(Even though I will be talking about a film not yet released, spoiler alert just in case.)
You know, I was struggling with what to write about for the second post. The original idea actually was to talk about transformers making 100 million at the box office and what that means for the future, but then I came across this trailer.
Yep, you read that right. In 2002 filmmaker Richard Linklater cast 6 year old Ellar Coltrane (you can check out his IMDB page here) for this film, and decided to film around him growing up over the course of 12 years.
That's not only insanely brave, it possibly makes this film one of a kind. Hell the closest thing I can think of to compare this to is The Up Series of films by Paul Almond and Michael Apted. And that was multiple films done in a documentary style. This is one fictional story, with the same people, over twelve years.
There's so much to cover here I don't really know where to start. I guess before we get into the logistics of it I'll tell you about the people involved with the film and go from there.
First up is Richard Linklater. I think I'll let his filmography speak for itself, but I just want to point out a few of his highlights:
- Writer and director of Dazed and Confused. If you have never heard of this film, how comfortable was that rock you were under?
- Director of Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight. A trilogy of Romantic dramas made over the course of eight years. Each one of them is highly regarded as the story follows a couple who fall in love, get married, and grow old together. They also starred Ethan Hawke who we'll talk about further down the page.
- Director of School of Rock and Bernie, two Jack Black comedies both of which I really like and highly recommend (especially Bernie which is on Netflix hint hint.)
The two big stars playing the parents in Boyhood are none other than Ethan Hawke (told you we'd talk about him) and Patricia Arquette.
Ethan Hawke is probably best known for Training Day, as well as The Before Series of films discussed earlier. He recently appeared in Sinister and The Purge (which has a sequel I'll probably do a review for when it comes out)
Patricia Arquette is known for films such as True Romance (My favorite romantic movie of all time, I'll tell you why another time,) Ed Wood (The Tim Burton Johnny Depp starring film about the legendarily bad filmmaker of the same name,) and Lost Highway, which I have not seen but know about for it helping bring attention to German heavy metal band Rammstein (A favorite of mine.)
The last star is Lorelei Linklater, daughter of the director. Along with Ellar her filmography isn't that big, but also like Ellar she appeared in another one of her father films as well, 2001's Walking Life.
So that's everyone involved. That was a lot to research. I even had to take a break while writing this.
But now I want to get back to the reason I started talking about this in the first place. The twelve years involved in making the film.
Just think about it for a second. This started back in 2002. That was the year the US invaded Afghanistan, John Paul II was the pope, and The Queen Mother died.
There are so many things that could've gone wrong over twelve years that could've messed up the film. These are just off of the top of my head:
- Anybody involved with the film could've decided they didn't want to act anymore. Did you know Sean Connery quit acting because of The League of Extraordinary Gentleman? Imagine lets say Ethan Hawke quit because of something like Getaway. They'd have to find a logical way to write him out of the film while also making sure it makes sense with everything else they had shoot up to that point. It might seem easy, but something like that could've been bad.
- Ellar Coltrane (god forbid) could've died. As far as I know he doesn't have a major illness, but what if he had died in an accident? I admit it sounds morbid, but it has happened in film making. For example: Bruce Lee died in his home while working on Game of Death in 1973. They had to scrap the film, and rework it to include Bruce Lee's death into the new version of it that they released in 1978. But for something like this where the main character had to be seen growing up, that would've been a nightmare.
- Shooting locations: The film isn't out yet, so this going to be me mostly assuming, in this case what they would've done for any scene in the family home. There's two ways to film people being in houses. One is to film in a real world home that someone owns, or to use a well built set. Both of those ways could run into big problems. If they used a real world house, the owners could've moved and the new owners could've said no to them continuing to use it. If it was a set, they'd have to find a place to store for twelve years or they would've had to tear down, store it, then rebuild it somewhere else every time. I've had experience building and moving sets and let me tell you it can be a royal pain in the ass.
- Scheduling everybody involved and their availability: These are how many films that the four main stars and the director made between 2002 and 2014 (according to Wikipedia.)
- Richard Linklater: 8
- Ethan Hawke: 21
- Patricia Arquette: 10
- Ellar Coltrane: 5
- Lorelei LinkLater: 4
- Total: 48 Films
I have high hopes for this movie. It's a coming of age film where you actually see the main character come of age, possibly something no other film has done in only one film (as far as I know.) And honestly, it's a brilliant idea. The emotional development you have in these characters will pay off well cause you'll be doing it along with them in real time so to speak.
Boyhood comes out in Limited Release July 11th. It might get a wide release depending on how well it does box office wise, but if it's playing near you this weekend, I suggest you check it out, I know I will if I can.
That does it for now, until the next one, have a good one.
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