If you were to shoot a film over the course of 12 years about a boy’s adolescent life, pouring your own experiences into it and creating the script as you go, what would that experience be called?
Patricia Arquette, who, for the past 12 years has been acting in a film that did just that, called it “the strangest, most unorthodox and beautiful experience ever.” Director Richard Linklater called it “Boyhood.”
The film takes you on a journey through the life of a boy named Mason (Ellar Coltrane), starting when he is in first grade and ending just as he enters college. The film cuts in and out of his life in a way that is refreshing and natural. We aren’t burdened by the clichéd turning points of life, like a first lost tooth or first kiss, but instead get to see Mason in his downtime, relating with his friends and family. It becomes more about his character than what’s happening around him.
Sometimes, the film jumps in time and the audience has to scramble to catch up. Life is never the same for more than a moment, and Linklater makes sure to portray that. Overall, the film does a beautiful job of encapsulating the interactions of this family, so much that you feel you really get to know them.
In a phone interview, Arquette gave me a little more detail about how the film was created. Fascinatingly, the scenes were shot in real time, in the midst of other projects, so you actually watch these people as they age.
Why did she call the project unorthodox?
“I immediately said yes,” Arquette remembers, “and [Linklater] said, ‘We don’t have any money,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah yeah yeah, I’m in!’ And I said, ‘Can I look at the script?’ and he said, ‘Well, we don’t have one.'”
It turns out that Linklater had the structure for the script, but wanted to leave room in order to develop the characters naturally as they grew. So, Arquette and the rest of the cast had to discover the script as they went.
“It took a really different skill set…and I was excited by that,” added Arquette. “Rick would write the rough draft of a scene, and we would read it, and then we would talk about different people’s life experiences that sort of correlated to the scene in some way or another, or each other… and then we would do an improvisation of it, and Rick would say, ‘That second part of that story you told about your friend, let’s use that. That little improv you said on that line, let’s use that part.’ And he would craft it from there, and then we would shoot it the next day. So, it was a bonding experience and a really creative, collaborative experience every year going back.”
This collaborative way of creating the story meant that it was ultimately a blend of different people’s experiences, even in the little, “dumb” moments.
“My friend told me that story about her son sharpening a rock,” Arquette said. “It’s so crazy how the world’s set up. You teach little children, here’s this tool, here’s what it does. It sharpens something. And then, they’re kind of brilliant, and they think, I want to sharpen this thing—I’m gonna use a sharpening instrument. And then they get in trouble.”
The beauty of this collaborative blend is that every moment is based on something true. That explains why the characters feel so real: there’s not a contrived moment in the film. You see all sides of this family, even the ugly ones, and that becomes the message of the film.
“Families bug each other, and they get on each other’s nerves, and they push against each other… but what love feels like is… imperfect, but it’s there,” said Arquette. “It’s your base, but it’s not always flowery and perfect. You go through things in life, everyone goes through things in life. You show me the perfect parent, I’m gonna show you a lunatic.”
And that on-screen family became a kind of second family.
“I never got the full script, so Rick would tell me, ‘Oh, this year their dad’s gonna take them camping…’ But I didn’t know exactly what they talked about. So when I saw it, my character was also watching. And my character immediately had a lot of thoughts, like when they went on that little hang out with their friends, and he lied to his mom, I was just thinking, ‘What are you doing, I don’t like that guy, you’re never hanging out with him again, I’m coming to get you right now…’ My character just started thinking, while I was watching the movie.”
Of course, the actors were very different from their characters. “[Ellar Coltrane and Lorelei Linklater] were both only children, they didn’t really know what that sibling dynamic was like, so they were playing it very early on.”
She spoke of the haircut scene: “Rick called [Ellar] and said, ‘Don’t cut your hair this year, we’re gonna do a haircutting scene.’ Ellar was dying to get a haircut. He looks really bummed in the scene, but he was really happy… And it was one take, just that. So we were like, can he pull it off, or will he just start laughing?”
I asked her about people’s reactions to the film.
“For seven years I was doing a TV show, and people would say to me, ‘You used to make these art movies, and you’d work with these really interesting directors,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, I still am.’ And they would look at me like, yeah, right. I was like, ‘I’m making a movie right now; I’m making a really important art movie right now!’ I told so many people, and so did Ethan, and we both had this experience that nobody cared. It wasn’t interesting and their eyes would glaze over and they’d get really bored…” She laughed. “And I didn’t understand it because the second I heard about it, I thought it was incredible. But they didn’t.”
But, once the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, people came around.
“You know, it’s such a personal, beautiful project, and we cared so much about these characters and story and experience, and each other, and I was worried about giving it to the world… but people really come up to you and tell you personal things, and are moved, and introspective, and they want to call their mom, and have a different perspective on their life…and so the love we made has been returned, and it’s been incredible.”
And the film truly is incredible. “Boyhood” will be playing at the Midtown Cinema, and I recommend that you don’t miss it.
The full interview with Patricia Arquette is available on the Midtown Cinema website, www.midtowncinema.com.
Sammi Leigh Melville is a staff member and film reviewer at Midtown Cinema.
August Events at Midtown Cinema
Brunch & a Movie
8/3 10:30 am brunch; 11 am movie
“Mean Girls”: Celebrate the 10th anniversary of this cult classic with a great brunch sourced from the Broad Street Market & Yellow Bird Cafe. BYOB.
2nd Sunday Foreign Series
8/10 6pm
Fritz Lang’s “M,” a 1931 German drama/thriller starring Peter Lorre.
3rd in The Burg $3 Movie
8/15 about 9:30 pm
“Aliens”: Ripley & crew return to the planet to kill the remaining aliens that have slaughtered the colonists.
3rd Sunday Down in Front!
8/17 7pm
Help us make fun of the horrifically bad 1960 horror/accidentally hilarious ghost story, “Tormented.” BYOB
National Theatre Live
8/17 4pm & 8/19 7pm
A recording of the play, “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” based on the best-selling novel by Mark Haddon.
Moviate Night
8/24 7pm
Moviate night at the MC. Film TBA.
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BBC Worldwide WWI Series
Three highly acclaimed productions focus on events leading up to the First World War.
8/3 4pm
“37 Days,” a drama about the machinations that took place between the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and the declaration of war.
8/10 4pm
“Royal Cousins at War”
A riveting account of three first cousins: the tsar, the kaiser and the king of England, whose relationship helped fuel the war.
8/24 4pm
“Churchill’s First World War”
A fascinating documentary on the lesser-known period in Churchill’s life when he was disgraced politically and militarily.
