bildungsroman

thoughts on Richard Linklater's Boyhood:

1. the conspicuous role of music in creating atmosphere - like a diegetic time capsule (i'm sure i wasn't the only one in the theater last night who felt transported back to a certain time... for me it was college)
2. the hair! Patricia Arquette's hair in particular (gorgeous!). the film was such a tremendous feat, can you imagine planning a 12-year filming project, getting all the footage you need, planning ahead enough knowing there will be no going back as time marches ever onward? obviously the actors were playing characters within a story prepared for the film, but the mind-blowing thing about it for me is that over 12 years, there must have been some blurring of those lines. for instance, with the hair, i imagine Linklater had to allow the actors to change their appearance as needed, for personal and professional purposes, so i assume all hair choices were made totally independent of the film. so, that was "Ethan Hawke"'s goatee. and can you imagine playing a "character" for 12 years? i assume, at some point, you have to become your character/ your character is you. take, for instance, Samantha's character: aspects of her personality remained constant throughout the film, to the point that you have to believe you are seeing Lorelei Linklater on screen, and not just Samantha. (interesting tidbits learned from Manlius Art Cinema's owner Nat: US contract law prevented Linklater from having the actors contractually obligated to complete the 12-year project (US law stipulates a 7 year cap on contracts), so all filming was completed on nothing more than a handshake, basically. also, yes, that was Richard Linklater's daughter we saw growing up on screen... apparently she wanted her character killed off so she could walk away from it)
3. everyone enjoys laughing at Texas
4. Post-Bush and pre-Obama politics -- still funny to this day. three of my favorite jokes from the film: when Sam and Mason go canvassing for their dad and walk up to a house with a confederate flag hanging on the garage ("do i look like a guy who's gonna vote for Barack HUSSEIN Obama?! i'm entitled to shoot you for trespassing!"). they then go across the street to another house where an obnoxiously perky young mom explains she made her children t-shirts that say "my mama's for Obama." finally, Ethan Hawke using the story of Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol as a teen pregnancy allegory for abstinence and contraception.
5. life has no plot. appropriately, Boyhood was as rambling and aimless and surprisingly delightful as life
6. biggest surprise: never expected to like Ethan Hawke so much
7. there is something to be said about the role of video games and the constant companionship of digital entertainment, but i will leave it to others to articulate.