The Florida Project (2017)

The Florida Project

At the Gates of the Magic Kingdom

"Stymie, where are we going?" 

"I don't know, brother, but we're on our way!”

- Our Gang film "Free Wheeling

“It’s about drama”

- Christopher Rivera, child actor who played Scooty. Response to interview question, “what is “The Florida Project” about?”

Sean Baker’s “The Florida Project” takes its title from a play on words. Project” is US slang for public housing as well as being part of “working titles” while films are in production. The “project” in question is a series of motels for homeless families located on the outskirts of Disney World. The movie is a portrait of the “guests”. The single moms, grandmothers, children and elderly pass their days in the shadow of a heliport, which shuttles VIPs to the Magic Kingdom. The divide between the dispossessed and the state of the art amusement park is highlighted in the lapsarian landscape of crumbling buildings that suggest happier times. Disney World is chockablock with top notch hotels and period buildings representing many worlds. The shops on the other side are decorated in garish re-creations of their wares. The orange drink stand is in the shape of… an orange. The toy store has an oversized wizard jutting from the facade. These artistic troupes were in vogue decades ago at the dawn of the the automobile age, before established eye-catching symbols such as Mickey Mouse ears or McDonald’s Arches. There are no successful franchise businesses on these street, further cementing this neighborhood as a land that time forgot… or more precisely, would prefer to forget. The occupants are overt outcasts. The small businesses and coterie of motel and social service workers are bound by lack of opportunity rather than a burning desire to associate with their clientele. The exception might be the occasional visits from church groups distributing food. Aside of the angels of mercy, no one chooses to own, or check into, a faded purple colored motor-lodge named “Paradise”. Baker tells the story of economic refugees trapped in a cruel system. Despite the subject, this is a strangely joyous film.

Dramatic features about underclass children focus on pain and sorrow. One need only think of last year’s breakthrough movie “Moonlight”, also set in the slums of Florida. The first of that film’s three segments shows the terrified, exploited boy literally hiding from his tormentors. Over time he takes refuge in the nearby ocean, where his mentor teaches him to swim. Baker’s story is, metaphorically, built around that therapeutic beach. It is a portrait of the defiant, invincibility of children. His success is due largely to the young actress Brooklynn Prince, whose portrayal of the Moonee is the cornerstone of “The Florida Story”. The writer/director presents her and the other characters with the deftness of a beloved mentor touching on an unpleasant topic. The first fifteen minutes have the lightheartedness of a modern day “Little Rascals” episode, albeit with more explicit language and stronger defiance of authority figures. Moonee and her sidekick, a young boy named Scooty, are caught spitting on a car from a balcony of the motel. They are confronted by the vehicle’s owner, a grandmother caring for a young girl their age named Jancey. We are soon introduced to the authority figure Bobby , a benevolent hotel manger, brilliantly underplayed by Willem Dafoe (note: he is the only recognizable star amongst this exceptional cast). The reconciliation, brokered by Bobby, requires that the offending children clean up the mess. The grandmother and Moonee’s mother, Halley, taunt each other about their lack of parental ability while their charges clean up. Despite the adult discord Jancey is charmed by Moonee and Scooty. They become fast friends. The trio begin a series of adventures that capture life outside the kingdom. The director hides his laser focus on building sympathy for this unlikely group of heroes in an air of serendipity. The audience is lulled into caring, not just about the children.

Moonee’s mother, Halley, has no capacity for taking responsibility and acting as an adult. In the hands of a less talented filmmaker she might seem a caricature of the underclass. Thankfully the audience can see beyond her outrageous antics. Although, at times, it is a challenge. At one point she is angered by Bobby. She stands in front of the Motel office in full view of everyone. She reaches into her crotch and pastes her maxi pad on the glass window.  And yet… the audience takes her side in her meetings with the indifferent bureaucracy, mall cops or the unsympathetic neighboring hotel owner. In this last instance a middle aged East Indian woman refuses her entrance to her newly acquired motel. The genius of Baker is there is also empathy for the owner. We might make the same decision. This vignette also highlights the insanity of a system. Willem Dafoe must evict the residents every so often to prevent the tenant from establishing legal residency (i.e. are given rights to the motel property). There is a monthly ritual of the mother and daughter being brought down the street a $35 overnight stay in a neighboring motel. Things go off course when the new owner raises the rent to $45 and refuses Halley’s voucher. Bobby is called into to broker the dispute. He personally puts up the money. Unfortunately Halley’s insults have generated so much acrimony she is denied entrance…. leading to more cursing and her chef d’oeuvre, pouring soda all over the lobby. She and Moonee take refuge for the night in the grandmother’s room… the woman whose car was spat on in the opening sequence.

Baker never gives speeches but lets the intricacy of the alliances and absurdity of the rules tell the story. The genuineness of the interactions is fueled by careful preparation. This director has brought John Cassavetes improvisational prowess to a new generation. That pioneering filmmaker, with films such as “Shadows”, “A Woman Under the Influence”, “The Killing of a Chinese Bookie”, gave American cinema the dynamism of documentary with the thrill of a dramatic feature. Baker might sacrifice the crispness of a conventional fiction film cinematography, but the honesty of the performances more than makes up for the occasional obscured facial expression. Having the actors wired by radio microphones gives the filmmaker two basic choices for coverage. Baker employs a wide shot, in which the action unfolds in a panorama. The other approach is to have the camera operator follow the players. Generally the strategy worked, although there are moments that begged for standard camera “set ups”. The final scene with Moonee and Scooty would have been stronger had there been a clear view of the expression of the figure who triggered their estrangement. Overall, however, the rendering of the people in the many tableaus rank with the real life drama delivered by the seminal documentary about homeless children, “Streetwise”. There is a moment in Martin Bell’s masterpiece where a father places a soda can on the coffin of his dead son while he grieves his loss. Although Halley might rise to that level of inappropriateness, there are many adults who are paradigms of virtue. 

Willem Dafoe, the motel manager, is a force of quiet calm amidst the maelstrom of broken people and appliances. He fixes dishwashers, brokers disputes, protects the children from pedophiles, adheres to the owners demands, represents the “guest’s” interest…. all in a day’s work. He often sits looking at the old black and white surveillance monitors as a benevolent big brother/shrink/doctor/handyman. His gracious demeanor to society’s cast offs, for example the elderly woman who insists on drinking topless by the pool, channels a bodhisattva’s well of universal respect for all living things. He is even polite to a flock of large whooping cranes that meander in the parking lot. He gently shoos them away from the unforgiving human wildness into the comprehensible wilderness. He is not alone in his quiet decency. Ashley, the mother of Scooty, balances being a single parent and working as a waitress in a diner. She is repeatedly bringing food to Ashley and the children the through the back door of the restaurant. This is in return for Halley’s “babysitting”. Ashley is well aware of the limits of her friend’s abilities to supervise anyone, let alone a group of boisterous children. This is one of many tough choices she faces while trying to balance the demands of holding a job and raising a child.

Ashley falling out with Halley is a pivotal to the story. It illustrates the vulnerability of being on the cusp of losing everything. All the guests live by the whim of indifferent outside forces. Lives can be overturned by an angry motel owner, an anonymous phone call to the authorities (The Police or the Florida Department of Children and Families). The identity of who is responsible for an accidental fire leads to a potentially devastating revelation that could potentially jeopardizes Ashley’s custody and housing. In a middle class setting this event would provoke a heart to heart amongst the parents. In a world where blame can be weaponized to provoke and unforgiving bureaucracy, the only course of action is silence, coupled with seemingly cruel actions. Moonee and Scooty are no longer permitted to play and Ashley and Halley become mortal enemies. Halley’s lack of appropriateness is exponentially triggered by feeling slighted. She escalates the situation leading to disaster on all fronts. The director genius is showing all sides. The audience understands Ashley’s harsh isolation is born of shielding her housing and child. At the same time Halley’s livid reaction to suddenly being shunned is equally comprehensible. This is a woman who, in her heart, means well. She is capable of extraordinary acts of kindness. There is a sequence where she takes her charges to an overlook in the woods for a free view of the magic kingdom’s fireworks show. One of the children has a birthday and she tells the star-struck little girl that the pyrotechnics are all for her while giving her a cupcake with a candle. Does this act of love mitigate the choice of hitchhiking with two little girls to a remote wooded area? Probably not. But it is safe to say this child’s joy surpassed anything felt by the myriad of middle class kids on the other side of the wall. Ditto for the appreciation Moonee will feel for the buffet brunch, which her mother “arranges” when she realizes the end is near. Through a middle class lens this is a reckless act of theft. It is conceivable, however, that a middle aged Moonee will look back on her mother’s thievery in the light of kindness spurred on by desperation. This assumes she will live to see middle age.

It is important to note the fate of the child star of the extraordinary Brazilian film, “Pixote”, which documents the harrowing abuse of small children in the gritty favelas. The film was made with street children. Ironically there is a moment in “The Florida Project” where a wealthy Brazilian couple is accidentally booked into the wrong “Magic Castle” motel for their honeymoon. Moonee and Jancey grab their bags looking for tips. The new bride turns to her husband and screams in Portuguese, “you bring me to a place with stray children?”. It is hard to know if the sub title translation was accurate but certainly the attitude towards street kids was akin to our view of “stray cats.” Back in their native land the star of “Pixote” was dead at the age of 19. Killed by the police, who have been accused of outright extermination of dispossessed children. This is the pall that hovers over “The Florida Project” despite Moonee’s smile. 

The United States does not have sanctioned death squads, but the institutional treatment of the homeless might produce the same result. Despite the children’s levity, every unaccompanied adventure on busy streets, every exploration of an abandoned building, every foray into the alligator infested swamps,  every visit to an impaired neighbors’ room…  is a footstep away from abduction or serious injury. This stands in stark contrast to the shielded children on the other side of the “wall”. The final images of this film are the two best friends gleefully breaking on through to the other side. It is reminiscent of Dorothy and her misfits entering the Emerald City. The magic castle is the centerpiece, but the real action is the difference between the little girls and the other children. The pair runs by a phalanx of families posing together with the iconic fortress in the background. Moonee and Jancey are as exuberant as all the other kids. To a passerby everyone is indistinguishable…. and therein lies the tragedy. Hopefully these metaphorical sisters will live to be able to tell their children about the experience. If they are fortunate they will follow the wage slave drudgery of Ashley, rather than Halley’s drug-fueled hustle. Either way they will always have their afternoon in Disney World. We have been blessed to see their brief trip to heaven…. but we are cursed to know what keeps them outside the magic kingdom.    

Birdman (2014)

Birdman (2014)

The Bird is the Word

“This portrait of an artist as a middle aged man is the most brilliant, varied and entertaining movie I’ve seen since Citizen Kane” 

― Dwight MacDonald, original Esquire review of Fellini’s 8 1/2 entitled “Obvious Masterpiece”

Imagine the genius involved in melding the mid-life angst of Fellini’s 8 1/2, the raw emotion of Cassavetes’ “Opening Night” and the existential scope of Shakespeare. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s “Birdman” is that film. The reward for his efforts was a half empty theater on a Saturday night at the hight of the Christmas Movie season. The exceptionally long lines at the multiplex were for “Penguins of Madagascar” and “The Hungergames: Mockingjay Pt. 1”. Ironically one of the major themes in Inarritu’s work is the pecuniary disadvantages of retaining artistic integrity. Poets and potters are rarely in a position where the bottom line effects their vision. Filmmakers and actors must wrestle with mammon. Broadway audiences have enjoyed seeing Patrick Stewart as Prospero and Bryan Cranston as LBJ, but those opportunities were born their work as Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Walter White. The magic of Inarritu’s vision is to acknowledge the seduction of the latter while presenting the arduousness of the former. It is not enough to deride being a matinee idol without acknowledging its intoxicating allure.  Despite “Birdman’s” portraying the battle between temporal gratification and spiritual fulfillment it avoids the trap of sermonizing.  It breaks from the narrow confines of squabbling egocentric thespians imprisoned a NY theater to become a universally hilarious koan. 

The film opens with letters being arranged and forming short questions and answers:

And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.

The writer Raymond Carver wrote these words as his epitaph. Riggan, played by Michael Keaton, is “Birdman’s” central character. He has decided to adapt a Carver story for the Broadway stage. The film is anchored around the play’s debut. Riggan’s theatrical qualifications lie in his past screen glory as the action-hero Birdman. The opening titled conversation is interspersed with two brief obscure images. Are those sea creatures on a beach? Is that a shooting star or a crashing aircraft? The first visually clear sequence is Riggan FLOATING in the air in his underwear in a lotus position.The camera holds on him in the dingy room. There is something comically absurd about this image that plays against the initial highbrow arthouse seriousness of life questions and indecipherable images. Inarritu will tell his truth with a smile, a laugh and a hearty dose of magical realism. He also emphasizes absolute precision.  There is a formidable technical prowess to Inarritu’s team. Although the action might appear as carefree as a Cassavetes’ improvisation, the lighting, sound and camerawork DEMAND everyone hit their marks with quartz-like precision. A half step in the wrong direction would put an actor out of frame. A misdirected head turn would compromise the audio. But the images and sound aren’t merely recorded. The camera empathizes with the action to the point where it becomes a silent narrator. This is best illustrated in the films rare moments of repose. It is as someone suddenly found a tripod to rest the breathless chorus. We see this in the opening shot of Riggan floating, the many dressing room scenes with the ex-wife or the other actresses, the sudden half minute halt in the hallway to acknowledge the distance applause, or the masterful slow choreography of the confrontation with the daughter.  The effect is to physically bring the audience into the moment. Reading a script of this movie would be the equivalent of trying to understand a ballet through paper-based dance notation. Kudos to the brave producers who backed this project. They were obviously betting on the man and not the written word. They won.

In this film each seemingly random sequence contains the overall themes writ in miniature akin to the way each of our bodies DNA cell’s holds a master blue-print. Here is a small example. Our hero stumbles into a seedy, storefront liquor store which consists of a narrow hallway of christmas lights and a bullet proof glass booth which protects the clerk from the clientele. During the transaction we hear a man raging in the distance. On the grim sidewalk Riggan encounters the source of the howling. A down and out street performer screaming the “Sound and Fury” speech. They lock eyes and street-Macbeth morphs into a desperate actor channeling the Beatles “Paperback Writer”. The Scottish King can do it softer or louder or more colorful or less bombastic. Riggan ignores the street royal and fumbles on in a boozy haze. The only thing that differentiates him from the busker is his stint as the Birdman, which he carries as an albatross around his neck. But that hated role has given him the ability to make the daring move into being a ‘real’ artist with his adaption of Carver. Yet this shot at trying to be genuine might lead him to being destitute and obscure… or worse yet… force him to ‘sell out’ by agreeing to do “Birdman IV”. Is it better to be Birdman than an unemployed actor screaming Shakespeare to annoyed pedestrians? These are thoughts to ponder when Riggan encounters his daughter in the green room. She is a attractive young woman who is recently out of rehab. She  seeks redemption as her father’s Girl Friday during the opening. Suddenly Riggan must assume the role of parent. Is there a smell of marijuana? Has she been using? Again?! Her denials lead to his discovering the remnants of a small joint. He castigates his daughter with all the self-righteousness of an overwhelmed father. How could she betray him at his most desperate hour? Does she have any idea what this show means to him? This prompts the daughter to erupt in a rage rooted in decades of abandonment while the Birdman was flying high. She excoriates him with the most damning weapon - the honest truth. It is delivered with the sound and fury reserved for close family members during the holiday season.  He doesn’t give a damn about his daughter. He is a vain fool who has squandered his riches and is presently embarking on a deluded quest to be “taken seriously”. His choice of Carver exhibits his arrogance born of ignorance. No one cares about him or his pathetic play. To echo Macbeth, he is NOTHING and NO ONE MATTERS. The camera has been patiently taking in the wrath with a steady close up of Emma Stone. A lesser director would have immediately cut to a reaction shot from Michael Keaton. Inarritu keeps the camera in place to absorb HER reaction. We see the brutal truth-teller melt into the concerned daughter. The shot holds in a silence born of a lifetime of pain. The camera follows her tender steps forward revealing a close-up of our crestfallen former super hero. She leaves after he re-assures her he is okay. He ends up smoking the remainder of the joint. The heaviness smoothly shifts to comedy without diluting the power of the scene. Then we return to the bustle of staging the play.  The show MUST go on.

Riggan’s daughter is the least of his adversaries. The fully costumed alter-ego of Birdman harangues Keaton with reminders of the absurdity of his play both artistically and financially. His proposition is clear: participating in Birdman IV is the key to salvation. He may be a crazy make-believe cartoon character but his advice is sage. What sane person would walk away from millions to endure the endless slings and arrows? The critic from the “paper of record”, whom he encounters  in a bar near the theater, vows to destroy his play. Ironically she agrees with his alter ego and thinks he deserves the bird suit. She is offended by a washed up movie star believing he can simply book a theater and produce ‘real’ art. She promises to make him an example in case the minions of West Coast self-entitled superstars get any more ideas. Inarritu builds tension as her bad review will sink the play. 

If all this isn’t enough there is the ex-wife reminding him to look after his daughter and a co-star love interest who is and then isn’t pregnant with his child. Did I mention that his male co-star has been stricken by a falling light? Don’t worry the leading lady’s husband Mike, played by Ed Norton, to the rescue. He is a savior but, this is Inarritu’s world, he is also Shiva, the God of Destruction. His insightful criticism of the script and a dogged work ethic are wonderful. Then, during the first pre-view, he breaks character on stage in front of the audience and berates Riggan. Our hero’s crime was preventing Mike from drinking real gin on stage instead of water. Mike lets him have it with all the candor of a raging drunk. His philosophy is simple: nothing matters except what happens ON STAGE. How dare anyone mess with his prop! His stagecraft also include raping his co-star, who is also his wife, in order to give a scene more ‘reality’. Since there is no life outside of the play itself, he has absolutely no idea why she is upset. Inarritu has him burst in on her having a spontaneous lesbian dalliance with Riggan’s girlfriend. The human reaction would be to close the door and walk away. But Mike’s impenetrable narcissism leads him to give a “guess you’re not ready to talk” comment followed by a giddy shrug to acknowledge her straying. While most would be jealous he is incredulous, why would anyone desire anyone but him? Another of his victims is Riggan’s daughter whom he entraps with heartfelt speeches about “only being alive onstage”. She, despite the shell of toughness, is taken by his apparent legitimacy. Mike ends up getting into fisticuffs with Riggan, but not about his seducing his vulnerable daughter. Birdman is furious because Mike upstaged him and has landed the cover of the New York Times’ Arts and Leisure section. All the art-speak is revealed as a calculated off stage plot to establish himself as the ‘outsider’ actor. One suspects had he encountered the busker giving a good rendition of the Shakespeare soliloquy he would have punched him in the face to eliminate the competition…. but only if no one else was looking. After all, discretion is the better part of valor. Despite being a feckless cruel sociopath, Mike is absolutely charming and a captivating performer. His intimate friends and family might know the truth, but to the vast majority of people he fulfills Carver’s wish of being, “much beloved on this earth”.

There are never ending dualities in “Birdman”, the private vs public, truth vs portraying truth, celebrity vs infamy, having artistic integrity vs. selling out, onstage vs. offstage….  all endlessly reenacted but brilliantly rendered to inoculate the film audience from repetition. The actual closing of the Carver adaptation is a case in point. The scene, which entails our hero discovering his lover in bed with his co-star, is acted out numerous times with different colorings. Despite the cliche reaction to the romantic betrayal, our hero commits suicide on stage with a pistol to his head, the histrionic acting is fresh with every reading of the identical lines. In one instance one might reflect on the contrast between Riggan’s overwrought jealousy and Mike’s real life indifference. In another we might pity Naomi Watts as this is the scene in which her husband tries to rape her. In another we might reflect on the fun of witnessing melodrama or the thematic similarity between the busker’s Macbeth speech and Riggan’s pulp novel rant.  The endless thematic stew is most memorable during the final preview. Our hero decides to calm his nerves with a cigarette in the alleyway next to the theater. The door closes on his robe trapping him and forcing an escape in his underwear. The only way back is through TIMES SQUARE. As our Odysseus makes his journey to the home theater he is thronged by crowds of onlookers clutching cell phones, gawking at his near-nudity and yelling “It’s Birdman!”. The levels of irony are dizzying. Real life Michael Keaton, of Batman fame, is walking through the crossroads of the world. This spot also happens to be the epicenter of fame-obsessed show biz desperadoes clad cheap super-heroes costumes. Keaton, as Riggan, wades through the primordial soup of the modern entertainment business. Our Birdman enters the theater from the front of the house and delivers his lines from the orchestra seats in his underwear while miming the shot to his head with his finger. The audience roars approval. Who really needs special effects after all. His daughter informs him he’s trending on the internet while assuring him this is a good thing.  Our hero nervously feels the distance shrinking between himself and the Times Square wannabes.… or maybe even Birdman IV. But he has no time to worry… the show must go on. Sacrifices must be made. In the end the self-mutilated Riggan soars… or crashes. The critic is won over but more importantly so is his daughter. It begs the question about the cost of being beloved.

Cue the cymbals and bang the gongs. Everything that occurs in this film his accompanied by the jazz virtuoso percussionist Antonio Sanchez crashing away on his drum kit. In true magical realism style he even physically appears in the hallways of the theater. It’s the perfect soundtrack for the lives of peripatetic entertainers. These people bash through life in the hopes of being beloved. Once again it is wonderful to watch from the pit. Close ups are different. The tender embrace of the ex-wife and the daughter reveal all is forgiven in the end. It is hard to know if this is as it should be. Raymond Carver is a good example. There is more writing on his tombstone. His poem entitled “Gravy”. Here are a few lines:

Eleven years

ago he was told he had six months to live

at the rate he was going. And he was going

nowhere but down. So he changed his ways

somehow. He quit drinking! And the rest?

After that it was all gravy, every minute

of it,

Friends and family would eschew the term ‘gravy’ in describing the sum total of five decades. Carver died at the age of 50. Keaton’s character in “Birdman” speaks of his attempt to drown himself after his failed marriage. The moment was sparked by his wife catching him engaged in coitus with another woman. Obviously the Riggan’s  inspiration for his Carver adaptation. Unlike the lead in the play, his attempt at suicide was stymied by jellyfish in the water. Life is bad, but man-o-war stings can make cowards of us all. Inarritu paints all the pain with encyclopedic inspiration from past masters. It might be of academic interest to ponder if “Riggan" is linked with the Jamaican outlaw folk hero “Rhyging” from “The Harder They Come”.  Or to wonder about the similarity between Birdman’s guilty epiphany moment and Lawrence Oliver’s from “The Entertainer”. Knowing the references, however, is immaterial to enjoying the work. It does not matter that those jellyfish sprang from the grotesque sea creature from the close of “La Dolce Vita”. Inarritu is interested in the work itself and not simply being clever. This special film is not for specialists. It’s to be beloved by everyone who enjoys hearing a drum roll and and feeling a hardy laugh. The emotions can be tough, but we are safely in our seats. 

Let’s now celebrate our famous bird-men and women who live under the proscenium arch or on the screen. They take the edge off real life by living out their fantasies. A round of applause, whether they are reciting Shakespeare on empty streets, hustling tips in Times Square, starring in multi-million dollar features, singing to packed stadiums, strumming guitars in empty coffee houses…. Apparently when Inarritu first met Keaton to discuss the script the actor’s first question was, “Are you making fun of me?”. The answer is, of course. We can all thank Batman for having the courage to make a fool of himself. That is the bedrock of all art. Good and bad. It’s not easy for anyone… not even the superstars. On a sour note a bronx cheer to the PR men who filled the trailer of this film with explosions and a flying Michael Keaton. They purposefully tried to fool movie-goers into thinking this was some sort of action film. Then again how else could you escape the art-house ghetto and sustain a wide theatrical release. Michael Keaton knows the drill, and so does Mike his co-star. Honesty and artistic integrity are important. But we always must remember there is a price for being beloved on the earth.

Boyhood (2014)

Boyhood (2014)
Moments of Revolution

"What is the nature of the search? you ask. Really it is very simple; at least for a fellow like me. So simple that it is easily overlooked. The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life.” - Binx Bolling, in Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer

“Like all great discoveries, it is breathtakingly simple” - Binx’s Aunt


‘Boyhood’ is Richard Linklater’s much acclaimed, nearly three hour, feature film which documents the coming of age of a young American boy in a contemporary single parent family. The word ‘documents’ is rarely used in association with this type of fiction movie. This film is different. It is organized and produced in an unconventional manner having been shot over twelve years.The cast literally grows up before your eyes. This trope has been used in Michael Apted’s “Up” films. For over half a century the director has been returning to the same group of people to examine their progress (or lack thereof). Unlike this popular documentary, the draw of Linklater’s feature is more than witnessing people morph into adults. It is captivating to watch the cast of ‘Boyhood’ come of age but the real hook is the magic of omission. Ironically purposeful absence pushes the narrative into the sublime. Perhaps ‘narrative’ isn’t the right word choice as this ‘story’ is enmeshed in passing moments rather than plot points. The zeitgeist of this work fails to be captured in conventional terms. This speaks to its revolutionary nature.

Is this a dramatic film? Is it scripted? Was it conceived as a story focusing on the boy? Did the crucial form come from editing ad-libbed sequences? All these unusual questions and yet: ‘Boyhood’ is conventionally structured, traditionally photographed and chronologically told. This stands in stark contrast to game-changing directors of the past who freed stories from rigid scripts and pre-built sets. To name just two: John Cassavetes unbound the staid movie world with unscripted sequences shot in actual locations. Jean-Luc Godard was even more phrenetic and purposely jarred audiences by obscuring time and place.  Both these auteurs created beautiful, stylized, versions of reality but there was no mistaking their ground-breaking visions. Linklater is a quiet revolutionary. His oeuvre borrows Cassavetes hip vibrancy while ignoring Godard’s overt manipulation of reality. Make no mistake Linklater is equally subversive. He gently melds the playwright Thornton Wilder’s sense of vastness. The specter of Father Time rises from the mundane suburban landscapes. One might initially mistake ‘Boyhood’ for a conventional feature.  By the same logic one might assume “Our Town” is set small New England village. The journey, however, quietly slips from the provincial to the eternal. ‘Boyhood’  takes place on the familiar footing of track houses, highways, McMansions and institutional buildings. But don’t let the solid ground fool you. To paraphrase Dorothy: We are not in Texas anymore.

Most features rest on familiar conceits involving moving a story forward. This film opens with a ordinary lower middle class family consisting of: an overburdened mother, two squabbling children and a likable absent father. They experience the typical trials of striving Americans… dislocation, lack of money, never ending intra-family strife, substance abuse.… The usual tricks of wedding audiences to story lines and characters seamlessly drifts away as the film progresses. Here is the heart of the revolution: the small actions within the moment replace the predictable linear thread. We uncouple from the narrative and become personally involved with the overall lives of the protagonists. We are not seeing a movie. We are living with a family. As in real life we can only glimpse at the truth and never know what really happened. Things arrive and vanish without explanation. The echo of these experiences shapes what is it to come. To use a visual metaphor from ‘Boyhood’ : there are many moments when the children look out car windows to see their friends or step-siblings disappear in the distance. The conventional narrative thread would deliver meticulous explanations of the fate of their beloved companions. This approach would also relegate those who don’t deserve a full history to being merely background fill. In film terms: minor characters or extras don’t count. ‘Boyhood’ reverses that conceit. They are all that matter because, in the grand scheme, we are all extras. It is counter-intuitive to build meaning out of loose ends and walk-on characters. This is the radical nature of Linklater’s vision.

Even the bedrock notion that the players in this film are fictional ‘characters’ seems undone by the world outside the movie theater. Today, in real life as I wrote, National Public Radio ran a segment describing the release of Ethan Hawke’s “Black Album”.  This is a collection of songs performed by members of the Beatles after their breakup. Hawke made this compilation for his daughter. Linklater appropriated this moment and mixed it in the narrative. How does one categorize Hawke’s heartfelt speech to his son where he carefully unpacks the liturgy of four former apostles of music? He gave the same sermon to his daughter in real life. Are these ‘characters’ or actual people recreating their own lives? The illusionary answers are secondary to the raising of the question. What is truth? The ambiguous reality is further intertwined with a strange open-ended disappearing storyline. Here are some examples: The black clad mentally ill neighborhood boy who curses on command: seen once but forever etched in everyones’ mind. The high-school bullies who challenge the newbie in the bathroom evoking the endless torments of male adolescent rage: they threaten, curse and vanish. The chatty girl who coaxes our angst ridden anti-hero to a special party to meet her friend who has a crush on him: don’t know if he did… but he was asked. All these vignettes are interspersed with stunningly accurate dialogue and trends of the specific period. A Harry Potter book sale is featured complete with the kids in costume. There is a hilarious sequence documenting lawn sign posting during the Obama/ McCain election. The conversations amongst the characters has a startling real world intimacy. There is a sequence of our hero and his high school girlfriend discussing the merits of Facebook. He thinks it takes everyone away from ‘real life’. He also believes himself to be profound, original and different. He thinks she treasures his lone man uniqueness.  She is skeptical of his pronouncements but fails to press him too hard. She stays tethered to her phone. She also enjoys conventionality in dress and manner. The inevitable break up scene captures the absurdity of young people caught on the cusp of adulthood. This is all delivered with straightforward cinematography and no special effects or wardrobe enhancements. The genuineness of the dialogue and performance actually hides the meticulous artistry. If is as you were on a bus or in a restaurant and you witnessed these people living their lives. Detailed descriptions of most of the scenes approximate a recitation of events caught on surveillance cameras. The audience experience, however, generates the ecstasy of bearing witness to a masterful work of art.

This conveyor belt of seemingly random moments has the effect of being a Rorschach test for audience members’ own life experiences. Tolstoy’s famous remark rings true as witnessing Linklater’s creation evokes personal reflections on the unhappiness of one’s own family. Most feature films demand coalescing around a good/bad divide regarding character or plot. ‘Boyhood’ provokes very different discussions in each individual audience member. I personally was moved by the mother’s endless capacity to ‘soldier on’ and safeguard her children despite numerous mistaken life-choices. My film companion was nauseated by the never-ending finger-wagging towards American adolescents by adults who have little insight into their own lives. Once again neither view is wrong. There were so many universal touchstones it would be difficult to predict what series of magical moments would impact a typical viewer. Patrica Arquette’s physical reactions to her ex-husband’s half baked attempts to be emotionally supportive are exquisite.  She has harnessed all the pain of American single moms who do battle with absentee fathers’ boundless capacity for fecklessness. The expression on our young hero’s face while his step-father capriciously cuts off all his hair brings forth all the childhood tyranny experienced at the hands of cruel adults. These examples reveal the melancholy but Linkletter is far too good an artist to be morose. Life is tinged with sadness but great art manages to be honest and not fall into a morass of self-pity. This film is a comedy in the Chekovian sense. At times it is even ‘laugh out loud’ funny. No one will witness the children’s sudden visit to the religious, gun-toting step-grandparents and not crack a smile at parents’ emotional entanglements. This sequence is a movie version of the famous website, “Awkward Family Photos”.

Linklater shares the cojones and unshakable vision of cinema verite filmmakers who usually work in two man crews (sound and picture). The documentarians journey relies on a roll of the dice in capturing the unknown. Every project begins with the full knowledge that there might be nothing show for all the effort.  After spending thousands of days and dollars their subjects might  be uninteresting or unobtainable. Linklater’s bravery dwarfs these efforts in that he was organizing an army of production staff while tapping millions in financing: all predicated on the whims of children. In fact he even drafted his own daughter as one of the co-stars when she was literally a little girl. What if she, at the tender age of 10, decided she was no longer interested in Daddy’s dream? What if the co-stars had opted out of the project after a few years? How does one ensure a decade’s worth of commitment on an ephemeral premise? One can only imagine the facial expression of a seasoned Hollywood agent’: “you want my client for 12 years and you’re not sending me a script?” Probably could only to be matched by the grimaces of the producers when they tried to calculate their return on investment.

Some may carp that the work is too long. Others might criticize certain sequences for not measuring up to the high standards of acting and dialogue that comprise the bulk of the film. These are valid criticisms but reveal a myopicness married to conventional paradigms. These so called ‘blemishes’ oddly link the film to the major premise of ‘Boyhood’: this is life, plain and simple. It appears that way but in reality it is a skillfully imagined rendering born of a mastery of craft and a distinct vision. One of his radical decisions is to include seemingly superfluous material that would be verboten in most projects. But most films aren’t aiming as high. ‘Boyhood’ is asking fundamental questions that spur introspection.  Linklater treats his audience without condescension. He eschews dispensing sagacity on cue.

What kind of person dares to create a film such as ‘Boyhood’? The all encompassing scope combined with the logistics make career ending failure an almost certainty. Obviously the motivation cannot be grounded in penury fears or need for acceptance. Linklater, being a true artist, risked his professional life knowing he might be wrong. Most who embark on this journey share the fate of the supporting cast of ‘Boyhood’: they drift out of the picture and never reach the summit of Olympus. Some, such as Linklater, prevail. Based on the fierceness of his vision I would guess he would ally himself with those minions who were left vanquished on the mountainside.  Thematically ‘Boyhood’ shows that we are all in this together. Hard fought battles mesh together and obscure the specifics of a particular failure or triumph. A lauded academy trophy will eventually become a little noticed relic stuffed away in an office or museum... before it is forgotten and disappears.  Things always gravitate towards smallness. This is why truth lies in the grand spectrum of little moments. Banded together these droplets of memory form our eternal legacy and guard us from the nothingness of oblivion. It is futile to mark every rain storm and explain everything.  Many great artists fall into this trap. Audience-victims of Terrence Mallick’s late films (“Tree of Life”, “To the Wonder") know the pitfalls of attempting to compose “A Key to all Mythologies”.  These endeavors  always end in laborious indecipherable journeys. The real ‘key’ is to adopt a Shaker sense of simplicity while focusing on what is front and center. No need for explanation. It is arrogant to think you have answers. Just asks questions and let the audience experience personal affirmation; then get back to the business at hand.

In Linklater’s case this film will be a life’s work. It’s not over… merely the first installment. It redefines the much derided notion of soap-opera while retaining the gravitas of Marcel Proust’s “A Remembrance of Lost Time”. It is more approachable than most meditations on the human condition because it avoids the heaviness of epic drama while retaining its profundity. The closing scene says it all. There are no spoilers as this is life. We are not looking for pat endings or clever summations. Our anti-hero sits on a rock in a desert. It is the South West but it bears a resemblance to the East African Rift Valley, the area where homo sapiens first evolved.  Our anti-hero obviously has an interest in his new-found friend. They are both high on peyote. He is awkwardly trying to retain his teenage ‘cool’ while not wanting to be aloof. He wants her to like him. She is beautiful and clever and the vastness of the eternal surroundings highlights her wit and charm. He summons all his courage and says “it’s like its always right now”. Nothing could be dumber.. or more wise. It’s genius. Thank you Mr. Linklater for being brave and telling it like it is. We will get up every morning and look for your next installment. Maybe it will never come but we know that you’re working on it. We all are.