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With the Before Trilogy to his name and a dedicated career as a cinephile, it’s difficult to imagine Richard Linklater ever doubting his career. But after his first major film success with the indie cult classic Slacker, he quickly began to question his decision to step into the world of Hollywood.
In fact, it was his first ‘Hollywood’ film that had him questioning his decision to direct entirely, which is even more shocking when you realise that that film was Dazed & Confused. Sure, it might not have been a box office smash when it was first released, but in the 33 years since then, it’s become a cult classic and a favourite of the stoner and slacker circles.
However, Dazed & Confused was not exactly a big-budget film, with only $6million behind it, but it was certainly quite a leap from the $23,000 Linklater had self-raised from among friends and family to make Slacker, and yet, the money, which should ostensibly save a floundering picture and lift up an independent filmmaker, was nearly the very thing that threatened to destroy the idea.
“It was so bizarre to sit through the test screenings and hear the audience go apeshit,” he told the Directors Guild of America about his first studio experience, “And then hear the studio’s distribution people go, ’Well, we don’t have any stars in it, we don’t have this, we don’t have that.”
So while Universal Pictures had secured millions of dollars of funding for the director, they weren’t exactly ready to run with his creative vision due to a perceived lack of big names to market it on.
That’s what studios do after all, they give you money and then make sure they get theirs, no matter your convictions. And Linklater was coming from having just had complete control over a hit film. Sure, the production of Slacker surely saw its fair share of problems due to its low budget, but the young auteur didn’t have to compromise on his vision for it.
Yet, the big studios wanted him to sacrifice his vision for their security, even though the audiences were giving more than positive feedback on the film. Thankfully, he didn’t, and while it was definitely a “dark night of the soul” in which many young, inexperienced directors might have been pushed to their breaking point, Linklater stuck it out and saw his vision through.
“I had to slap myself in the head and go, ‘Wait a second’, I had to come to my own conclusions really quick,” he said, and the conclusion he came to was, when it doesn’t do as well as you’d hoped, don’t be phased, as long as you put in your best and enjoy the making of it. And isn’t that what making art is all about in the end? The making of the thing?
However, if Universal had given him the proper support he deserved, along with the financial backing, Dazed & Confused might have actually been a box office success aside from being a creative one.
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