Maybe it’s a generational thing. We at RS have always had a thing for Richard Linklater, initiated in those formative years, forged through high school, developed in college, revisited afterwards; we may have even convinced ourselves that our intellects seemed to develop in tandem with the director’s own—but upon rewatching Slacker, reliving Dazed and Confused, re-experiencing Before Sunrise, we discovered that Linklater had it all along. But what? Something that those such as Kevin Smith and Allison Anders promised but could never deliver, something rich and thoughtful and searching, something uttered not in one directorial voice, but in an endless array of faces and words, a panoply of ideas and dreams. Classical storytelling and notions of time are mostly eschewed, while actors connect to one another with a generosity that approaches some sort of spiritual repose. The simultaneous release of Tapeand Waking Life in 2001 proved that his experimentation with technique and narrative knew no limits, and the subsequent success of School of Rock brought his outsider sensibilities to the mainstream, not the other way around. And audiences were all the better for it.

And now, upon the release of his magnificent Before Sunset, this free-floating “Slacker” has turned out to be a true cinematic force (how could we ever truly doubt?), with no signs of letting up; completely self-effacing yet nearly impossible to dismiss. To be quite honest, we were surprised at our writers’ enthusiastic response to the idea of a Richard Linklater symposium; we’d subconsciously been underrating him even as we planned to write in his honor. Even those who weren’t particularly fond of Linklater’s dreamers and gabbers still had something themselves to say. It’s not as if the man himself has taken concrete steps throughout his career to force himself into public view. He always seems to be in the background, especially in the years between films, and sometimes even when he’s working—who remembers SubUrbia now? (After you read Joanne Nucho’s piece on the film, this may change for many of you.) In a way, he’s the perfect filmmaker for a REVERSE SHOT symposium. He’s tried his hand at a range of genres (without really meaning to), and almost all of his films could use a bit of rediscovery.

So in the spirit of Linklater himself, we offer up a tapestry of various voices and ideas, on film, time, aging, love, philosophy. Proving that his generosity of spirit is not limited solely to his films, Richard Linklater took time out to speak with REVERSE SHOT, three weeks into shooting his adaptation of Phillip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly—on Memorial Day no less. We had a few questions, but taking a cue from the man’s directorial strategies, we just sat back, and let him be our guide.

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