INDEPTH: RICHARD LINKLATER
Confused about 'Dazed and Confused'
Dan Brown, CBC News Online | Oct. 13, 2004
Dazed and Confused director Richard Linklater (AP photo)
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As you may have heard, filmmaker Richard Linklater is being sued over his cult classic Dazed and Confused. Three men who went to high school with Linklater claim that he used them as the basis for three of the teen comedy's characters, and their lives are miserable as a result. What's strange about the lawsuit isn't its timing (11 years have passed since Dazed and Confused was released), it's that the litigants think the movie portrays them in a negative light.
Take Richard "Pink" Floyd, the apparent inspiration for the movie's hero, Randall "Pink" Floyd. If he honestly believes he has been slandered by Linklater, then he hasn't watched Dazed and Confused very carefully. Pink's positive qualities, as the film's many fans know, go way beyond being the most popular character in the movie, which follows a group of Texas high-school students on the last day of classes in 1976.
Of course, Linklater is far from the first director to be dragged into court for allegedly sullying the good name of an actual person. Movies as different as Donnie Brasco, Boys Don't Cry, and Behind Enemy Lines have all inspired similar suits, launched by individuals who didn't like the way they were represented on the silver screen, or who argued that their likeness had been used without permission.
Linklater's best defence, if the case ever does go to trial, may be to simply screen the movie for the court, along with a representative selection of teen comedies from other directors. This way, the judge or jury will have proof positive that the teenagers in Linklater's film are a breed apart.
Had Richard Floyd been turned into a character in, say, American Pie, he might have a more solid case. As things stand, he's going to have a tough time arguing that his alter ego in Dazed and Confused is a less-than-complimentary portrait because the truth is that Pink (played by Jason London) is a moral paragon. If you're not convinced, go back and watch the movie again.
Courtesy: Detour Film
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The plot of Dazed and Confused, such as it is, is structured around an inner debate that Pink wrestles with over the course of 24 hours. It begins when his coach – Pink is the quarterback of the school's football team – gives him a pledge sheet to sign that would commit him to refraining from drinking or doing drugs during the football season.
Pink balks, not on the grounds that he wants to continue having fun, but because he feels the pledge encroaches unfairly on his freedom. At the end of the day he tosses the piece of paper in the coach's face, thus angering both the school's establishment and his closest friends. Pink is that rare exception: he's a character in a teen comedy who stands on principle.
Even more to his credit, Pink doesn't take part in the hazing of the incoming freshman class. When his friends are paddling Mitch (Wiley Wiggins), Pink declines to participate in the torture and instead invites the younger student to join the clique.
In addition, he is one of the few teens in movie history who demonstrates self-awareness, who understands that there is more to life than non-stop partying. "All I'm saying is that if I ever start referring to these as the best years of my life, remind me to kill myself," he says at the film's end. Not a line you'd have heard in American Pie.
As for the other two members of the litigious trio, Andy Slater and Bobby Wooderson, they are portrayed by Linklater as typical young men, which is to say they spend more time talking about sex than actually having sex. Slater – the onscreen one, that is – is merely harmless at his worst. And let's not forget that Wooderson is the only character in the movie who holds down a job and, near the movie's conclusion, he intervenes to stop the climactic fight. He's the local peacekeeper.
In other words, the thing that has made this lawsuit possible isn't Dazed and Confused, it's the conventional wisdom about Dazed and Confused. Most critics lump it in with films like Porky's and Animal House, which is understandable. After all, Universal Pictures marketed Dazed and Confused with taglines like "The film everyone will be toking about," a strategy intended to play up the movie's party scenes, not its more thought-provoking elements.
Granted, there is a lot of dope-smoking in Dazed and Confused. Linklater's intent wasn't to sensationalize, however, but to document the behaviour he observed when he was a high-school student three decades ago. This is why the proper place for Dazed and Confused in the film canon is alongside the more thoughtful pictures that are driven by nostalgia, such as American Graffiti.
With performances by the likes of Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey and Milla Jovovich, Dazed and Confused introduced a generation of stars-to-be to the world. Viewers will be able to revisit their work when a new DVD version, the so-called flashback edition, lands in stores on Nov. 2.
Let's see … a new DVD of Dazed and Confused is coming out soon … do you think that could have had something to do with the lawsuit?
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