Boyhood

Richard Linklater’s 2014 film watches Mason from six to eighteen without tying its hundred and sixty five minutes to one event. The shoot was thirty nine days spread across twelve years. Linklater filmed three or four days a year, cut it, then took a year to think about the next; each year the cast got an outline, not a script. He knew the final shot by year two. He kept the image on 35mm negative: “I wanted it to feel like one thing; I wanted nothing to change.” No contract could hold the cast twelve years: US personal service contracts cap at seven, so the only bond was a promise renewed yearly. Linklater told Ethan Hawke that if he died, Hawke must finish the film. IFC’s Jonathan Sehring funded it by tucking a little away inside the company yearly. At the 2015 ceremony it drew six nominations, winning one: Patricia Arquette for Actress in a Supporting Role. It lost Directing, Original Screenplay, Film Editing, Supporting Actor for Hawke, and Best Picture. Linklater took Berlin’s Silver Bear for Best Director. A good fit if you like clocking a new year from a haircut or a change of phones, not a caption. Not for you if you want the story to tighten towards a destination; years accumulate and nothing knots.