Films about boys growing up have been done before, but none of them compare to Richard Linklater’s newest movie.
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Richard Linklater has been working on a film for the past twelve years. This time was not spent mulling over an idea or spending one weekend every six months to rewrite a script, Linklater has been actively filming Boyhood since 2002. While he was doing other projects this film got attention every so often and finally it is ready for a July 11th release date.
The film will follow a young boy named Mason Jr. (Ellar Coltrane) as he grows up over the course of the movie and we will get to experience this change in a way that has never been done before. Plenty of movies try to span years of a characters life but do so using clever casting or special effects, this time however the changes will be real and natural as a boy turns into a man before our very eyes. There is something special about knowing that the character in the film is being played by the same actor at every stage, it makes me excited for a movie in ways I haven’t been in a long time.
Boyhood will have some big names atached to it, besides Linklater’s, boasting Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette who will play the divorced parents of Mason. Hawke and Arquette were filmed over the same period as Coltrane and so will also age realistically. In regards to the scale of such a project Ethan Hawke had this to say in an interview last year:
“Also known as “The Twelve Year Project”; Richard Linklater and I have made a short film every year for the last 11 years, one more to go, that follows the development of a young boy from age 6 to 18. I play the father, and it’s Tolstoy-esque in scope. I thought the Before series was the most unique thing I would ever be a part of, but Rick has engaged me in something even more strange. Doing a scene with a young boy at the age of 7 when he talks about why do raccoons die, and at the age of 12 when he talks about video games, and 17 when he asks me about girls, and have it be the same actor — to watch his voice and body morph — it’s a little bit like timelapse photography of a human being. … Next year, he will graduate high school and we will finish the film. It will probably come out in two years.”
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Not many actors get this kind of opportunity and fewer still would accept it, and how can anyone blame them? I find it hard to commit to doing something with friends in a week, it would be so hard to agree to a project for the next 12 years. From the interviews, trailer, and the reputation of Linklater and the cast Boyhood should be an incredibly intimate and phenomenal film. The growing up of boys has been on the silver screen before but never like this, and I can’t wait to see it when it releases in July.
–Photo Credit:Trailer
Thanks for posting this…looks great…looking forward to 11 July.
Me too! I’m kinda glad I only found out about this recently and not a few years ago, a few months wait already seems too long!