Richard Linklater “Dazed and Confused” Photo: Alamy
In the documentary about the making of “Dazed and Confused” — Richard Linklater A coming of age film set in the 1970s. Matthew McConaughey answered the question that actors are always asked: which of your films is your favorite? “I always say there’s nothing better than your first,” McConaughey said, answering himself.
Dazed and Confused, released in limited release in UK cinemas for its 30th anniversary, marked McConaughey's debut. He plays Wooderson, a former high school boyfriend who still hangs around the same old place — loading up, refusing to grow up and living for front row Aerosmith tickets.
McConaughey was a film student at the time and met a casting director in a Texas bar. In the very first scene McConaughey ever filmed—driving into a burger bar and punching a weird but radiant redhead—McConaughey coined his catchphrase: «Alright, alright, alright.» He came up with the phrase after some reflection on Wooderson's philosophy. “He does four things,” McConaughey explained. “It's about his car, getting high, rock 'n' roll and picking up chicks. And I say, “I'm in my car, high as a kite, listening to rock and roll… and here's a chick… three out of four.” Okay, okay, okay.
And McConaughey was indeed right: there really is nothing better than your first. Dazed and Confused takes place on the last day of school in the summer of 1976. It talks about the poignancy of life-affirming events — the first party, the first kiss, the first beer, the first treat, the first confrontation with bullies, the first fight, the first time you stay out later than expected — and the depth of youthful rebellion. “You need to keep living, man,” Wooderson says. «L-I-V-I-N.»
Although the film was not a success when it was released, it became a cult hit, embraced by audiences at midnight screenings and home video—viewers who saw themselves among the film's high school rabble. It's not so much 1970s nostalgia as it is 1990s nostalgia, thanks in part to a cast of the 1990s' newest unknowns and breakouts: Ben Affleck, Jason London, Milla Jovovich, Parker Posey, Joey Lauren Adams, Marissa Ribisi, Rory Cochrane, Adam Goldberg and Wiley Wiggins. Linklater intended Dazed and Confused to be an «anti-stalgic film» — which is somewhat ironic. “But it’s like trying to make an anti-war film,” he told The Guardian. “Just by portraying it, you make it funny.”
Dazed and Confused was Linklater's second film, following his quirky 20-year-old ensemble piece Slacker, another cult favorite. Dazed and Confused was his first studio film (he went on to make Before Sunrise, School of Rock and Boyhood). Linklater recalled that Universal executives were unsure about working with him, an artsy indie director. And Dazed and Confused was more experimental at first. The original idea was that the film would take place entirely in a car, with a gang of teenagers driving around listening to ZZ Top and smashing mailboxes. “I actually did it one night in this little town south of Houston with a friend,” Linklater said. “By the end of the evening we had driven 138 miles and never left the city.”
The upcoming film doesn't just take place in a car, although there isn't much of a story behind that. The action takes place in Austin, Texas. It's the last day of school. Incoming freshmen try to avoid the ritual hazing (American for «socially acceptable bullying») from the upperclassmen — boys get their butts spanked, girls are humiliated and sprayed with spices. That night, various high school kids — jocks, geeks, stoners, hooligans — drive around, get drunk, party, and look for a party (by smashing mailboxes).
“The characters are: They’re a collection of people and situations and things that I remember,” Linklater said at the time. “I was trying to reconcile the adult I am with the person I was from 14 to 17 years old, so in some ways it’s personal.”
Sean Andrews and Milla Jovovich in the movie «Dazed & Confused Credit: Alamy
The film's rebellious, tenacious spirit is captured in the struggle between the school's star quarterback, Randall Pink (Jason London), a lovable jock who doesn't play by the rules, and a football coach who wants Pink to sign a pledge: no alcohol, no drugs, no illegal activity. during the next season. In a film filled with stoner philosophy and the indomitable spirit of youth, whether Pink signs the pledge to «play ball» or not, it means coming to terms with something more: playing by my society's rules for the rest of my life, man.
«Dazed and Confused» came during a lull in teen cinema, after John Hughes' peak in the 1980s and before the «Scream» and «American Pie» generation. But he had some solid teenage credentials. Producer Sean Daniel has worked on American Graffiti, National Lampoon's Animal House, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and The Breakfast Club. Casting director Don Phillips was filming Animal House and Fast Times at Ridgemont High when he discovered Sean Penn. Linklater praised Phillips' role in shaping Class of '76. Many of the actors, according to Linklater, were «plucked from obscurity» in Austin, Texas.Wiley Wiggins played Mitch, a freshman who was taken along on the trip. At that time he was only 15 years old. Co-producer Anne Walker-McBay handed him an audition flyer as he left a café in Austin. “It was a very interesting process,” says Wiggins, now an artist and game designer. “In the beginning there were a lot of what I guess you would call workshops. The script was very fluid and organic — it took some time before it was brought to a fixed state during filming.» Anthony Rapp and Adam Goldberg in Dazed and Confused Photo: Alamy
He remembers auditioning for McConaughey. “He looked like a normal sorority guy before they put a mustache on him and Brill put cream in his hair,” says Wiggins.
Other actors in competition included Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Ashley Judd, Claire Danes, Elizabeth Berkley and Mira Sorvino. Renée Zellweger, still eight years removed from Bridget Jones, played a supporting role. Standout actors include Ben Affleck, who plays O'Bannion, an alpha type who takes sadistic pleasure from stalking freshmen and hitting them in the buttocks with a wooden paddle. “I was definitely the most unattractive character in a movie full of attractive people,” Affleck said, looking back on the film.
“When you're casting bad guys,” Linklater said, “pick a guy who's funny and smart. Ben was the smartest guy, so he became a jerk. He was having a lot of fun.»
Wiggins was on the end of Affleck's blow to the back of the paddle, although he insists he came out unscathed. “I got hit,” he laughs. “I didn’t feel it, I was fine.”
At the time, Affleck was doing well in some cringe-worthy films, including the 1995 Kevin Smith comedy «Mall Rats» — a film that was different in tone but, along with the 1995 comedy «Empire Records», was part of an explosive project. youth comedies whose actors are associated with “Dazed and Confused.”
To give his actors a 1970s mindset, Linklater made them mixtapes, each containing music specific to their characters, and told them, «Don't listen to anything but this.» “I remember I was wearing some Bowie,” Wiggins says. “I wish I still had it. It will probably cost money.”
Dazed and Confused lives in the haze of the eternal American summer, in which important moments of life are played out to the killer tunes of the era: Alice Cooper's School's Out, Nazareth's Love Hurts, Rock and Roll All Nite, Tuesday's Gone Lynyrd Skynyrd and Slow Ride through Foghat. In an interview with the student newspaper in 1993, Linklater admitted that the first scene — a montage of school life to the sounds of Aerosmith's Sweet Emotion — came to him while he was having a root canal and was intoxicated with laughing gas. Linklater gave up most of his money to pay for the music rights. The soundtrack—back when the soundtrack CD was all the rage—sold two million copies. “Nobody involved in the creative side of Dazed and Confused made any money from it,” says Wiggins.
< p>For the young actors, the summer atmosphere was real. Adam Goldberg, who plays Mike, a computer geek caught in the grip of a crisis, recalls the cast «wreaking havoc» at the actors' hotel. “We were like kids in a candy store,” Rory Cochrane told Maxim magazine. “The actors communicated with each other and met.”
“I was a local, so I stayed with my mother,” Wiggins says. “I didn’t see any of this. I learned about the testosterone cloud that surrounded the actors playing football players. I remember them saying like, “Oh, we're going to jump off this bridge into the lake,” and something like that. I don’t feel like I missed anything.”
Some actors later talked about filming as if it was the best summer of their lives. But—as with the stuffy authority figure the film rallies against—Linklater had to lay down some rules. “There will be no alcohol or drugs,” he told them. «It's set in the 1970s, but it won't be a 1970s movie where they fly around on cocaine.»
For Linklater, Dazed and Confused had much less of a summer camp vibe. Due to a limited budget and shooting schedule, his penchant for improvising—and filming scenes that weren't in the script—led to him bristling against the producers. Linklater and producer James Jacks argued over which swear words Affleck was allowed to use. “I still get PTSD when I think about how difficult filming was,” Linklater told The Guardian.
But Wiggins recalls Linklater keeping a calm demeanor and shielding the cast from stress. Wiggins only became aware of the stress when he saw Linklater «carefully throw a plastic cup on the ground… It was the craziest thing I've ever seen.»
The real revelation of «Dazed and Confused» Of course, it's McConaughey as Wooderson — a true icon of counterculture cinema, with his salmon jeans and the best left-wing jeans of the 70s. “That’s what I love about these high school girls, man,” he says. “I get older, but they stay the same age.”
“It was supposed to be a smaller part, but as we were filming it got bigger,” says Wiggins. “He hit good notes. It became more noticeable when we filmed in the summer.”
More years have passed since the release of Dazed and Confused than there were between Dazed and Confused and 1976. Watched now, the film seems boyish — just enough testosterone and sex talk to make it belong to a certain American subgenre: high school kids hanging out at parties, desperate for sex — more directly related to American graffiti, but a distant cousin of Porky's. American Pie or Superbad. “I hope it’s a little more conscious,” Wiggins says. “It may not be the best comparison to the teen sex farces of the 1980s. I know that one of the pressures that Rick [Linklater] felt from the producers was that they wanted him to stop swearing, but they were actually pushing him towards nudity. We had performers of the exact age, and I know Rick cared incredibly.»
After poor test screenings, producers also asked Linklater to add modern music and reshoot scenes. “But I didn’t buy any of their stupid ideas,” Linklater said.
Released on September 24, 1993, Dazed and Confused received poor distribution support but found a cult following. Some cinemas showed it at midnight for literally years.
Rather than being stuck in 1976, Dazed and Confused is a timeless slice of youth. Don't just look for a party — to get drunk or party — for a life-changing moment. “If we’re going to die anyway, shouldn’t we be having fun now?” says Marissa Ribisi's Cynthia. “I'd like to stop thinking of the present—like right now—as some minor preamble to something else.”
“It's an early school socialization experience,” Wiggins says. “The trauma of it and the joy of it. The film seems to bring together the experiences of many people.”
Linklater conveys this universal anxiety with dramatic irony. “It’s like a theory that applies every two decades, you know?” says Cynthia as the party begins. “The 1950s were boring, the 1960s were amazing, the 1970s — oh my god — they obviously sucked. Maybe the 1980s will be radical.”
Linklater didn't want to make a film with rose-colored glasses. “These are always tough times,” he said in the documentary Dazed and Confused. “When you're a teenager, it's just hard, no matter when or where, it's always going to be hard.”
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