From the "People" Archives:

by Anthony Kaufman/indieWIRE

(indieWIRE/ 10.18.01) -- "I feel like they are so much a part of me," says Richard Linklater about his two upcoming movies, "Waking Life" and "Tape," but they're very different. They are so not to be confused with one another." As dissimilar as the two films are -- an animated philosophical journey and a study of betrayal and revenge among three twentysomethings -- both reflect Linklater's eagerness to push the boundaries of cinema.

"Waking Life" (opening Friday through Fox Searchlight) is a wonder to behold. Created with new rotoscoping technology developed by computer whiz Bob Sabiston and filmmaker Tommy Pallotta ("Snack and Drink"), "Life" is a phantasmagoric trip, with Wiley Wiggins (from "Dazed and Confused") as our guide through the looking glass of reality. At first glance "Tape" (opening early November via Lions Gate), set in a small hotel room, could seem like any other low-budget Amer-indie, but Linklater keeps the images alive with swish pans, quick cuts, and an assured, lively cast (Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard and Uma Thurman), ultimately bringing to fruition the potential of shooting on digital video.

Linklater spoke to indieWIRE's Anthony Kaufman from his home in Austin, Texas about vibe, spontaneity, and making every film like it was your last.

indieWIRE: Though "Waking Life" has been likened to the wandering storyline of "Slacker," it coheres in a really suspenseful way.

"The pop culture tends to go to the lowest denominator, so cinema is in a weird place, due to its mass nature. It's diluted down to very little: simple stories and simple politics."

Richard Linklater: I agree. It drives me crazy when people say, "It's non-narrative." I'm like, "God, look a little closer. There's a lot going on there."

iW: How did you write it?

Linklater: A lot of it was created spontaneously from rehearsals. One third of the scenes, the actors wrote themselves. So it was a very creative experience with the people. The director is sort of the orchestrator, and I had a lot of confidence that I would be able to pull the whole thing together. Because it came from one place in me. I knew where I was going with it. I didn't know exactly where it was going to end when I first started, but I had a vibe. And I trusted that vibe all the way.

iW: How do you describe that vibe?

Linklater: I don't know; it's personal to me. I just knew it when I felt it. It's great to be able to create that way in the film world. It's not often. Usually, you're rendering a bigger, pre-designed thing, so it was fun to be able to move through it like a sculpture or some other piece, like a novel.

iW: How exactly did the animators work on the film?

Linklater: There was pretty much one animator to a character. My job, with Bob, the animation guy, was to capture who the person really was, not that the audience will know, but to me, that was their essence, that's who I cast, that's who I wanted -- and that the animation reflects them in an interesting way. So it was really about me working with the animators and getting me to sign off on their character design. It's a lot like working as a composer. You talk about the themes and the vibe and the spirit of the piece and then they bring their own skill set to it, and then you just work from there.

iW: You joked at Sundance about watching the movie on drugs. Do you feel like it's a movie that people will go see stoned?

Linklater: I hope they don't the first time. [laughs] If people are drug experimenters, and they see the movie and then think, this'll be a good movie to see on, fill in the blank, that's fine. I disappoint people when they find out I'm not really a drug guy.

iW: You have some important underlying themes in "Waking Life." Do you feel it's important to get these ideas out there in the culture at large?

Linklater: Especially the film culture. The film culture has no room for ideas. The literary culture has some room, but not less than they should, and the academic culture has a lot, but there's no way to communicate it in a wide way. The pop culture tends to go to the lowest denominator, so cinema is in a weird place, due to its mass nature. It's diluted down to very little: simple stories and simple politics. So this movie is really challenging in that way. I thought I was sort of a conduit to a lot of ideas and energies and I honestly spit it back out in an interesting way. One of the themes of the movie is that we're all connected on some psychic level; we come back to that a lot of times in the movie. And so, I think humans really feel that and they explain it in different ways.

iW: In a different way, "Tape" also feels spontaneous. How much was it constructed beforehand?

Linklater: It's an old idea of mine: to rehearse the hell out of a movie and then capture it as it's happening, almost like a documentary. So this was a chance to exercise that. On my other films, I'm the guy who stays up weeks before and figures out all the shots. I didn't want to do that this time. So we just went in as it was happening. Maryse Alberti, who was operating the other camera, and I, were just like, "What's your shot?" "Here's my shot," and then boom, boom, boom. It was very spontaneous coverage of the whole movie, which helped the piece, because you didnšt want it to feel too stagy. Although it seems like a play -- it's three people in a room -- why can't that be a movie? Who said a movie has to be wide-open vistas and all that shit?

iW: Were you concerned with how to make "Tape" cinematic?

Linklater: Yeah, that was the big challenge. I was thinking in terms of DV cameras, these small, little consumer model DV cameras we shot it on -- and how to use those to the best of their ability. And put those in all of those places you couldn't normally put a regular 35 mm camera. It was attacking the digital medium pretty viscerally.

iW: You have those swish plans, and stuff?

"If it was the last film I made ever, like I died tomorrow, I'd be happy. You should make every film like that."

Linklater: Yeah, but I was going for a collage effect. Those cameras are very mobile, so there's a ton of different angles. It's an exploration; you're trying to see these people from every angle -- it's like your eavesdropping on them from different angles. I had two cameras, and I'd move them every time, after every take.

iW: Why do you keep casting Ethan Hawke?

Linklater: It just worked out that way. I've made eight movies and he's been in three of them and then a cameo in "Waking Life." We work well together. Ethan had actually sent me "Tape." He was thinking about me and said, "I think you might like this, what do you think?" It happened very spontaneously. He showed it to me in spring of 2000. "Waking Life" was done shooting at that point and I was just editing, a few minutes a week to see what they're next 15 seconds looked like. I was writing and working on other things, and so this came up. Uma was available, and it all kind of worked out. Between the time I first read it and the time we were shooting, it was like 2 months.

iW: That's great.

Linklater: I've always had this fantasy of being able to work quickly and always have a film on the burner ready to go, if something else doesn't happen. So I have learned that lesson, having sat on the bench for a year, waiting for the elements to come together on a film. One of my all time heroes is [Rainer Werner] Fassbinder who, in one year, would shoot 3-4 movies. In 1970, he shot 7 movies in one year. He could do that. Have an idea, write the thing in a few days, scout locations; he shot just the footage he needed, edit in a few days, and boom, on to the next one. He was this spontaneous creative film machine -- you can't really do that in America. DV lends itself to that, but that doesn't mean you should be lazy. Most DV films, people are just farting around.

iW: How do you follow up these two films?

Linklater: I push myself. Everybody should do that.

iW: Do you think "Waking Life" represents a high point in your career?

Linklater: Yeah. If it was the last film I made ever, like I died tomorrow, I'd be happy. You should make every film like that. I threw everything I had into it. I was at a point in my life where it was all I could do at that time. I was going all the way. It's rare you're given that opportunity.

iW: Are you in on how Fox Searchlight is going to distribute it?

Linklater: They have this thing called "meaningful consultation," which means "Fuck off," basically, but I have to say they're being good in that I'm not offended, so far. The first trailer I saw was bad, but the next one was better. They're listening to me, which is very rare. So I'm happy so far. I've been completely miserable other times in my life with a film that I made and what I did with it and the way it's going out to the public are so opposite each other, it's really painful. It's really painful when they're marketing it as something that you know it isn't. And you know the people who like it are going to go, that looks stupid, and the people who are actually attracted to the way they're marketing it, aren't going to like the movie, because it's different. That's the trick that a lot of them are trying to pull. But on this one, so far, I have no complaints.

iW: Do you have expectations about how it's going to be received?

Linklater: Over the years, I've gotten used to not having any expectations. I'm confident that, not on a business level that it'll do huge box office, but I do think over time, the people that are meant to see it, will see it.