Episode 566 - Richard Linklater
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fuck sticks?
Marc:What the fucking delics?
Marc:What the fuck will Barry Fins?
Marc:What the fuck puddles?
Marc:I don't even know what that means.
Marc:I don't know what that means.
Marc:Never said it.
Marc:What the fuck puddles?
Marc:I don't know if that really describes a person.
Marc:It was just something that came out.
Marc:Welcome to the show.
Marc:I am Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my show.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:Today, the guest, my guest on today's show is Richard Linklater, the director of Boyhood and many other movies.
Marc:Many other movies, Slacker, come on, Dazed and Confused, School of Rock, Waking Life, the before midnight, after sunrise, sunrise, midnight, sunrise, today, the next day, forget the name of that series, those movies.
Marc:He did Fast Food Nation.
Marc:He'd done a lot of movies, this guy.
Marc:So I'm going to talk to him in a minute.
Marc:For those of you who are just joining me this week of amazing modern directors and don't really know me, I've I've quit my last addiction for the most part.
Marc:I've gotten off of nicotine lozenges.
Marc:I haven't smoked in a long time, but now I'm without nicotine and we're going on.
Marc:We're over five weeks now and the rawness is making me crazy.
Marc:Do not like being this open.
Marc:Do not like not having a damper, a filter, a way to keep level.
Marc:That's the one thing about self-medicating.
Marc:Keeps you nice and level.
Marc:So where's it going to pop up next?
Marc:I'm drinking tea, not drinking coffee.
Marc:So that's it.
Marc:So I got tea and I'm trying to keep, I'm trying to manage the masturbation.
Marc:Don't want to get into that.
Marc:Go down that addictive rabbit hole because that's not that's a very sad one.
Marc:They're all kind of sad, but some are more socially acceptable than others.
Marc:You can certainly kind of suck on nicotine lozenges and drink a lot of caffeine.
Marc:But, you know, you can't just break down and jerk off at work.
Marc:We can, but it's not good.
Marc:There's not a lot of not a lot of pride in that.
Marc:relationship is going pretty well but i think what's happening is is i just don't know how i have no way to calibrate my emotions and when things in the world which i don't address that much on the show in terms of what my feelings are because i don't want to come off as uh
Marc:as righteous for selfish reasons i think a lot of righteousness is self-serving and i find it despicable you know a lot of stuff weighs very heavy on me it's hard for me to process the fact that one of my heroes is some sort of sociopathic evil monster it's hard for me to process the horrendous torrents of racism in this country it's hard for me to process the fact that religious fanatics go into an office and blow away a bunch of artists
Marc:and cartoonists.
Marc:It's all fucking horrible.
Marc:And on top of that, raccoons are digging up my yard.
Marc:And that's the one that's closest to me.
Marc:All this other stuff filters in.
Marc:And then I have irrational reactions to things like dropping a cup or raccoons digging up my yard.
Marc:Because all this stuff is bottled up to me.
Marc:All these feelings of hopelessness and of anger about the way the world works.
Marc:Yeah, I could spend my life talking about it.
Marc:But to me, it's all evil.
Marc:And all I can do.
Marc:Well, the raccoons aren't evil.
Marc:They're just being raccoons.
Marc:Human-based behavior is evil.
Marc:Animals, not so much.
Marc:They're annoying.
Marc:They're destructive.
Marc:But generally, there's not a moral.
Marc:We can't attach some moral imperative to fucking raccoons tearing up my yard.
Marc:Raccoons do not say, fuck this guy.
Marc:Let's pull up his sod.
Marc:And I'm not even that hung up on the grass.
Marc:I just don't know what to do about it, really.
Marc:And it makes everything stink.
Marc:And it just amplifies the hopelessness of everything.
Marc:And things are going well for me right now.
Marc:But I'm telling you, man.
Marc:I'm telling you.
Marc:Shit can get kind of dark.
Marc:And now that I don't have nicotine to manage the fucking fluctuations of my feelings or at least to keep them tamped down, I'm worried that I'm going to unload on somebody.
Marc:I'm worried that I'm going to unload on myself.
Marc:I'm worried that I'm just going to say some fucking shit that's going to cause trouble.
Marc:And a lot of people like that.
Marc:See, a lot of people, I don't even know how concerned they are about things necessarily.
Marc:They're more concerned about where do you stand?
Marc:Where are you on this?
Marc:Let's judge you about where you stand on something.
Marc:I usually stand for decency and rational behavior.
Marc:I'm generally against evil.
Marc:I'm having a problem with raccoons right now.
Marc:I'm also having a problem with my fucking confidence.
Marc:It's horrendous.
Marc:You think after a certain point, you know, you get everything up and going.
Marc:Things are going well.
Marc:People enjoy what you do.
Marc:Like, when do you just sort of like, hey, man, I'm great.
Marc:When does that happen?
Marc:It's like the fucking opposite is happening.
Marc:And that's always why I go back to nicotine or go back to whatever.
Marc:Go back to setting my brain on fire somehow.
Marc:So at least my brain is on fire and I don't have to deal with what's in my heart.
Marc:If your brain is on fire, your heart just sits there sadly and watches your brain burn.
Marc:Fine.
Marc:So I'm a little emotionally all over the place and I'm just trying to keep that out of the realm of sad.
Marc:That's that's the big agenda of sad and like what's the point?
Marc:Nothing is true.
Marc:Things are out of control.
Marc:My heroes are liars and people are killing people for cartoons.
Marc:Fuck.
Marc:When I get into this place of being emotional, all I can do is say, well, what the hell happened?
Marc:What happened?
Marc:And that's the amazing thing about Linklater.
Marc:You know, I had Paul Thomas Anderson on here and his movies demand understanding from you and you can create whatever understanding you want.
Marc:It's very provocative in that way.
Marc:They're minimal enough.
Marc:They leave a lot of room in them for you to sort of
Marc:You know, either project your own ideas onto them or let them live within you until they make sense to you.
Marc:But Linklater seems to be in certainly in movies like Slacker or Dazed and Confused and the Midnight and Sunrise movies.
Marc:And now this film, Boyhood, seems to be really sort of hung up and concerned with how people move through time.
Marc:How does time affect us?
Marc:That's the amazing thing about boyhood.
Marc:I mean, I saw this film.
Marc:It's basically about a family and about their struggles emotionally.
Marc:There are some harrowing emotional elements of it, but it's not a tragic tale.
Marc:But the fact that he used the same actors over a 12-year arc, returning back to shoot scenes as they got older, it leaves you with a very interesting feeling.
Marc:And I still cannot put my finger on what that feeling is.
Marc:Knowing that these are the actors that were there 12 years ago and moved through their lives for that 12 years, watching them grow up, all of the characters get older, 12 years older over the course of this two-hour film,
Marc:It's something I've never seen before or felt before, and it's very strange.
Marc:And I can't really identify how it made me feel knowing that.
Marc:I mean, yeah, I mean, some of you and I have seen documentaries where they check back with people, but this is a straight narrative through a 12-year arc using the same people.
Marc:It's never happened before.
Marc:And I think it made me...
Marc:I think there's some wish fulfillment.
Marc:There's some part of me and maybe some part of you.
Marc:I'd love to see my last 12 years in a nice, tight two hour bit of business, a well edited two hour movie.
Marc:I would love to see what the hell happened over the last 20 years of my life.
Marc:Well edited starring me.
Marc:And maybe I could sort of figure out how I got here.
Marc:I think there's a craving.
Marc:It creates a craving for that because I'm constantly going back in my mind.
Marc:It's not even nostalgia.
Marc:It's just as you get older, you lose touch with who you were.
Marc:Or maybe if you're on Facebook, you ever go on Facebook and see the people that you haven't seen in 15 years and wonder like, holy fuck.
Marc:I knew that person as a kid.
Marc:I knew myself as a kid, but I don't know that kid anymore.
Marc:I've got some of that kid's stuff here, but I don't know what was important to him.
Marc:And it just keeps getting further and further away and starts all that stuff that wants to find you starts to just sort of just peel away.
Marc:And I think there's something fascinating about the way Linklater makes movies like that, especially this last movie.
Marc:It does.
Marc:It really says a lot about the reality that life is finite and not that long.
Marc:And what we define, the sort of monumental elements of our life, the life-changing things, are just days.
Marc:They're just days.
Marc:Things go wrong.
Marc:Things go good.
Marc:You bounce back.
Marc:You don't bounce back.
Marc:You plow on.
Marc:And then it's fucking over.
Marc:God, I don't want to be morose because I'm not talking about that movie.
Marc:That movie is a very life-affirming film.
Marc:But it's fascinating to see it play out that way.
Marc:I don't think it's ever been done before.
Marc:I'm looking forward to talking to him.
Marc:I'm okay, people.
Marc:It's just like I don't want you to think that the things that happen in the world...
Marc:don't have an effect on me and don't fuck me up and break my heart.
Marc:I just tend to sort of keep it local.
Marc:Fucking raccoons are ripping up my yard.
Marc:God damn it.
Marc:Before we talk to Richard Linklater, I want to mention that Boyhood is now available on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital download.
Marc:If you haven't seen it, I would do that.
Marc:All right, so let's talk to Richard Linklater.
Marc:This is a very different conversation with a very different director than Monday, and I hope you enjoy it.
Marc:And I'll talk to you on the other side.
Guest:Yeah, you don't have time to do everything.
Guest:So, you know, give it a few years.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Let 12 of your best friends that you trust their taste.
Guest:When they say, hey, when they give you that look, you haven't seen that yet.
Guest:You have to.
Guest:And like, okay, finally, I give up.
Guest:I will read that book, see that TV show, watch that.
Marc:So you say give it a decade, maybe.
Guest:Yeah, maybe a decade.
Guest:Maybe a decade.
Yeah.
Marc:I believe you, man.
Marc:There is so much shit, especially with music, because I got into vinyl again recently.
Marc:I had no idea it even existed.
Marc:It's the same with movies and TV.
Marc:Well, TV is specific, but you get locked in to what you grew up with, what's coming into your head.
Marc:And that's it, man.
Guest:You start there and your filter only goes out so far.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Freak has to come wake you up.
Guest:What could clean the slate and start you from another entry point into the culture and in your world?
Guest:Right.
Guest:You would be, you know, you run into people who've like never.
Guest:You need that guy.
Guest:You need.
Guest:You need that?
Guest:But even that, you're getting their entry point.
Marc:Right, but it might be a completely different world.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:They're a portal.
Guest:To a new entry point that gets you.
Guest:But you realize just how little time there is in this life and how much we go through just oblivious and blind.
Marc:Because we're trying to feed something.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, obviously it seems like your movies are reckoning with that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, like because I was thinking about it, like even when I think about about slacker, you know, and when that came out and sort of like, what is this?
Marc:This is the thing.
Marc:But but there was a lot of that shit like Austin to me struck me at that time.
Marc:I mean, how old were you, 20?
Marc:No, I mean, when I did Slacker, I started that.
Marc:I was later, 28.
Marc:All right, but it seemed to me, it seemed to be just a city full of those portals of people doing that weird shit.
Marc:And like, because the one thing that stands out in my mind is the dude that says that TV set's been on since 19 whenever.
Marc:That he'd been keeping that set going because those guys exist.
Guest:I know, and I know.
Guest:That was really represented in my 20s.
Guest:I had post-college, post-work, I was hanging out, and suddenly I found myself in a town with just an incredible group of people and energy, and it wasn't about money or getting ahead.
Guest:It was just about living the life.
Guest:That's what I saw.
Guest:I'm sure it was there.
Guest:Art is life, though, kind of.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And people who were kind of, what's the German word?
Guest:Liebenkanzler.
Guest:It's an artist of life.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You know, it's like they don't, their art is the way they go through the world.
Guest:They don't want to, they don't necessarily, they're not necessarily creating a product you can buy or sell, but it's, their life is art.
Guest:And I met so many people I would put in that category.
Marc:Well, that, well, you felt that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I grew up in Albuquerque, so there was definitely ... I'm starting to notice it around here, though.
Marc:It was weird.
Marc:I made this note in the car today where I'm like, your early movies were ... This may not ring true.
Marc:It might ring true.
Marc:It was how people move through time, and now the later movies is how time moves through people.
Guest:That's pretty good.
Guest:That's pretty good.
Guest:I like that.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But did you find at that time, you didn't grow up in Austin, though?
Marc:No.
Guest:No one grows up there.
Guest:It's the kind of place you move to.
Marc:Where'd you grow up?
Guest:Kind of in the Houston area, but I lived in a small town in East Texas called Huntsville, which is where they- How small?
Guest:Where they do the executions of mentally retarded people and grandmothers.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Yeah, it's where the big prison is.
Guest:My dad lived in Houston.
Guest:My mom was teaching at a school in Huntsville.
Guest:So I kind of had both big city, Houston.
Guest:So they weren't together for your whole life?
Guest:They divorced when I was really young.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:About six or seven.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So your mom was doing what?
Guest:Academic.
Guest:You know, she was getting her degree and, you know, master's degree.
Guest:So I grew up with her kind of a student.
Guest:And then she kind of came into her own as a teacher.
Guest:And we moved around based on her teaching jobs.
Guest:And a lot like the movie Boyhead.
Guest:I was just going to say that.
Guest:Kind of an intelligent, passionate woman who kind of took her kids through, you know, her life.
Guest:You know, she didn't have a choice.
Marc:That was very striking in the movie, actually, that, you know, when you really realize...
Marc:And I've only been realizing it lately.
Marc:I didn't grow up with it.
Marc:I grew up with a different type of emotional chaos that these are young people, the parents.
Marc:And they're going to be fragile and vulnerable and subject to their own emotional insanity.
Marc:They don't have the answers.
Marc:Right.
Marc:When did you...
Marc:It's a hard thing to realize, isn't it?
Guest:As a kid, it takes a while to realize.
Guest:And sometimes I'm still realizing it.
Guest:I think once you become a parent, it drags you through not only your own childhood again, but your own parents' relation changes.
Guest:I like these generational conversations that it takes 20 plus years to get an answer or to realize something from your own childhood or what your parents might have been going through.
Guest:How old are your kids?
Guest:I have a 21-year-old.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Lorelai, who's in the movie Boyhood.
Guest:She's the older sister.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:And then I have two 10-year-old girls.
Guest:So all girls.
Guest:That's a pretty good gap in time.
Marc:So what has changed in your relationship?
Marc:Now, I have to assume that what you went through as a child with your mother was not as intense as what happened in the movie, or was it?
Marc:Well, yeah, it kind of was.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Marc:So your mom kind of got saddled with a drunk, abusive man?
Guest:Well, that was definitely my point of view.
Guest:I mean, the movie enforces a kid's point of view.
Guest:So what the reality is and what I experienced might be two slightly different things, her reality.
Marc:But sure, but there are indicators at that point of view would indicate that this person is an abusive person.
Guest:Well, not, you know, define abusive.
Guest:You know, I think there's some good qualities there.
Guest:He's not really... Right.
Guest:He doesn't punch anyone.
Guest:He's got his issues.
Guest:I think a lot of people grow up where...
Guest:I remember that was kind of one of the things of my childhood.
Guest:We're always in school or sometimes even in the house in certain situations.
Guest:You're kind of on the cusp of physical violence.
Marc:Well, you're terrified.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:If you're with an explosive person that's erratic, you walk around going, oh, God, don't.
Marc:I hope it doesn't.
Guest:I think it's a more gentle society now.
Guest:But even then, I grew up getting spanked in schools.
Guest:You'd do the smallest violation and you'd get paddled.
Guest:It was just a more violent culture.
Guest:So I think everyone's a lot nicer now, which is a good thing.
Marc:You can't beat your children.
Marc:Right.
Marc:They're more aware that maybe there's another way.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But then there's still people that would argue, no, the old way's fine.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm fine.
Guest:Those are the people who still whip their kids.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, it worked for me.
Guest:Look how great I turned out.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that's how I'm going to treat my kids.
Guest:I grew up a child abuser.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I beat the shit out of my kids.
Guest:It worked for my dad to me.
Guest:It's going to work for you.
Guest:Yeah, it's like the people who really have no introspection or any thought of maybe there's progress in the world on how we treat each other.
Marc:You don't have to hit kids.
Guest:Yeah, you don't have to.
Guest:I mean, there's reason and there's other systems of reward and punishment.
Guest:Do you never hit your kids?
Guest:Are you kidding?
Guest:No.
Guest:I mentally screw with them, but I don't.
Marc:Yeah, that's the way to do it.
Marc:All right, so your dad was in the big city.
Marc:What was he doing?
Guest:He was in the insurance, like the movie, a guy who ended up in the insurance business.
Guest:A smart guy who had a family to support.
Marc:So this is really an autobiographical movie all the way through in a way.
Guest:Well, largely, but it's kind of – I don't – I'm not afraid of autobiography.
Guest:It's kind of the impulse of so many of my films because I'm always filtering it through, in this case, a contemporary setting.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And all the actors I'm working with.
Guest:So I think it's a good first impulse.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's where I start from.
Guest:But I can't say at the end of the day everything in it is –
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's not so specifically, but it's certainly the jumping off point.
Guest:The emotional momentum.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I feel that close to it, but I'm not so vulnerable like, oh, it's so autobiographical.
Guest:It's because Patricia's mom was kind of like that, and Ethan's dad was kind of like that, and...
Guest:all the ideas kind of swirl around, and it becomes something a few degrees away.
Guest:Well, how open was that conversation with these actors?
Marc:I mean, you were working with them for how long?
Marc:It was 12 years?
Guest:Yeah, we put in our 12 years on it, and it's pretty amazing to be able to shape a character over that big an arc in a canvas.
Marc:Well, how structured was it from the beginning?
Marc:You said, look, we're going to do this.
Marc:If everybody lives...
Guest:Yeah, if we all are lucky to be here 12 years from now, here's what we'll have.
Guest:So you shot it in increments over what?
Guest:Roughly once a year for 12 years.
Guest:And you'd shoot for what, three months?
Guest:No, no, just a few days.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was an intense shoot.
Guest:I mean, it would be several weeks of making the movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, but again, I would work on the script and then I rehearse a lot.
Guest:I work with the actors and it's not like acting exercise rehearsal.
Guest:It's more like rewriting and working the dialogue and the ideas through the actor because what I'm going for is a very realistic performance.
Marc:So you want them to follow their own impulses?
Guest:Yeah, a little bit.
Guest:I mean, I'm there to go, hey, that works or let's think about this or have new ideas.
Guest:So I'm very process oriented.
Guest:Do you record all that?
Guest:No, I just have pen in hand.
Guest:Just hang out in a laptop nearby and just hanging out with the actor talking because reading through scenes, having more ideas, finding humor.
Marc:You know, the experience of watching it was fairly fascinating because the story is what it is.
Marc:But the phenomenon.
Marc:of what you did is something that I've never seen or felt before.
Marc:I mean, you can see a documentary, what was it, that one with the British kids or what?
Guest:Oh, the Seven Up series.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Where every seven years, you revisit people and see that.
Guest:But that's different.
Guest:It's a documentary, yeah.
Marc:Right, but you're moving through this narrative over this period of time with these same people growing.
Marc:It was like- Aging, growing up.
Guest:Aging, yeah.
Marc:It was a little, I didn't know how to feel, man.
Marc:Oh, good, good.
Guest:Yeah, because it's I wanted that's really the film's really about time, you know, and it hit me in a flash like this.
Guest:Why can't I make this movie?
Guest:I just saw the whole finished movie in my head.
Guest:It was everyone in it was just 12 years goes by.
Guest:The kids grow up.
Guest:The adults age from their, you know, maybe late 20s to early 40s or whatever the ages would be.
Guest:And you see this progression of time, how it would work through this family.
Guest:And I just felt that.
Guest:And that was the cool idea for the story I was hoping to tell, what I was hoping to express about growing up and parenting and all that.
Marc:But then you were able to get these actors to commit to it and make it happen within two hours.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:See, that's the mind fuck there, is that you know that these actors have had this life over the last 12 years.
Marc:I mean, Christ, Ethan's been in a few movies, maybe even some of yours, one or two of them.
Marc:Yeah, we've done other movies.
Guest:We had five kids between us.
Marc:Yeah, and you know that.
Marc:To sort of condense it into this process of narrative and of this finite amount of screen time, there was something mind-blowing about the emotion that you feel to witness it.
Marc:I've never seen anything like it, so I didn't know how to feel.
Marc:How did you feel about it when you watched it?
Guest:You know, I bet the whole thing, because it's really these intimate little moments, you know, most epics.
Guest:But it's the same people.
Guest:It's bizarre.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's never been done before.
Guest:They get older.
Guest:Has it?
Guest:I bet the form.
Guest:No, not in a narrative.
Guest:I'm pretty sure.
Guest:I'm pretty sure it hasn't, because the film came out in July now.
Guest:And you don't know.
Guest:It's like a scientist publishing your paper.
Guest:You just put it out there and others can.
Guest:And, you know, I expected film historian, you know, to be at the Berlin Film Festival and some old critic actually in Finland from 57 to 68.
Guest:You know, OK, you know, lay it on me.
Guest:I had never seen this film before and I didn't.
Guest:It felt completely original to me.
Guest:No one's waited on you yet.
Guest:Not yet.
Guest:It's almost been six months.
Guest:All right, man.
Guest:The test or whatever that is going through.
Guest:But it felt original.
Guest:But, I mean, 12 years later, I can tell you, I think, why no one has ever done this.
Guest:Because it's just wildly impractical.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The amount of time and how you would do it.
Guest:It's really hard to...
Guest:yeah raise the money and all that stuff and then on a psychological level i think it's unlikely because most filmmakers were sort of control freaks yeah the same way a writer or anyone is you want to shape the material and in this case we were all having to give away a little bit of that control to the our collaborator here was an unknown future
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's like the way you perceive the future as you go through your life.
Guest:You have a 12 year, you know, where are you going to be 12 years?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:And you go, you know, have some goals or some thoughts to that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And if you're lucky, you're here, but it won't be maybe exactly what you thought.
Guest:But you're working toward it.
Guest:So that's how we had to approach this movie.
Guest:It's like, I can't tell you exactly what some of the details are going to be year 10 because we haven't gotten there.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Something big.
Marc:So you were writing that as it went along?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, of course.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had the structure and that was the autobiographical element, like the family moving, new jobs, the bigger structure.
Guest:I mean, I knew the last shot of the movie and I had a beginning and end and kind of the bigger bones of how you would describe your life.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But the minutiae.
Guest:Had to be.
Guest:I had a year to fill in that every year.
Guest:I could go through my life thinking like, okay, oh, that.
Guest:Or memories.
Guest:Every year I'm going like fifth grade, fifth grade, fifth grade.
Guest:What went on that year?
Guest:What was I thinking?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then I'm also in touch with my young actors throughout the year.
Guest:Well, one's my daughter, so I really know her well.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But like, oh, things will go on at school and like, oh, that'll trigger a memory of mine.
Marc:Was that guy pursuing acting, your actor?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I thought that was important at the very beginning in casting Eller Coltrane.
Guest:He was a young man.
Guest:He was like six.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He had been in a movie and some commercials.
Guest:He had an agent, you know, a little headshot.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I thought that was important that the family had expressed some support for that endeavor because...
Guest:We were heading off on a long journey, and if I would have just scooped some kid off the sidewalk and put him in a movie, they could easily come back and say, you know, he never wanted to do this.
Guest:But at least I thought this was a better chance out of the gate to only deal with kids who seemed to have enjoyed being an actor, who had the family support, and that would...
Guest:create a situation more likely to make it to the end.
Marc:So this all had to be conceived over this arc of 12 years, but you had to sort of write the things that needed to happen in terms of what happened in the culture and also in terms of what happened in their life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was the fun part, the process of writing.
Guest:When you write a movie, the order is you write it, you cast it, and you shoot it, and then you edit it, and then it's done.
Guest:Where this was like every year I got to write it, shoot it, edit it.
Guest:And then, you know, maybe put it on the shelf for five months and then come back and look at it and think about it and then think about next year and what else might what's going on in the world.
Guest:So it was just a it was 12 part.
Guest:But it was really fun to spend those years just, you know, when you're when you're working on something, everything's channeling into it, all your ideas or just I could go through my life going any notion of parenting or any memory of childhood could maybe find a place in this.
Marc:Well, I mean, but how did you feel the final thing was?
Marc:What was the effect it had on you?
Marc:I know you've been in it, but like, see, I'm confounded by it.
Marc:Because it doesn't feel like a regular movie.
Marc:Because you walk in knowing this thing.
Marc:I don't know what it would have been like if I walked in not knowing that.
Marc:I've talked to some people who don't know anything.
Guest:They go in and it really screws with their head.
Guest:It's kind of great.
Guest:Because they're sitting there going, is that the same guy?
Guest:Yeah, I've had people go, how did they, they're just trying to figure it out.
Guest:Like, oh, the movie starts.
Guest:It's like, oh, it's a period film.
Guest:Like, oh, look at that computer.
Guest:Look at that game.
Guest:This is a period piece.
Guest:And then it slowly catches up and they go, oh, they've cast another kid that looks a lot like, how'd they do that?
Guest:And so they're an hour in when they realize, oh, okay, this is all the same people.
Guest:And it's, I see what's going on here.
Guest:But that's kind of beautiful that you could be so, you know, virginal, I guess, and have that experience completely.
Marc:Well, it's interesting to me that you like this emotional movement through time.
Marc:It seems to be thematic with you, that there seems to be something, even with Slacker, that the story is not relevant.
Marc:Yeah, there's no... And I don't know if you like going back to that.
Marc:There is no story.
Marc:No, I know.
Marc:There's no story, but there are encounters, there are movements, and you find yourself wanting to get invested with certain people, and then they go away.
Marc:They drift.
Marc:Yeah, but that must have been where you were at, but what you were trying to sort of do on screen was figure out how you move through this situation.
Guest:I like that you're talking about Slacker because it is kind of related in some weird storytelling narrative sense.
Guest:It seems like it is.
Guest:It was an early idea of mine that I had in my early 20s when I was first getting into film that felt, again, kind of an original, a new way to tell a story I hadn't seen before.
Guest:You know, I came to cinema.
Guest:Thinking it was the Wild West, you know, like it was wide open territory.
Guest:I really thought there were going to be there were new ways to tell stories that I hadn't seen.
Guest:And the what's unique about cinema and how it relates to time and structure.
Marc:Where did all this hammer you?
Marc:Like, I mean, so you made Swacker when you were 28.
Marc:What were you doing before that?
Guest:I was watching movies and thinking about cinema.
Guest:Well, I was making shorts and I was shooting a lot of film.
Marc:Did you go to film school?
Guest:No, I took a couple classes, but I didn't.
Guest:I was kind of on my own.
Guest:Where'd you go to school?
Guest:Sam Houston State, a little school in East Texas.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I was in and around.
Guest:I went to Austin Community College a little bit, took a few classes there.
Marc:You never got a degree in anything.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I'm a student for life, though.
Marc:Good for you.
Marc:Good for you.
Guest:I'm proud of you.
Guest:But I really do think a lot about storytelling and cinema and narrative and the possibilities and the structures and time.
Guest:And, you know, I'm the kind of guy who really... There's a million stories in the world, but it's like how to tell them.
Guest:So I was always excited about new forms and...
Marc:Well, it's interesting because with Slacker, you can just walk into the middle of someone else's story and then walk out.
Marc:Don't need to finish anything there.
Marc:Not necessary.
Guest:Well, I was trying to actually capture, I mean, it was a couple levels.
Guest:What I was thinking at that time was like, well, hey, I hadn't really, could you tell a story that would go from one character to the next interlinked?
Guest:But I think what I was trying to capture was how your mind processes a day.
Guest:You know, you talk to someone like we're here now talking, but at some point in the future, I'm going to get back in my car and go somewhere.
Guest:You know, like you can't get out of your own little sequence.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Your life started when you became conscious at age three or whatever.
Guest:And you're on a sequence you can't escape from.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And there's also what's going on inside your head and what's going on in actual reality.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's a completely fucked up thing.
Guest:Two different things.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:There's this physical reality in front of you.
Guest:But I was thinking in that it was processing the people you meet, the encounters, the way time you drift through it and you process the world around you and try to make sense of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And you're only grabbing, in Slacker's case, a few minutes of someone's life, an encounter.
Guest:And it always blew me away that people said, oh, they don't work or they don't.
Guest:They were drawing these huge conclusions based on a three-minute conversation.
Guest:Five minute.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, you don't know.
Guest:How do you know they're not on their way to work?
Guest:Two people have anti-work crusade.
Guest:They wanted to hang something on you.
Guest:Manifestos or something.
Marc:I forgot about that.
Guest:It's kind of funny.
Guest:But we do judge people because that's all we can do.
Guest:We're trying to make sense of the world.
Guest:But they hung something on you.
Guest:Make it comprehensive.
Guest:Right.
Marc:but they they took that movie because it was a provocative movie and no one had ever seen anything like it and you know it came out of nowhere in a way and you're this independent filmmaker and then all of a sudden you represented that movie represented a generation that was crazy it was crazy that was insane it's still used i mean you know it's still the term was thrown around and yeah that you kind of
Marc:So how do you get to that point?
Marc:So you're in Huntsville.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're doing your thing.
Marc:What kind of kid were you?
Marc:I mean, were you interested in the arts?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you actually have two sisters?
Guest:I had two older sisters.
Guest:And, you know, kind of an academic family.
Guest:We didn't have any money at all.
Guest:There was no summer camps or vacations or anything.
Guest:But, you know, education was important.
Guest:And arts were important.
Guest:You know, my mom painted.
Guest:My grandparents were kind of...
Guest:artists in their own way and we went to museums and movies and culture you know great stuff you could do cheap and free my dad on weekend he was kind of a weekend dad we went to a lot of museums in houston yeah good museums yeah so you know the zoo museums it was always you know cultural they cared about our souls i guess you know in that regard so um
Guest:Yeah, I grew up writing.
Guest:I thought I would – I just wanted to express stories and characters.
Guest:I was writing plays in junior high even.
Guest:Putting them on?
Guest:Not really, just writing.
Guest:Yeah, sometimes the school would perform or we'd do readings.
Guest:I had a gift for dialogue.
Guest:At a young age, I was –
Guest:I would win the short story contest.
Guest:I was that guy.
Guest:But I was also, parallel to that, I was an athlete.
Guest:I happened to be, it's embarrassing, but I was kind of like one of the better athletes.
Guest:I was a quarterback on the football team.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Baseball player.
Guest:I went to college on a baseball scholarship.
Guest:So I had this kind of dual world.
Guest:But I kind of, at age 17, I was like, I want to play in the major leagues, baseball, and be taken serious as a novelist.
Guest:You know, I want to write books.
Guest:And I failed in both of those things in my life.
Guest:But you made these great movies.
Guest:I discovered movies somewhere around age 20.
Guest:Do you remember where?
Guest:Well, growing up in East Texas, it wasn't really the idea that you could make a movie, especially when I grew up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Everybody knows that now.
Guest:Everybody's a filmmaker.
Guest:Everybody knows what a director is.
Marc:Sure, sure.
Marc:You can do it with your phone.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But back then, it was prohibitive.
Marc:It was expensive.
Guest:How old were you?
Guest:I'm 54.
Guest:I'm 54.
Guest:so you're two three years older than me so we grew up in the same yeah I knew it because like dazed and confused I'm like I know that I know that yeah we're the same the same generation yeah so it took me a while to discover that was my medium I had this visual thing and it clicked I was writing you know short stories and plays at the moment I really felt I was discovering cinema and once I did that I never looked back but you know it's still a long process do you remember what movie it was what made you believe it was no one movie it was just kind of
Guest:just kind of falling in love with cinema in general.
Guest:What are your movies?
Guest:There's two different levels.
Guest:There's films that make you love movies, but those aren't the kind of movies you think you can make.
Guest:Well, what movies were... It was independent films that I saw in the early 80s.
Guest:Very low budget, some of the early John Sayles movies.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:You know, Chan is missing.
Guest:I can just list all the indie films that played at theaters then and foreign films too.
Guest:Were you driving into Austin to see him?
Guest:No, I was living, I had moved back to Houston.
Guest:I was an offshore oil worker for like two and a half years.
Guest:What would have been my junior and senior year of college.
Guest:I got a job working.
Guest:I was just kind of working on oil rigs.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Saving up my money.
Guest:Yeah, it was a good experience.
Marc:Wait, you go out in the water?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, you fly out there in helicopters and hang out there for a week to 15 days sometimes.
Marc:So you got a head full of Truffaut and you're out on oil rig.
Guest:Out there, I'm reading.
Guest:I'm reading the library when I wasn't working.
Guest:So I got a lot of reading time.
Guest:But on land, I noticed I was just, what did I do today?
Guest:I read till noon and then I went to four movies.
Guest:I was kind of falling in love with cinema.
Marc:What do you do as an offshore oil rigger?
Guest:I was working with subsurface safety valves.
Guest:I was kind of the grunt laborer.
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:You're underwater?
Guest:No, you're on the rigs, but you're dropping tools down into the wells.
Guest:They're very deep, but they have the well heads up on those platforms.
Guest:So when I see Deepwater Horizon explode, I worked on the
Guest:the elements that are trying to keep it safe you have a you have a safety valve if the rig falls over in a hurricane that it seals and doesn't explode so when i i've always been really aghast at something i said you know how many things have to go wrong for that to happen it's all about safety and stuff so i was it's horrible when that happens that's a hell of a job yeah yeah a little people say was that dangerous i'd like
Guest:No, I only knew one guy who got killed in my two years.
Guest:So I don't know if it's that dangerous.
Guest:How did he get killed?
Guest:Oh, a fire.
Guest:Oh, shit.
Guest:Yeah, really sad.
Guest:He was a friend.
Guest:I think about him to this day fairly regularly.
Guest:And he would just graduate.
Guest:We were kind of the college boys.
Guest:I'd been to two years of college, which is a little rare.
Guest:And he had just graduated with a degree in sociology.
Guest:What do you do with a sociology degree?
Guest:He lucked into a job just the way I did, saving up money, not sure what to do with life.
Guest:And then he worked on another rig, but we would come back through a hookup.
Guest:And I went back one time to the same rig he worked on that said, hey, did you hear about Jimmy?
Guest:Yeah, that was a fire.
Guest:He died.
Guest:I was like, really?
Guest:So I always think, you know, one of those sad little things, the rest of your life, you think you're living a life that he's not able to lead.
Marc:Was he the first guy that you kind of knew like that?
Guest:We all had friends in car wrecks and stuff.
Guest:Oh, yeah, that's right.
Guest:There's cancer in car wrecks.
Guest:I lost friends growing up.
Guest:High school car wrecks.
Guest:Yeah, that's kind of messed up too.
Guest:So it's amazing any of us survive those years, but the odds are we will.
Marc:Okay, so you were after a new way of telling a story and doing something different with cinema, which you did.
Marc:Yeah, it came to me, yeah.
Marc:And in Dazed and Confused, which I thought, when I saw that, I was like, all right, he's polishing it up a little.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:And your attention to detail was spectacular because it was a period piece and it was my period.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:70s.
Marc:Rock and roll.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:Lizzie.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:And everything looked familiar to me because Albuquerque was somewhere.
Marc:It was a place you'd go drive into the mountains and you'd party and it was all the same.
Guest:What do teenagers do?
Guest:You drive around, you try to be cool, you find a place of your own because you're not going to be in your house on a Friday or Saturday night.
Guest:Looking for something to do, bond.
Guest:McConaughey.
Guest:You found that guy.
Guest:There's a guy like that in every town.
Guest:There is.
Guest:That's why I think people love that character of Wooderson so much.
Guest:And Matthew so owned that guy because he came in on an audition and said, hey, I'm not this guy, but I know this guy.
Yeah.
Guest:That's what he said.
Guest:Everybody, yeah, I know this guy.
Guest:And he just became that character, that guy who's sort of hanging out.
Guest:Oh, yeah, man.
Guest:Maybe he has a job, but he's still dating a high school girl.
Guest:He gets cooler the older, you know, like the guys who couldn't date a girl their own age.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But pretty soon, by the time you're a senior, freshmen just think you're cool because you're older and maybe you have a car.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So you just, you have to go to the younger girls.
Marc:He's a couple years away from creepy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's going to get creepy here.
Guest:We figured, oh, he's like 22.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:23.
Guest:But once you're 25, it's over.
Guest:And you usually just find the last one and marry one before it gets too creepy.
Guest:Where'd you cast that thing?
Guest:Where I lived, in Austin.
Guest:Was McConaughey an Austin guy?
Guest:Yeah, he was a UT film student.
Guest:really yeah so you kind of discovered that guy well i never i never really believed that word because right well you're the first to use him in that way he had been in i think he'd been in a couple commercials and he i mean his destiny was laid out i was just there at the beginning are you friends yeah yeah i talked to him all the time you do yeah because it was it a texas thing you just i don't know we're two guys from east texas you know he grew up near you
Guest:Well, not really.
Guest:East Texas is pretty large.
Guest:It's, you know, up and down, but similar town, similar thing.
Guest:And our families were close.
Guest:You know, we knew each other about five years before we realized, get this, our dads played on the same college football team.
Guest:Not only were they on the same team, they played the same position.
Guest:They were both defensive ends in the early 50s for the University of Houston Cougars.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Matthew and my dad.
Guest:Isn't that crazy?
Marc:Both of your dads?
Guest:Yeah, they were on the same team.
Guest:Matthew's dad passed away while we were making days, so I never met him.
Guest:But my dad is still with us, and I asked him years in, because Matthew said his dad, and I was like, do you ever play with a guy, you know, know a guy, McConaughey?
Guest:He goes, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He'd beat me out for the starting position one week and I'd beat him out the next.
Guest:And I'm like, that's Matthew's dad.
Guest:And he goes, oh gosh, I never put that together.
Guest:Isn't that funny?
Guest:Is your dad still in Texas?
Guest:We go back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just talked to him.
Guest:And your mom?
Guest:84.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She's still in Texas back in Huntsville.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I'm lucky.
Guest:I'm really lucky at this age.
Guest:I, you know, it's weird.
Guest:I got both of mine too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just, you know, it's that stage of life, but I'm grateful, you know, that-
Marc:Well, you know, you talked a little bit about how making the movie and also living the life has changed your relationship with these people.
Marc:Like, I mean, having your own kids and then putting it on screen, some of that stuff emotionally anyway.
Marc:What has changed between you and your mother?
Marc:What is it exactly?
Marc:What is it?
Marc:Is it forgiveness?
Marc:It's understanding.
Guest:It's kind of like...
Guest:You know, like, you look at the best qualities of your parents and you'd like to think you inherited them or you're aware of those in yourself.
Guest:You'd like to think.
Guest:My mom was very passionate and very, you know, kind of get things done.
Guest:Kind of a manipulator, too.
Guest:Like, hey, we're going to build a patio this weekend.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, I kind of want to just, like.
Guest:watch tv and not do much oh no yeah she would get you working and you need that as a director hey let's put on a show yeah hey you can do this and you you know you have to be kind of a manipulator so she was good at that yeah and uh and but very passionate you know followed that you know my dad's very level-headed and and rational he's the ultimate right i don't know what they were doing together but i'm
Guest:They got about a 10-year marriage and three kids out of the deal until I think they weren't meant for each other.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But I like my dad's level-headedness, and I was able to, I think, grab some of that.
Marc:But did you always get along with them?
Guest:Yeah, pretty much.
Guest:I mean, varying degrees of alienation at certain points, but never a hostile situation.
Guest:I felt they were, in general, supportive of... I mean, it got a little... In my 20s, I think they just didn't understand what I was doing.
Guest:Like, are you working?
Guest:No.
Guest:Are you...
Guest:What are you doing?
Guest:I'm like, watching movies and trying to... It's like, you had such potential.
Guest:We thought you would be something by now.
Guest:You know, 25, 26, 27.
Guest:I'm a shot of film.
Guest:Your friends are becoming lawyers and PhDs.
Marc:But you already dropped out of school, though.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like, well, have you thought about getting back in school?
Guest:I was like, no, I'm really into what I'm doing.
Guest:So it wasn't until... By the time the movie came out, I was like 29, pushing 30 when Slacker... And it was like...
Guest:Once they see your picture in the paper in an article about the movie, it's like, oh, okay.
Marc:Something's happening.
Marc:Yeah, that's cool.
Marc:It means something.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So it's like, yeah.
Guest:So I had that decade of kind of undetermined.
Guest:So I have a sympathy for people in their 20s.
Guest:Slightly disappointed parents.
Guest:Yeah, slightly, but supportive.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But they loved me.
Guest:I never questioned- Because there was nothing they can do at that point.
Guest:And I wasn't asking them for any money.
Guest:Oh, that helps.
Guest:That helps.
Guest:I wasn't- So they had no control.
Guest:They had no technical control.
Guest:It's just encouragement.
Guest:But the dad gives the advice.
Guest:Well, you should think about maybe getting back in school.
Guest:And my mom was like, oh, honey, if you're not asking me for anything, and if you're not working and you're not in school and you're happy-
Guest:That sounds great.
Guest:My mom's a little subversive, too.
Guest:She was kind of- Troublemaker?
Guest:Yeah, a little.
Guest:She had that.
Guest:So she was like, oh, if you can get away with that, that's great.
Guest:A little bit of stick it to the man attitude.
Marc:And you've got a little of that.
Marc:She's a little radical.
Marc:When did you start?
Marc:A Waking Life wasn't until 2001, huh?
Guest:Yeah, it came out.
Guest:I started that in 99.
Guest:So you've been working on it for a while.
Yeah.
Guest:I've been thinking about Waking Life for years and years.
Guest:That's kind of closer to Slacker, actually.
Marc:It is.
Marc:Structurally.
Marc:It is.
Marc:So what was the idea there?
Guest:Actually, if you want to put those two movies together, the dream I describe in Slacker in the monologue at the beginning of the movie really is Waking Life.
Guest:a dream in a way.
Guest:The idea for Waking Life preceded me even knowing I was a filmmaker.
Guest:It was based on an actual series of lucid dreams I had as a senior in high school.
Guest:Is that true?
Guest:Yeah, and I thought it was some strange evening, not drug-induced, maybe tension-induced or whatever, but I fell into this thing and
Guest:just couldn't wake up but was aware I was dreaming and I was kind of on some quest and it really stayed with me and when I finally did wake up you know pouring sweat by you know I'd been asleep for only like five minutes a few minutes and it was something that always stuck with me and I was trying to discover what that is and I did a lot
Guest:of scientific research and studied about lucid dreaming and what it is and what it is and even talked to some of the foremost, you know, experts, scientists in that field.
Guest:So I learned a lot about, you know, the brain science behind it.
Guest:But for me as a storyteller, I was like, that's a great narrative device.
Guest:You know, it's an ultimate kind of story, a dream within a dream with a story and the levels.
Guest:And so I had kind of, that had been swimming around as a kind of
Guest:a story I wanted to, something I wanted to try to express.
Marc:And animation enabled you to do that?
Guest:Exactly, because it was really boring and pretentious and all that live action.
Guest:But when I saw the animation technique, some friends of mine were working on, were developing there in Austin, some buddies of mine.
Guest:I was like, you know that film that doesn't work that I've been thinking about for all these years?
Guest:If it looks like that, it'll work.
Guest:Because it's real sound, and yet it's clearly a human construct.
Guest:It's a painting, it's a drawing, and yet it feels real.
Guest:And that's how dreams are.
Guest:A dream is, you accept them as reality.
Guest:It's only when you wake up that you go, oh, wait, I was in a trench in World War I, or I know somewhere.
Guest:There was someone there who I know died 10 years ago, but...
Guest:That should have tipped me off that it wasn't real, but I accepted it as real.
Guest:We accept them as real.
Guest:So I thought, oh, that's an interesting way to tell a story.
Guest:And it worked, too.
Guest:You had to adapt to it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, you have to.
Guest:I love that about movies, though.
Guest:There's a certain latitude within movies, and I've always believed this.
Guest:Like...
Guest:If you set your terms of what the movie is, the audience wants to go there.
Guest:You just have to be you have to lay it out and be consistent with it and be clear.
Guest:And I'm actually, despite all the kind of radical forms around some of my movies.
Guest:that i'm really trying to tell a pretty clean story a pretty direct communication of something and it's often just in a told in a very different way but i am trying to communicate you know directly yeah i'm not trying to i'm like um you're not you're trying i like a clean story not trying to hide anything no make it complicated be too obscure there's enough complication around that's like again it's some kind of life and there's enough noise and can we just talk directly
Guest:It's sort of a cop out too.
Guest:It's hard to do.
Marc:To complicate, you know, or to let, you know, or to sort of like, no, I'm not going to resolve that.
Guest:I don't appreciate that kind of cleverness because there's, I mean, it can be done well, but I don't like it when someone's toying with me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because they can.
Marc:Well, and then like the trilogy that you did before sunrise, before sunset, and then before midnight.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Did you know when you did Before Sunrise that this was the plan?
Marc:No.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:No.
Marc:Because this is all part of this weird obsession I think you have, a mild obsession with people aging and what happens.
Guest:Yeah, or time.
Guest:What time does.
Guest:I had no idea.
Guest:I mean, I'm roughly 10 years older than Julie and Ethan, and I was trying to make a film about two young people who feel this attraction to one another, who have this connection.
Guest:And that's autobiographical.
Marc:It did feel like a foreign film, though, a little bit.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:And it helps that it's in a foreign city.
Marc:It's very European.
Marc:Allowing them to talk.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's almost more French.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You mentioned Truffaut.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Or like an Eric Romer film.
Marc:Yeah, definitely.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like two people talking and not much happening and love is in the air.
Guest:That's enough.
Guest:Yeah, that's enough.
Guest:That's how my mind works.
Guest:As a filmmaker, it's sort of my own curse.
Guest:I was in my 20s and I met this woman in Philadelphia.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we walked the streets all night.
Guest:It took hours and hours to even kiss.
Guest:It was like our minds were firing and we were talking and there was this real connection.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:Who knows, is that hormonal?
Guest:Is it whatever it is?
Guest:What happened to that woman?
Guest:But even as I was doing that, I was like, I want to make a film about this.
Guest:And she's like, what are you talking about?
Guest:I said, this, just this feeling.
Guest:So I'm trying to make a film.
Guest:Five years later, I'm trying to make that film about...
Guest:Just a feeling.
Guest:Was that the line where you kissed her though?
Guest:It wasn't a narrative.
Marc:When you said, I want to make a film about, come on.
Guest:About, yeah, we have to kiss somewhere in here.
Guest:No, I don't think so.
Guest:I'm more of like a Woody Allen, Annie Hall.
Guest:Let's get the first kiss over with right now so we can, you know.
Marc:Now let's talk about like, because I was talking to my friend about this too, that you were able to do exactly what you want to do.
Guest:as an artist and and it seems like even the big huge movies you like school of rock with now that was a movie made some money yeah a lot of money it did pretty well so it didn't feel like we were setting out to make a hit you know we were i was trying to make a cool movie that i would like with you and mike jack black and mike white we all just let's let's make a cool movie you know i think we have idea we have a commercial structure
Guest:It was Mike White's idea.
Guest:He had this vision.
Guest:He knew Jack.
Marc:He had this idea.
Marc:I've talked to him.
Marc:I've talked to both of them.
Guest:Yeah, great guys.
Guest:And they had this vision for all these kids playing instruments.
Guest:And I was like, yeah, let's have a script.
Guest:And I just sort of came aboard right at the point.
Guest:It was sort of starting to go the wrong direction.
Guest:Maybe it was being overdeveloped by the studio.
Guest:And I kind of, you know, film needs a director.
Guest:So I came in and I think with Mike and Jack, we just said, OK, we've got kind of what we need here.
Guest:Let's just make it cool.
Guest:You know, we don't need to end it with them winning the thing and donating the money.
Guest:It was too overly plotted.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, in a certain way.
Guest:And so I like to think I came in and sort of.
Guest:And as a storyteller, you just kind of streamline and make something make sense to you.
Guest:And so, again, that kind of clear storytelling.
Guest:A lot of films, they don't even recognize the power of the medium they're working in.
Guest:They overly explain things.
Right.
Guest:Oh, why will we care about this character unless his dog has died?
Guest:They overly plot things.
Guest:Audiences get it.
Guest:It's called identification.
Guest:You put someone on the screen and spend five minutes with them, and I guess that's our hero.
Guest:And you can use that to crazily subversive ends.
Guest:Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver.
Guest:I care about him.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Because I'm intimate with him.
Guest:I see him driving.
Guest:I feel he's vulnerable.
Guest:He's a vet.
Guest:He's writing in a diary.
Guest:But then at some point you go...
Guest:This guy's a psychotic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's out to shoot a presidential candidate and kill some other people that he's judging in an Old Testament fashion.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, so this guy, he's not really a good citizen, is he?
Guest:Right.
Guest:But we like him.
Guest:You know, Tony Perkins in Psycho.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He's already killed or, you know, he's dispensing of...
Guest:You know, the car.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's in the quicksand of that pit and it almost sinks in the audience.
Guest:We go, once it goes under, we're like, ah, we're relieved.
Guest:Hitchcock's really twisted that way.
Guest:So we're now on the side of the...
Guest:the bad guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, like, film's powerful in senses of identification.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So you don't need a whole bunch of background.
Guest:You don't need to explain everything.
Guest:People are with it.
Guest:We're humans relating to other humans.
Guest:We get it.
Guest:And we, you know, so films spin.
Guest:And this is...
Guest:You know, most scripts, the first 20, 30 pages where they're trying to explain and build up and all these studio notes about why should we care about them?
Guest:What are the stakes?
Guest:You know, just get to it.
Guest:You know, just get to it.
Marc:And people make up their own mind.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Don't over explain.
Marc:It's a powerful medium.
Marc:You don't need to.
Marc:Oh, boy, you see some bad, bad movies that just never stop over explaining.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah, well, they have to because that's why I've kind of largely avoided plot driven.
Guest:I just don't think that way.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And what I've largely done, I think, if I had to analyze it, would replace like plot machinations, you know, with structures to do with time, you know, because that's how we process things.
Guest:The world, you know, in our own worlds, our lives we're living.
Guest:And so I've kind of replaced one for the other.
Guest:But one to me is very true to life.
Guest:Like people get it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, you're going to shoot this and it'll be 85 minutes of real time walking around Paris.
Guest:OK.
Guest:I understand that because I've spent 85 minutes walking around today, you know, so it's not hard to crack that as a structure.
Guest:You just have to make it compelling and believable.
Marc:But that's I just remember was that was an interesting thing about about about boyhood is that there were moments where you got the groove.
Marc:You got that.
Marc:We were we were in the simple.
Marc:Mm hmm.
Guest:life of just people you know going through life but there were moments where you thought like something's gonna go down oh it's about to happen yeah I never that's crazy to me and it shows I never heard that before yeah no the first screening we had and you know I'd shot the movie
Guest:and we made you know the actors we we all were so surprised when we're sitting there at sundance with 1200 people in the theater and this is i'm thinking like the scene where they're farting around throwing blades saw blades at the walls at sheetrock at a teenage camping trip right and there's these blades around there's kids that's the scene you see feel the audience just i heard a chill right
Guest:And we're like an hour and 20 minutes into the movie at this point or hour and halfway through the movie.
Guest:And I felt this chill.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:They think something's about to happen.
Guest:And it never crossed my mind.
Guest:Never.
Guest:As the creator and my actors, we never even talked about it.
Guest:But I said, oh, wow, that's so interesting.
Guest:We're so conditioned.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:To think, okay, why would we be watching a movie unless something extraordinary happens?
Guest:I felt that that was exactly the scene.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then there's later, like the dad says, hey, no driving and texting.
Guest:And then he's driving with his girlfriend and she shows him a text and a picture of a little pig.
Guest:And he's driving and actually looking at the phone.
Guest:So you think, okay, here's where the car goes off the road.
Guest:But the truth is...
Guest:You know, we all drive and look at our devices and hope we don't get in wrecks.
Guest:Right.
Guest:What's frustrating is when you get ahead of a movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, the horror film, like, really, don't... How about locking the door?
Guest:You know, when they're doing dumb things on screen.
Guest:So I wanted the problems of Boyhood to be... Feel like real to life.
Guest:Like, you know, the kind of life... All right, so... The problems we confront and try to resolve best we can.
Guest:I like that.
Guest:Get over, you know.
Marc:I like that she remains...
Marc:Like, the mother character is somewhat unapologetic.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And I think that was a good decision.
Marc:That, you know, you sort of, she comes, she's clearly there for the kids, has her own problems, but, you know, her life, she's a good mother.
Guest:Yeah, she loves her kids and she's trying.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But is she a good mother?
Marc:She's gonna have a life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's how it felt in my household.
Guest:It's like, you know, my mom was my mom.
Guest:And there weren't a lot of looking back.
Guest:There wasn't a lot of introspection.
Guest:It's like, oh, well, that didn't work out.
Marc:Or have you ever come up to her with the sort of like, why didn't you or why, how come?
Guest:I'm afraid.
Guest:to ask that.
Guest:I'm kind of non-confrontational.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:I think my sisters have.
Marc:What'd they get?
Guest:My sisters, you know, little crying and emotional, you know, it's like, but I think once we were older and had kids, my sister, you start judging your parents differently and they were like, well, why did...
Guest:Why do we do that?
Guest:Or how did that happen?
Guest:You have this, like I was saying, this generational lag of communication.
Marc:What are you finding?
Marc:We never got to that.
Marc:What are you finding your relationship with your mother is now and with your kids?
Guest:You know, just, you know, you're kind of... Is she better with the grandkids?
Guest:Resolved.
Guest:You know, it's like, yeah, it's what it was.
Guest:That's the way I am with almost every element of my life.
Guest:It's like, yeah, those are the cards you're dealt.
Guest:You did the best you can.
Guest:That's your hand.
Guest:Make the best of it.
Guest:Don't look back, you know.
Marc:I don't know, but you processed it in a two-hour-plus movie.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, you're processing those emotions.
Guest:Sure am.
Guest:And maybe that's, you know, there was some trauma in childhood.
Guest:It wasn't, I mean, I think we all feel traumatized just as humans in this world.
Guest:Just trying to, every psyche is extremely complex and it's really hard to just make it through the world no matter what, you know, where you start from.
Marc:But you had, from your point of view, when you were a kid at that age, that guy that your mom was dating in the movie, I don't want to keep saying your, but in the movie was a guy you dealt with.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:So on some level, that to me...
Marc:No matter who you are.
Marc:Sure, you know, life is what it is.
Marc:There's the cards you dealt.
Marc:But that's a violent environment.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And it's a frightening environment.
Marc:And when you're 10.
Guest:Intimidating.
Marc:When you're 8, 9, 10, 12.
Marc:It can be devastating because, like, you got your real dad.
Marc:And then you got this stranger.
Marc:I know.
Marc:Your mom.
Guest:who wanders, he wanders into your, this is, stepmothers can fall in the same, you know, there's a whole, you know, Cinderella thing, like, ooh, watch out for stepmothers, too, because suddenly there's this adult authority figure in life exerting control and opinion over you, and wow, like, I didn't invite you here, and you're not my dad, and you're not my biological anything, and I'm not even going to call you dad, you know, I'm sorry, because you're not my dad, and yet you're in my house.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I don't think I ever really registered what that must have been like as much empathetically until I saw your movie.
Guest:I talked to a woman last night just at a function.
Guest:She came up to me and thanked me for that.
Guest:She goes, I don't think I've seen that in a movie where the multi-household, the new parents, what it feels like to go back and forth and have new...
Guest:Yeah, it's not... I mean, there's some dramatic moments, but it's just also like, well, that's the life you adapt to because you're just adapting to your parents' new surroundings.
Guest:And kids are amazingly adaptable.
Guest:You know, you read these studies about, like, homeless kids.
Guest:Like, hey, we're living in a cardboard box under a freeway, and the kids are like...
Guest:Okay, let's go.
Guest:The grocery store is where the cardboard is.
Guest:We'll go out and get it when it quits raining.
Guest:They're very adaptable as a species.
Guest:And they're kind of like, let's get together and make this work.
Marc:But clearly your parents were stable enough because you've got your shit together.
Guest:Yeah, and so do my sisters.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And your mom, that was the integrity of that character and obviously of your mother is that she may be stubborn and she may have made bad choices, but she's certainly going to look out for you.
Guest:Yeah, at the end, we were always going to kind of pull through.
Guest:I mean, do you have a choice?
Marc:But yeah, it felt that way.
Marc:So, Fast Food Nation, I love that book.
Marc:I enjoyed the movie a lot.
Marc:It must have been a hard thing to figure out what the hell the story was going to be from that book.
Guest:Yeah, that was... Eric Schlosser and I got to talking, and he's like...
Guest:you know, what would the movie from this book be?
Guest:I said, well, wouldn't it be a documentary, you know?
Guest:And eventually years later, they did make a movie kind of called Food Inc.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was, you know, it's not based on Fast Food Nation, but Eric was involved in it.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But our job, and I was like, well, I tell stories, you know, I'm a character guy.
Guest:I'm, you know, like working with actors and,
Guest:And so we were talking about dramatizing stories within that non-fictional environment that would tell the story in a different way.
Guest:So that was a challenge to adapt that material, but it was...
Guest:It was really fun to kind of see the multi sides of like the fast food meal.
Guest:You know, you've got the executives, you've got the immigrant labor, you've got the teenager working at the place.
Guest:And, you know, it's a fun way to tell a story.
Marc:How'd you feel about that movie?
Guest:Challenging.
Guest:I like it.
Guest:It was that, and I did that, and Scanner Darkly came out around the same time.
Guest:And looking back on it, it's like, those are both really kind of dark, bleak, strange stories.
Guest:And I think that was what was going on in my head at that time.
Guest:It was like Bush Cheney era grimness.
Marc:You grew up with those guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or at least the Bushes.
Guest:We endured that time.
Guest:It was a tough century, the first chunk of it, for a lot of people.
Guest:I feel sorry for kids.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:At least I was an adult.
Marc:When did you start going to Austin?
Guest:Oh, as a teenager.
Guest:I visited some older friends there and kind of thought, oh, I seem like a pretty, you know, you go to some music at the Continental Club, you go to Barton Springs, and there's half-naked girls running around.
Guest:You're like, hey, I could live here.
Marc:So it was always like that.
Marc:It was always a little groovy.
Guest:It was a big music scene.
Guest:The film scene, they had a big film school there, but the film scene was kind of marginal.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:um when i got there and it's been one of the great um you know parts of my life to be a part of a film world that's kind of growing there culturally didn't you create the austin film society yeah but almost 30 years ago it's 30 years we started in 85 what we started showing movies is that what the original intention was yeah we just showed a lot of movies you couldn't see on campus or anywhere else in town where what was the venue
Guest:um the dobe theater the extinct dobe theater they let us show at midnight and i just walked in there and talked to the manager hey i want to show these movies and we'll split the money and i just i was so passionate about film and i was making my own films then but i kind of wanted to do something you know i had a bigger calling about cinema i still do you know we we give out grants we show a ton of movies i still host film series you know i'm not doing the grunt work like i did
Guest:all those years.
Guest:I'm not writing the grants and booking the films and shipping.
Guest:In my nonproductive 20s, I did start a nonprofit organization that's still around and is a major nonprofit.
Marc:Does it have its own venue now?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The Marquesa there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We've got our own 200 plus seat theater and show movies there and film every day.
Guest:We're fighting the good fight.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We show 20 something a month.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We give out, we've given out like 1.5, four or 5 million in grants to filmmakers around the state.
Guest:And I'm, I'm as proud of the film society and what it's become and what we've accomplished.
Guest:Then, you know, my own films.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's a, it's been a wonderful parallel life that I can put time into, you know,
Marc:And do you get, when you give out grants and stuff, how do you decide?
Marc:Do you decide on people's works?
Guest:Oh, we have some panelists from out of state who just, they go through proposals and work samples.
Guest:And people need encouragement.
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:The culture really doesn't care about art.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And often the artists themselves, young artists in particular, haven't always had the family encouragement.
Guest:So I've found that.
Guest:And it happened in my life.
Guest:I got a grant for $2,600 to help me finish Slacker.
Guest:You did?
Guest:I parlayed that into getting family to loan me money to finish.
Guest:So sometimes that's the first affirmative shot in the arm you've ever had as an artist.
Guest:Like, hey, good effort.
Guest:So it's even beyond the money.
Guest:It's, I think, the notion that the bigger world cares and that they want to support an artist because the culture can be kind of cruel.
Guest:I don't think we put enough emphasis on it.
Guest:It's always the first thing cut from schools.
Guest:It's seen as a sidebar, but I really think art and creativity, it will save us.
Guest:I do.
Guest:I do as well.
Guest:Yeah, that and teachers.
Guest:Horrible and we so undervalue the absolute most important things because you can't find, you can't do the math and find a place for it in the marketplace.
Guest:But it's the ultimate thing that will save us all.
Guest:I don't think people- Education and feelings and sensitivity and the culture just
Guest:I mean, it's never been any better.
Guest:It's better in other places in the world than it is the United States, the winner-take-all capitalists.
Guest:When they can't find a bottom-line place for something, like a teacher, it's like, oh, well, do we even need that?
Guest:Do we really need?
Guest:Let's zero out the NEA, a bunch of elitists.
Marc:It's crazy.
Guest:It's insane.
Guest:You couldn't do a worse investment to cut stuff like that.
Marc:And the thing is, is that as things go away, it becomes harder to find.
Marc:And you need things like what you're doing to provoke the people that are like us, that you're wandering around when you're 15 and like, this looks cool.
Guest:I want to know about that.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I've enjoyed, just in boyhood, like there's been some really younger teenage viewers to see things and see them spring up like, oh, wow, like that.
Guest:You know, to feel like you've kind of...
Guest:jumped into someone's life and jostled them around a little bit I never think that way when I'm doing anything but when you see the result and you see some kid kind of going oh wow that was like a lot like my life and it makes me think about my mom and my dad and my it's great I'm like oh that's cool because that that kind of stuff sure inspired me you know I live for those moments when I felt connected to something far far away from me but through art you know sure made me think the world was a
Guest:Was an OK place.
Guest:And there was a place for me in it.
Marc:Do you draw some sort of line where do you are there movies that you do for money?
Marc:No, not really.
Guest:I never have.
Guest:No, I haven't had to.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I keep a low overhead and I've never done a movie that I wasn't super like thinking I was the only person who could do that.
Guest:Even someone like School of Rock is a good example.
Marc:Well, people love that movie.
Marc:I'm not begrudging that movie, but the remake of the bad news bears, what was it?
Guest:It's, I came from the exact same place.
Guest:I came from school Iraq, which was like, this movie seems to be happening.
Guest:It's the only two times I've kind of come aboard a project that, that I didn't originate.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you know, that's kind of what our industry is.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And in both cases, I felt like, well, it seemed like that movie was going to get made with or without me, but I felt called to like, I'm the kind of the right guy to do it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I know that subject so well.
Guest:And,
Guest:In School of Rock, it was that character, Jack's character, Dewey Finn.
Guest:It was kind of me in a parallel world.
Guest:And the rock and roll, that was me.
Guest:Music's such a big part of my life.
Guest:And I felt I knew.
Guest:And I had a daughter just that age at that moment.
Guest:So I felt a sensitivity to fifth graders at that moment.
Guest:So I thought, you know, all the roads lead to me being the best guy to do this movie.
Guest:I have to feel like I'm the only.
Guest:Because if anyone can do it, I shouldn't do it.
Guest:And I've turned down plenty of movies over the years.
Guest:that I think are better movies because someone else directed it.
Guest:I wasn't the right sensibility.
Guest:So the industry, there's a lot of matchmaking going on.
Guest:There's all these stories, maybe an adapted book, a remake, whatever.
Guest:And they're just matchmaking for the right sensibility.
Guest:And a smart producer or studio head might...
Guest:In School of Rock, it was Scott Rudin, the producer, who kind of started pestering me to do it.
Guest:And I said no at first, and then he convinced me that it was going to be a good creative experience, which it was.
Guest:I was kind of afraid of maybe...
Guest:You hear the horror stories like, oh, some bad Hollywood experience.
Guest:But I sit before you having not had a bad experience.
Guest:Those are big movies for me.
Guest:They're like $30 million, which is a low-budget studio film, believe it or not.
Guest:But for me, it's a bigger film.
Guest:And you feel that.
Guest:It's great to have those resources, though.
Guest:I got 50 days to shoot the film.
Guest:Do you feel the pressure, though?
Guest:I don't...
Guest:As a former athlete, I don't really accept the pressure.
Marc:See, that's what makes a director a director.
Guest:I don't let it get to me.
Guest:That's what makes a director a director.
Guest:Pressure's a choice.
Guest:I don't, man.
Guest:Pressure's a choice.
Guest:I don't see it as that.
Guest:I saw it as an opportunity.
Guest:I thought I could take what I do, what I thought was...
Guest:my own working methodologies and take it to a studio level.
Guest:And frankly, it's a big challenge to make a studio comedy.
Guest:I see a lot of comedies and I go, it's funny, but they left a lot of humor on the table.
Guest:I think comedy is a craft.
Guest:You really work it and you make it work and you rehearse.
Guest:I brought a methodology and a lot of thinking to certain comedies.
Guest:But that's not innately your thing, is it?
Guest:No.
Guest:I mean, on one level...
Guest:In both those cases, it was like a perfect little moment in my life where I could do it.
Guest:If I was offered either of those today, I wouldn't because I'm doing other things.
Marc:You were excited you had a kid that was around that age?
Guest:Yeah, and I felt kind of like I got to feel... And it was the first time I said yes to something that, you know, I was like, well, I'm a little older.
Guest:If it didn't end up a good experience, I could live with it.
Guest:It wouldn't mess up my trajectory of what I think I'm here to do.
Marc:Pressure is a choice.
Marc:Is that something you learned in...
Marc:In high school athletics?
Guest:It's kind of a thing a coach tells you.
Marc:Is it?
Guest:Did they?
Guest:A smart coach.
Guest:Is that where you heard it?
Guest:But not, I heard it more recently.
Guest:I didn't hear it when I needed to hear it.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I made a documentary about a very interesting coach at the University of Texas, and it's a kind of a thing he would say.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:What documentary was that?
Guest:It was called Inning by Inning, Portrait of a Coach.
Guest:Augie Garrido, kind of the greatest college baseball coach, the most winningest coach in NCAA history.
Guest:But that's not what he's about.
Guest:He's kind of a Zen master and has a lot to say about the metaphors of the game and life.
Guest:He's just a cool old guy.
Marc:You're kind of a Zen guy.
Guest:Yeah, actually related to what a head coach goes through is a lot like what a film director goes through.
Guest:you're sort of seeing greatness in others and trying to maximize their skills, whether it's an actor, a composer, a production designer, a costume designer.
Guest:You've also got to keep your shit together for everybody.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then you have to be kind of a central authority orchestrator of all this creative energy and abilities.
Guest:And so that's an ability in itself.
Guest:You know, a lot of directors were kind of
Guest:you maybe don't possess like none of us could be as good as actors but you know a lot about acting you know you know I know just enough and same with every element of filmmaking you know there's people who specialize more in all of it but I feel like I know you know I know what I'm going for sure clearly you have to
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you hang out with the other Austin guys?
Marc:Like when Mike Judge was there, were you guys hanging out?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What about Rodriguez?
Marc:Old friend.
Marc:Yeah, see him.
Guest:Robert?
Guest:Everybody's kind of doing their own thing.
Guest:Robert's got a whole operation out there.
Guest:He's a mogul.
Guest:He's amazing.
Guest:He's an amazing guy.
Guest:So I'm always kind of awed by Robert's...
Guest:you know, just sheer energy and creativity.
Guest:Do you use his facilities ever?
Guest:Every now and then.
Guest:And he uses, we're kind of next door neighbors.
Marc:Oh really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He has a studio right next to the film society.
Guest:So we're, we're neighbors, brothers, you know, all the way down the line.
Guest:Been friends for a long time.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what about Mike?
Guest:Yeah, Mike, you know, he used to be in Austin Moore.
Guest:I think he's out here a little more.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, he's back out here.
Guest:But no, just a genius, you know, and one of the funniest, like, lunch companions you'll ever, you know, like, his imitations, his, oh, that guy is, he's unbelievable.
Marc:He comes from Albuquerque.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Weren't you in one of the Beavis?
Marc:You were in the movie, weren't you?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was doing imitations of a high school football coach, and he liked the way I kind of imitated one of them.
Guest:Some old guys kind of hit this upper register, especially Southern guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:i'm warning you you better you know they hit this register that what that's not your voice but when they get angry yeah so i don't know i think he thought it was funny but he asked me to come in the studio and play a bus driver who yeah beats the shit out of like beavis or something yeah so it was it was just fun
Marc:I like that you guys have a community down there.
Guest:Yeah, and there's a ton of other indie directors making really excellent films.
Guest:Yeah, Austin.
Guest:Anybody come out of your program that you... Oh, yeah, quite.
Guest:Yeah, a lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:A lot, you know.
Marc:Any guys doing features yet?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:No, tons.
Guest:It's Sundance every year.
Guest:There's like numerous features from Austin.
Marc:From Austin Film Society?
Marc:Grants?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And a lot of them are former grantees and people who, you know, like right out of college, they stayed there and they, you know, made a film and made their next film.
Guest:And, you know, I could list quite a few.
Marc:Well, geez, man, it's great talking to you.
Marc:You're doing great stuff, and I love the new film.
Marc:It was like nothing I'd seen before.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Well, that's high praise to just trying to do something you haven't seen before.
Guest:So that's what it felt like to me.
Guest:I was definitely making a film I hadn't made before.
Marc:Yeah, and it was great talking to you, man.
Marc:I'll see you in Austin.
Guest:All right, man.
Marc:All right, buddy.
Guest:And we never talked about Phil Lennett in Thin Lizzy.
Marc:We can.
Marc:Nah, it's cool.
Guest:We can still do it.
Guest:He's just an amazing guy.
Guest:I mean, he's this black Irish dude with a big fro.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Who's... Dude, nobody sounds like him, man.
Guest:Rock and roll in that voice.
Marc:Nobody sounds like Phil Lennett.
Marc:Nobody.
Guest:You know, and...
Guest:One of the most beautiful songs he ever did is called Still In Love With You.
Guest:You know that song?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:It's the most beautiful ballad he could do.
Guest:He could do anything.
Marc:Who was your main high school band?
Guest:Wow.
Guest:From where I started high school, like, you know, FM, Top 40, Leonard Skinner, Zeppelin, Aerosmith.
Guest:And where I ended was like Zappa, Beefheart, King Crimson.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I had my own little- I had kind of a weird similar arc.
Marc:So you had the mainstream shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then I met the dude who worked at the record store.
Marc:And then I was into Bowie.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, what do you do here?
Marc:The Residents.
Guest:Like, Residents.
Guest:Have you heard of this guy, Brian Eno?
Marc:Right.
Guest:Eno was another- It was a great time.
Guest:There was all this experimentation.
Guest:Hey, you had to have a guy show you that shit, though.
Guest:The guy who owned Evolution Records in Huntsville, Texas, in a little conservative town, a record store called Evolution, which is challenging their belief system alone.
Marc:It's not the place where Brit Daniel grew up, is it?
Marc:No.
Marc:The guy from Spoon?
Guest:No, he grew up in a town, Taylor, which is, I believe it's Taylor.
Marc:Taylor, yeah, that's right.
Marc:Similar experience.
Guest:Similar, yeah.
Guest:You're the weird guy, but there's always that little nook you can hang out.
Guest:That's why the record stores- Evolution records.
Guest:Yeah, right there in Huntsville, Texas.
Marc:He was the dude, right?
Guest:Brian Eno?
Guest:Yeah, and there were always guys, they're like, hey, have you checked out?
Guest:It's great.
Guest:You know, it's just so important.
Guest:But I guess people do that online now.
Guest:I mean, right?
Guest:I don't know, man.
Guest:It's just like, I don't know.
Guest:Friends, like someone you don't really know and you can show your interests and they can take you.
Marc:It seems like there's a little more of a sort of like one-upsmanship going on as opposed to like actually sharing.
Marc:It's like you can go look at anything you want online and get access to it.
Marc:But to actually be standing before a dude that's usually a little older than you.
Guest:Yeah, you look up.
Guest:That knows shit.
Guest:They have taste.
Guest:They're 10 years older than you.
Marc:They know shit.
Marc:They've been through shit.
Marc:shit the secret shit because beef heart that's secret shit yeah that's like yeah it's it's secret you're not gonna yeah zappa like to be introduced into that world oh you like zappa well have you ever heard trout mass west yeah okay yeah a new tree branch forms oh my god i just got into that branch it took me up until last year two years ago yeah you were into zappa when you were a teenager yeah did you like heavy into college yeah
Guest:Once I went in, I went way in.
Guest:I'm one of those freaks.
Marc:Really?
Marc:I have every album.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's outstanding.
Guest:And when I was younger, it was, you know, Beatles, Stones, you know, like- You got all that.
Marc:You cover- That's like Christmas carols, man.
Marc:They're in place.
Guest:They're in place.
Marc:They're not going anywhere, and they're great.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know?
Marc:Right.
Marc:But-
Marc:Yeah, then the Zappa universe, someone gives you that.
Marc:But Brian Eno, too, it's like, what the fuck?
Marc:And the residents in that whole world?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All that art rock going on?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So you had your mind blown.
Guest:And then it got more punky and more new wave punky pretty soon.
Marc:I saw that happen, though.
Marc:I discovered that.
Marc:You were already out.
Marc:Of high school.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Like, that started coming in, like, the new wave stuff.
Marc:Like, I was still... Because you graduated, what?
Marc:In 79.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So, I graduated in 81.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:So, those last couple years, shit started changing.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:There were some skinny ties on the quad.
Marc:Oh, it changed.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It changed rapidly.
Guest:You know, this movie, I just shot a movie that'll be out probably next summer, fall or whatever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it's set in 1980.
Guest:It's about a college freshman.
Guest:You just show up at college and you're listening to Van Halen, and you go to discos to chase women.
Guest:But then you end up at a punk club or a country bar, because the urban cowboy was big.
Marc:That was right.
Guest:So all these different, it was all on the table.
Guest:Like some of that stuff.
Guest:That's great, that's great.
Guest:So it's an interesting cultural moment, because then they go to an art party and they're listening to the talking heads.
Guest:I live that.
Guest:That's fucking fascinating, dude.
Guest:So it's a cultural moment where- That's what they said.
Guest:It was all on the table.
Guest:And I'm like, who am I?
Guest:Am I a punk?
Guest:Am I a new?
Guest:Am I heavy metal?
Guest:Am I?
Marc:You knew disco was dying.
Guest:Well, disco sucked anyway, but you secretly, I'm amazed how that stuff has aged.
Guest:I explained to my cast, because they go, I'm about these young guys who weren't nowhere near even being born then.
Guest:And they were liking all this disco music.
Guest:I said, okay, let me tell you.
Guest:I secretly like the beats and the way some of it felt, but as a thinking rock and roller, you could never admit it.
Guest:You had to say this stuff sucked.
Marc:You can say it now.
Marc:You can say it now.
Marc:I listen to Donna Summer now.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I like all... I kind of rediscovered all this stuff, and it just seemed so shallow.
Marc:That song, like, Don't Leave Me This Way, with that bass line.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It's kind of great.
Guest:Come on, man.
Guest:But the shallowness of it was kind of projected onto it, because you knew it was...
Guest:kind of disposable.
Guest:They'd go into a studio.
Guest:Often it was producer-based.
Guest:They'd get some singers and beats.
Guest:It's kind of like the worst of rap.
Guest:But it's kind of like it wasn't artistry and the lyrics were often very simple, but there were hooks and beats.
Marc:Tell me about this juncture, though, because I've been sort of fascinated with that because that's unique to our generation.
Marc:We're not the 60s.
Marc:We're not old boomers.
Marc:We were literally in high school when the 60s was fading.
Marc:Zeppelin was established.
Marc:But still, that was even old by the time we were in high school.
Marc:I mean, we were there in through the outdoor and maybe presence.
Marc:But then all of a sudden, New Wave came in and punk actually hit the States after New Wave for some reason where I lived.
Guest:Yeah, it was slow.
Guest:Things weren't instantaneous.
Marc:What was going on in London and New York was years away.
Marc:right and then like when i was like i worked across from the university of new mexico so i knew artists i knew the art rock thing because the guy at the record store but you still had van halen yeah like i was still in high school i mean when when van halen one came out i'm going to that concert right but it was all there yeah and you and i i tell a story right it might even be in my book about bringing my buddy dave who was my friend who owned a fucking firebird
Marc:to this college party where this band was doing performance art.
Marc:And it was that moment where he was like, I guess it's cool, is there beer?
Marc:You just wander in like, oh.
Marc:Well, I knew sort of what was up, and I'm like, Dave's never going to get this.
Marc:Performance art.
Marc:Yeah, but he was all right.
Marc:What is that?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Minds are blown.
Marc:Right.
Marc:What compelled you?
Marc:That's what college is about.
Marc:Was that the context that you were dealing with?
Marc:Was that the only thing that entered this film for you?
Marc:Was that weird vortex of shifting?
Guest:And trying to figure out who you are.
Guest:And it's autobiographical, too.
Guest:I was that college kid showing up with some ideas and being introduced.
Guest:I remember meeting actors and actresses.
Guest:gay guys in the drama department.
Guest:I'm like, oh, they're gay.
Guest:I didn't think I knew any gay people.
Guest:And I was like, wow.
Guest:And they don't seem to have a problem with it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I was like, they're really cool.
Guest:Look how smart and creative.
Guest:And I like what they're, I was like, oh, wow.
Guest:Worlds were just opening.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, it was just mind blowing and cool people who didn't give a shit about the pep rally or sports or, you know, what seems to rule high schools.
Guest:And this is like, oh, ideas, art, energy, creativity.
Guest:So what's the name of this?
Guest:You're 18, 19 years old and working title is that's what I'm talking about.
Guest:How far along are you?
Guest:I'm starting to edit.
Guest:I just shot it.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had a nice little gap this fall.
Guest:Who's playing you?
Guest:33 days of production.
Guest:Wonderful ensemble.
Guest:It's a lot like days.
Guest:The big ensemble of young actors, none of which you probably know.
Guest:Now, this is exciting.
Guest:A lot of guys have been around, and you might recognize a few from guys from...
Guest:you know young actors they're in all kinds of stuff i'm excited but uh it's it's fun i i'm excited about how's the footage good good great you know good good energy you know disco footage punk club the last night we shot like a punk club yeah and uh i had a group a local group riverboat gamblers in austin a really excellent excellent like punk band and uh they did as i remember i told them like can you do a punk song of the gilligan's island theme song
Guest:Because I remember a band in the 80s doing that.
Guest:And damn it, if they did, they did.
Guest:It starts off kind of a ballad, then boom.
Guest:They nailed it?
Guest:Yeah, it was awesome.
Guest:I did another, a couple other punk songs.
Marc:I remember going through Austin, 19, when I graduated college in like 86 or 87, I was there.
Marc:And I saw a band, I was shit-faced.
Marc:and i saw a band do like a punk rock rose of san antonio and i was like that was the first time i'd heard that song and i'm like that's the greatest song in the world it's like oh you know there's a traditional version of that no doesn't exist i have it though i have the bob wills version but just that one yeah but just that idea of taking something from your cultural past and re i love revamping it reusing it i was like oh that's
Guest:That's brilliant.
Guest:I'm excited.
Guest:You can do that in every art form.
Guest:You can take all this crap you were fed and turning it into something else.
Marc:I'm excited about this movie.
Guest:Yeah, me too.
Guest:It fits right in there.
Guest:It's like college.
Guest:It sort of begins right where Boarhead ends.
Guest:A guy shows up at college.
Guest:Great.
Guest:It's an overlap.
Guest:It's the same kid?
Yeah.
Guest:No, it wasn't because that kid's kind of an artist kid and my guys are sort of jocks.
Guest:They're all on the baseball team, but they're like witty.
Guest:You know, people think athletes are kind of dumb and some are, but there was a certain kind of energy and wit among, particularly the older guys.
Guest:They were like...
Guest:So it's kind of trying to capture.
Guest:They're competitive jerks on one hand, but they're really funny and witty on another.
Marc:And you're the one whose mind gets blown?
Guest:A little bit.
Guest:There's several freshmen coming in.
Guest:But, you know, hold your own.
Guest:You've got to kind of hold your own with these guys.
Guest:All right.
Guest:So that's the challenge to stick in there.
Guest:But we'll see.
Guest:You know, check it out.
Marc:I'm excited, man.
Marc:Great talking to you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We did it.
Marc:We got Thin Lizzy in.
Guest:We got Thin Lizzy.
Thank you.
Marc:All right, folks, that's it.
Marc:That's our show.
Marc:I hope you enjoyed that conversation.
Marc:A very nice guy, and I like the fact that he's giving back to the world, helping people out.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:Get the app.
Marc:Upgrade to the premium app.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:I am tired of me.
Marc:.
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.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:Boomer lives!