The depiction of youths dealing with the present while wrestling with the future has been a staple of American cinema for decades. In particular, the ‘70s and ‘80s generated plenty of seminal and influential coming-of-age movies – including American Graffiti, Animal House, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and various John Hughes essentials – that reflected the unique feelings and habits of the generation they examined.
In many ways, Richard Linklater’s 1993 ode to 1976 – Dazed and Confused – accomplishes the same feat. Despite owing a clear debt to those classics, it popularized an emphatically fresh take on the style. Thirty years later, it’s clear to see that many of our favorite genre films and TV shows from around the turn of the millennium wouldn’t be what they are without his distinctive perspective and methodology.
“If We’re All Going To Die Anyway, Shouldn’t We Enjoy Ourselves Now?”
One of Linklater’s central objectives with Dazed and Confused was to scale back the seriousness and fantasticalness of the coming-of-age flick. As he told The Guardian in 2019: “I wanted to do a realistic teen movie – most of them had too much drama and plot but teenage life is more like you’re looking for the party, looking for something cool, the endless pursuit of something you never find, and even if you do, you never quite appreciate it.”
Sure, many of the titles that preceded it featured understated glimpses of everyday life. However, they were frequently framed around ample narratives, improbable circumstances/coincidences, and serious issues (teen pregnancy, parental abuse, unrequited love, societal pressures, social exclusions, etc.).
For example, in talking to The New Yorker back in March 2023, Linklater acknowledged how his film’s most recognizable forerunner – American Graffiti – ultimately has “big statements” (regarding the Vietnam War, death, drunk driving, and starting college) that he wasn’t “comfortable making.”
In contrast, and as Empire put it earlier this year, Dazed and Confused is “primarily about the immediacy of the moment” in a nothing-really-happens-and-that’s-the-point kind of way. By exploring “what it felt like just to be alive experientially” as he expanded various characteristics of 1990’s Slacker (discussed below), Linklater doubled down on distinguishing techniques that’d influence his next endeavors (SubUrbia, Boyhood, Everybody Wants Some!!, the Before trilogy) and numerous other 1990s projects.
