Richard Linklater

Infobox Actor
name = Richard Linklater


caption = Linklater at the Austin premiere of "Fast Food Nation"
birthname = Richard Stuart Linklater
birthdate = birth date and age|1960|7|30
location = Houston, Texas
occupation = Film Director, screenwriter, producer & actor
spouse = Christina Harrison
residence = Austin, Texas
yearsactive = 1989-Present
influenced = Kevin Smith Ethan Hawke
website = http://www.detourfilm.com/
academyawards = Nominated: Best Adapted Screenplay
2004 "Before Sunset"

Richard Stuart Linklater (born July 30, 1960) [According to the State of Texas. "Texas Birth Index, 1903-1997". At Ancestry.com] is an Academy Award-nominated American film director and screenwriter.

Biography

Early life

Linklater was born in Houston, Texas. He studied at Sam Houston State University and left midway through his stint in college to work on an off-shore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. While working on the rig he read a lot of literature, but on land he developed a love of film through repeated visits to a repertory theater in Houston. It was at this point that Linklater realized he wanted to be a filmmaker. After his job on the oil rig, Linklater used the money he had saved to buy a Super-8 camera, a projector, and some editing equipment, and moved to Austin. It was there that the aspiring cineaste founded the Austin Film Society and grew to appreciate such stylized auteurs like Robert Bresson, Yasujiro Ozu, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Nagisa Oshima, and Josef Von Sternberg.

Career

Linklater founded the Austin Film Society in 1985 together with his frequent collaborator Lee Daniel, and is lauded for launching and solidifying the city of Austin as a hub for independent filmmaking.

For several years, Linklater made many short films that were, more than anything, exercises and experiments in film techniques. He finally completed his first feature, the rarely seen "It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books" (which is now available in the Criterion Collection edition of "Slacker"), a Super-8 feature that took a year to shoot and another year to edit. The film is significant in the sense that it establishes most of Linklater's preoccupations. The film has his trademark style of minimal camera movements and lack of narrative, while it examines the theme of traveling with no real particular direction in mind. These idiosyncrasies would be explored in greater detail in future projects.

To this end Linklater created Detour Filmproduction (an homage to the 1945 low budget film noir by Edgar G. Ulmer), and subsequently made "Slacker" for only $23,000. The film is an aimless day in the life of the city of Austin, Texas showcasing its more eccentric characters.

While gaining a cult following for his independent films, such as "Dazed and Confused", "Waking Life" and "A Scanner Darkly", his mainstream comedies, "School of Rock" and the remake of "Bad News Bears", have gained him wider recognition. In 2003, he wrote and directed a pilot for HBO with Rodney Rothman called $5.15/hr, about several minimum wage restaurant workers. The pilot deals with themes later examined in "Fast Food Nation". In 2004, the British television network Channel 4 produced a major documentary about Linklater, in which the filmmaker frankly discussed the personal and philosophical ideas behind his films. "St Richard of Austin" was presented by Ben Lewis and directed by Irshad Ashraf and broadcast on Channel 4 in December 2004 in the UK. In 2005, Linklater was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his film "Before Sunset".

Many of Linklater's films take place in one day, a technique that has gained popularity in recent years. "Slacker", "Dazed and Confused", "Tape", "Before Sunrise", and "Before Sunset" are examples of this method. Two of his recent films ("A Scanner Darkly" and "Waking Life") both display a similar animated style. To create this effect, Linklater shot and edited both movies into a completed live-action state, then employed a team of artists to 'trace over' individual frames (a technique known as "rotoscoping"). The result is a distinctive 'semi-real' quality, praised by such critics as "Roger Ebert" (in the case of "Waking Life") as being original and well-suited to the aims of the film.

His latest film, "Fast Food Nation", is an adaptation of the best selling book that examines the local and global influence of the United States fast food industry. The film was released in North America on 17th November 2006 and in Europe on 23rd March 2007.

Despite his popularity and ability to direct high paying Hollywood productions, Linklater remains in Texas and refuses to live or work in Hollywood for any extended period of time.

Filmography

* "Woodshock" (1985)
* "It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books" (1989)
* "Slacker" (1991)
* "Heads I Win/Tails You Lose" (1991)
* "Dazed and Confused" (1993)
* "Before Sunrise" (1995)
* "subUrbia" (1996)
* "The Newton Boys" (1998)
* "Waking Life" (2001)
* "Tape" (2001)
* "Live from Shiva's Dance Floor" (2003)
* "School of Rock" (2003)
* "$5.15/hour" (2004)
* "Before Sunset" (2004)
* "Bad News Bears" (2005)
* "A Scanner Darkly" (2006)
* "Fast Food Nation" (2006)
* "Inning By Inning: A Portrait Of A Coach" (2008)
* "Me and Orson Welles" (2009)
* "Boyhood" (~2013)

References

External links

*
* [http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/linklater.html Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database]
* [http://www.reverseshot.com/legacy/summer04/index.html "Reverse Shot" online interview with Linklater and career overview]
* [http://www.mindjack.com/interviews/linklater1.html Mindjack interview with Linklater]
* Channel 4 - [http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/A/art_show/linklater/ The Art Show] , documentary film by Irshad Ashraf
* [http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/index.jhtml?name=movies&id=1535033 'A Scanner Darkly': Reality Bites] Interview with Richard Linklater, MTV Overdrive.
* [http://www.avclub.com/content/node/49451 Richard Linklater interview with The A.V. Club]
* [http://www.filmlinc.com/fcm/ja06/richardlinklater2.htm "Film Comment" interview with Linklater]
* [http://www.fbi945movies.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=143918 Radio Interview with Richard Linklater] from FBi 94.5 Sydney Australia
* [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5545651 Richard Linklater, Directing 'Darkly']
* [http://www.premiere.com/moviereviews/2867/catching-up-with-richard-linklater.html Catching up with Richard Linklater] at [http://www.premiere.com/ Premiere.com]
* [http://www.filmmuseum.at/jart/projects/fm/main.jart?rel=de&content-id=1167729168564 Retrospective on Richard Linklater] at the [http://www.filmmuseum.at/ Austrian Film Museum]
* [http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A629432 Linklater directing "Inning by Inning: A Portrait of a Coach"]