 |
| Matt Lankes/IFC Films |
As far as process in art goes, it’s not often something
we consider in movies. When it comes to painting and sculpture, the methods and
materials used are often integral to the finished product. More than that, it
is often essential whether an artist has produced from a subject or the extents
of his own imagination. Narrative filmmaking and the criticism thereof usually
focuses on the finished product without much consideration for how the director
arrived there. This is, I suppose, because actual production times on movies –
not including the script writing process – is usually fairly standard without a
great deal of variation, taking no more than a few weeks to a couple of months.
But now there is Richard Linklater’s Boyhood,
a movie that demands attention to the method behind the process. Because
Linklater made the film over a period of twelve years, gathering the same
actors together for several days once a year to chronicle the growing up process
of Mason Evans (played through a dozen years by Ellar Coltrane), we have
little choice but to examine how that method makes Boyhood different from any other movie that takes place over a long
period of time.
