One thing Richard Linklater can never be accused of is someone that deals in concepts of fate and destiny. He’s also pretty much an atheist when it comes to storytelling. His characters aren’t fulfilling destiny or living up to a higher purpose (e.g. “Boyhood”). They’re merely characters drifting and crashing in to one another, creating random occurrences that may or may not work out the way they want to. Jessie and Celine in “Before Sunrise” are just drifting along the world until they meet one day. The dreamer in “Waking Life” is just drifting through his sub-conscious meeting others. Jake is ostensibly drifting around in “Everybody Wants Some!!” Hell, even Dewey in “School of Rock” doesn’t truly fulfill any grand destiny, except merely learning to grow.
Perhaps one of the more obvious elements of Linkater’s early masterpiece “Dazed and Confused” practices a lot of Linklater’s story devices but in a much more subtle manner. His concept of unfolding his stories as a natural series of events occurring, rather than giving way to an overarching concept is demonstrated to pitch perfection. That is because with “Dazed and Confused” his approach clicks right in with what it means to be young. Being young is basically wandering around and looking for a purpose. Some of us convince ourselves we’ve found it, while some of us spend the rest of our lives seeking it. Linklater doesn’t have any ideas about what we’re here for.
He just finds the beauty and poetry in characters running around this fucking chaotic world of ours. “Dazed and Confused” is arguably one of Linklater’s most successful films to date. It’s an art house character piece camouflaging as teen comedy, and I know that makes me sound so pretentious but I’ll die on that hill. There’s no villain. No big scheme. No conventional resolution. It garners an amazing soundtrack that pops off a narrative filled with multiple sub-plots set over the course of one night.
With school letting out for the summer, the class of 1976 prepare for what will prove to be a turbulent summer. Although the movie coasts back and forth to different characters, the debatable central protagonist is Mitch Kramer. He’s a freshman who is marked by a group of seniors for the yearly paddling hazing ritual. Along the way we meet Tony, Cynthia and Mike a trio of geeky seniors looking for a good time.
There’s Randall “Pink” Floyd, a high school jock who is being pressured to sign a good behavior pledge by his coach. But he’s also desperate to get out of his town before his only legacy becomes football. Linklater stuffs the film with a huge roster of up and coming actors including Ben Affleck, Nicki Katt, Milla Jovovich, Anthony Rapp, Parkey Posey, the list goes on. While “Dazed and Confused” is the defining teen film of the decade, it’s also a wonderful story about drifting through life and teens on the verge of becoming adults.
While the night is spent with good old fashioned, occasionally dangerous, fun, there’s also the looming specter of responsibility, and obligation, and rules. Like the oath “Pink’s” coach is pressuring him to sign, everyone on film will have to come down off the highs of being young, to face a life that won’t really allow them to be reckless or free.
In the climax when Pink is looking off in to the sunset, he sees a future that garners larger possibilities beyond a small town. Mitch’s story ends on a less bittersweet note, teeming with potential for a school life in the realm of Pink’s. He may just be the heir apparent that Pink aims for throughout the film. Linklater’s opus works as a pseudo-“Waiting for Godot.” Although the movie, set in one night, is strictly about partying and having fun, it’s also about young people waiting.
The night is kind of like a purgatory, a brief time where time is standing still, where the sunrise will initially indicate where their future goes and how it fares. Like their lives, the night is going on, and the time is ticking, and they’re faced with a lot of ideas about what they want to be, and what they could end up as. Decisions are made, and big moves are achieved through this night, as all the characters face big choices that could dictate their relationships and how they operate as everyday people.
The only characters that ever really step outside of their reality to examine what is happening to them is the stoner Slater who ponders on their town’s ability to also be stuck in time. And there’s geeky trio Mike, Cynthia, and Tony. The idea of wandering through their town looking for a party is an inviting and adventurous one, since they’re young and anything seems possible. But as the idea of adult hood becomes an inevitability that they can’t help but openly reflect “Don’t you ever feel like everything we do and everything we’ve been taught is just to service the future?” to which Tony asks “But what are we preparing ourselves for?” Mike chimes in with “Death.”
Maybe it is all one big preamble to something. Although you can choose to agree to an extent, what they’re preparing for more is life, and how they might never be prepared for it.
Because, like their night after school lets out, life is a lot of chaos, wandering around, random encounters, and aimlessness, salvaged by the relationships we make along the way. One of the shining examples of the small town rut, and the trap Pink is trying to avoid is with Wooderson. Wooderson is a popular character of “Dazed and Confused” but a tragic example of frozen in time. His age is undefined but it’s made wholly apparent that he could very well be old enough to father any one of the high schoolers he hangs out with.
Wooderson, though depicted as a cool every guy to the young characters here, is the worst of what the characters could be. There’s never an indication if they ever really realize that, as Wooderson is something of a novelty. He’s fun, he’s charming, he’s a party guy, but he’s also stuck in a dead end job, and without an education.
He’s someone stuck in arrested development who literally spends all of his free time hanging around children. Time will inevitably rear its head and Wooderson will age while the new generation of students will fail to see what he has to offer. Wooderson is hopelessly lost in the glory days, and stuck one spot, this is a position that Pink is hell bent on avoiding. The ending is decidedly open to possibilities of all kinds as Pink, Wooderson, and Simone head off in to the sunset. Once the summer ends, who knows where any of them will be?
The only one who ever really seems to understand who and what Wooderson is, is Mitch Kramer, which is why he never is too drawn to him at any point. Even when Wooderson is bragging about under age high school girls, Mitch can only cringe and silently roll his eyes in the corner. He knows what the other guys don’t, or are unwilling to admit to themselves.
Maybe Pink sees something in Wooderson that he envies, or maybe Wooderson will pull them all down with him. Linklater is so very secular about his stories and spends so much time trying to ground his world in how we decide, and nothing or no one else. Mitch inflicts revenge on O’Bannon and gets the girl. Pink gets to go to the Aerosmith concert. Mike stands up for himself and fights Clint. Pickford gets to have his party. And Wooderson is still Wooderson. A cool guy. For now. “Dazed and Confused” is about taking your life and choosing what you want to do with it, rather than waiting for some mysterious higher force or miracle to choose for you. And that just places it head and shoulders above all the other coming of age dramas from the 90’s.