.
