Richard Linklater: Dream Is Destiny

Linklater: So I got off the bus.

The thought crossed my mind, you know, just for a second

about not taking a cab at all.

But, you know, like, maybe walking

or bumming a ride or something like that.

You know, I'm kind of broke right now.

I should have done that, probably.

But just because that thought crossed my mind,

there now exists at this very second

a whole nother reality

where I'm at the bus station, you know,

and you're probably giving someone else a ride.

You know?

I mean, and that reality thinks of itself as this --

thinks of itself as the only reality, you know?

I mean, at this very second, I'm in that.

I'm back at the bus station, just hanging out,

you know, probably thumbing through a paper.

You know, say this beautiful woman just comes up to me,

just starts talking to me, you know?

Uh, she ends up offering me a ride.

You know, we're hitting it off.

Go play a little pinball.

And we -- we go back to her apartment.

I mean, she has this great apartment, you know.

I move in with her! You know?

And, see, if I -- say I have a dream some night

that I'm with some strange woman I've never met,

or I'm, you know, living at some place

I've never seen before, see,

that's just a momentary glimpse into this other reality

that was all created back there at the bus station.

You know?

Man

I should have stayed at the bus station.

We're just glad it's finished, that we all survived 12 years.

Pierson: What's beautiful to me about "Boyhood"

is that it encapsulates all the things

that he's been doing all along.

Coltrane: He had an idea and just kind of got lost in it

and did it, and he never really worried about,

"Is it gonna happen?"

Johansson: And the Spirit Award goes to...

Cruise: And the BAFTA goes to...

Kingsley: The Critics' Choice is...

Streep: And the Golden Globe goes to "Boyhood."

Pierson: You know, movies are really about time.

And Rick, he's been making movies that are about time.

And he has from the start.

Black: We have another call. Let's take that.

It's on line two. It's Robert.

Caller: Hello.

I'd like to compliment your gift.

For once, somebody not trying to make a film

with a bunch of explosions...

Linklater: There was an explosion.

Caller: ...blasts, a big body count or anything.

A film about people.

You know, and I'd really like to compliment you for that.

Linklater: Oh, well, thanks a lot.

I think that's what I'm mainly interested in, just in cinema.

Make films about real people

in real situations, more or less.

It was a film we could do

in our own neighborhood very inexpensively,

so it kind of grew out of our restrictions

and our local environment, I think.

Run through in here.

Woman: I didn't like the world.

Coltrane: He kind of has to construct a different world

to express what he feels about this one.

Man: I'm losing the light. Can we shoot?

Linklater: Okay. Let's get this in here.

Ron: Oh, it's gonna be six weeks.

Woman: What's six weeks, Ron?

Ron: Six weeks to get this scene shot.

Man #1: Let's go.

Woman: Are we running through this, or what?

Man #2: What angle is that? Man #3: What angle is that?

We're gonna do one run-through, and then we're gonna shoot it.

Linklater: Hey, we're gonna run through it one more time

and then put angles up, okay?

Pallotta: I remember the first time I saw "Slacker,"

it felt like a snapshot in time.

But I never would have imagined that it would have

a more universal appeal.

Smith: In 1991, making a movie anywhere

but New York or Los Angeles as an indie filmmaker,

that was unheard of.

Linklater: It was just a really kind of exciting time.

Like, a whole world had opened up.

Film had sort of taken hold of me as worth my time.

I was amazed looking back

how much patience I had.

It wasn't something that just came overnight.

Jesse: This is real life.

It's not perfect, but it's real.

Arquette: Rick wasn't making movies

according to the blockbuster standard.

Willis: Hey.

Arquette: I think he just isn't

willing to compromise. Wyatt: Loosey-goosey.

McConaughey: He's an athlete, and he's highly competitive.

Welles: Our business together is to create the best art we can.

Pallotta: I think you see,

with his body of work,

a sort of consistency and vision.

And it's really amazing how he's been able to navigate

his stories and in his way.

Girl: The moment seizes us.

Mason: Yeah.

Linklater: It's a lot of work,

and people don't want to hear that.

No one wants to think how they would have to alter their life.

Man: Rolling.

Hawke: Rick is not looking through Hollywood's eyes.

he doesn't care how Hollywood sees him.

He's -- It's a valuable tool. He loves Hollywood.

He doesn't need anybody else to make his dreams come true.

Linklater: All right, action!

Black: When you see his process, you don't go,

"How the does he do it?

He's a mad genius!

If only I could think like he thinks!"

When you see his process, you go,

"Oh, it's just hard work."

Linklater: This is the sole surviving thing.

Like, having lost absolutely everything in my archive,

this is the non-archivable,

not worthy of even -- stuff I never thought twice about.

This is, like, college and just working offshore

and moving to Austin and trying --

Like, the early film stuff.

Just, like, I'm writing scripts without even a film --

just by hand and stuff.

It's -- They're pretty -- pretty funny.

It was kind of embarrassing.

I think this is as far as it got, I would think.

It was all these things.

Then I realized, "Oh, I'm not ready

to actually make a movie-movie yet."

And then by the time I was, this was, like,

no longer something I was interested in expressing.

You know, just, "Eh."

Eh?

Black: "The screen is filled with a pair of hands

fingering a deck of cards.

The hands flip a card toward the camera and continue."

Linklater: See? I had some cool shots.

Black: It's a good shot.

Linklater: It was all about -- I had some cool slow motion.

It was all shots.

I was gonna -- But I ended up doing shorts

and getting that kind of crap out of my system.

Black: That's pretty amazing.

Linklater: Yeah, I -- You know,

I think I was always working on something.

Even though I wasn't ready,

it was all leading up to something.

You know, when you grow up in Huntsville, Texas,

it doesn't cross your mind, "Oh, I can make a film."

I thought, at best, wanted to be a novelist.

Yeah, I remember my --

my teenage ambition was to be a novelist and to...

And also a Major League Baseball player.

I was serious about it. I was reading and writing and --

I realize now, looking back,

I just was trying to express something,

you know, trying to express myself,

and writing felt like the only way.

Jacque Linklater: As he got older and then we did notice,

"Can I go stay a couple nights in the cabin in the woods?"

And he was going to write a book or do --

Chuck Linklater: Do a biography of Dostoevsky,

which is pretty unusual for a high-school senior.

He was one of these sharp kids

that would kind of pick up on anything.

With Rick, he would do something on his own.

And all of a sudden, out of nowhere,

comes this express interest in something.

Tricia Linklater: We have an older sister, Susan.

I'm in the middle.

And Rick is the youngest.

All very close Catholic family.

My parents stayed married for 12 years.

I was 9 when they divorced and Rick would have been 8

and we moved with Mom up to Huntsville,

a much smaller town between Houston and Dallas,

with 15,000 people and one stop light.

Prisons and farms and ranches --

Huntsville was just, you know, much more rural.

And we were in this town with one movie theater.

Back then, kids just did what they were told.

And you -- you weren't allowed

to have a lot of opinions about it.

It's just like, "Well, this is what we're doing.

We're moving and you're leaving all your friends

and here's our new house and here's your new school

and you'll figure it out."

Linklater: I drifted into a playwriting class,