The Library Police
  • Home
  • The Library Police Podcast
    • Episode 250: Endings
    • Episode 249: The Lightning Round Returns
    • Episode 248: Lightning Round!
    • Episode 246: What A Difference A Decade Makes
    • Episode 245: The Portrayal of Violence in Fiction
    • Episode 244: Books to Cheer You Up
    • Episode 243: How To Read Gooder
    • Episode 242: Romance In Fiction
    • Episode 241: The Past Looms Large
    • Episode 240: How We've Grown As Readers
    • Episode 239: Saladin Ahmed's Black Bolt
    • Episode 238: A Hannibal Playlist
    • Episode 237: The Mini-Primers
    • Episode 236: Revenge of the MiniTopics
    • Episode 235: Flawed Books That We Love
    • Episode 234: Expectations and Entitlement
    • Episode 233: The Literary Canon
    • Episode 232: Playlist - The Marvel Cinematic Universe
    • Episode 231: The Perfect Nanny
    • Episode 230: SciFi V. Fantasy
    • Episode 229: Playlist - Legion
    • Episode 228: Playlist - The Americans
    • Episode 227: Should you read YA Fiction?
    • Episode 226: The Dark Tower, Books 5-7
    • Episode 224: Media for Non-Readers
    • Episode 223: Getting Into A Reading Groove
    • Episode 222: 2017 Gift Guide
    • Episode 221: The Dark Tower, Books 1-4
    • Thanksgiving Throwback: Episode 128, Featuring Christopher Merchant
    • Episode 220: The Taboo Topics
    • Episode 219: SCBWI 2017
    • Episode 218: Classics Vs. Modern
    • Episode 217: A Primer for Thrillers
    • Episode 216: The Adventure Zone Balance Arc
    • Episode 215: Young Adult Fight
    • Episode 214: What Does An Author Owe You
    • Episode 213: Adaptations
    • Episode 212: Beach Reading
    • Episode 211: Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
    • Episode 210: Interactive Storytelling
    • Episode 209: Audiobooks and Audio Storytelling
  • Features
    • A Good Story Poorly Told
    • Where Everyone Has Gone Before
    • Top Twenty Board Games of All Time
    • The Joy of Desperation
    • Prometheus: A Debate
    • Dude Writes Like A Lady
  • Reviews
    • Book Reviews
    • Film Reviews
    • Television Reviews
  • Interviews
    • Kristin O'Donnell Tubb
    • Katie McGarry
    • Gennifer Choldenko
    • Donald Bain
    • Logan L. Masterson
    • Catriona McPherson
    • Graham Brown
    • F. Paul Wilson
    • Will Lavender
    • Jeffery Deaver
    • Peter Straub
    • Dr. Bill Bass
    • Bruce DeSilva
    • D. Alan Lewis
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Forums
  • Announcement

Boyhood

10/1/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Clocking in at almost 3 hours, having no real story to speak of, and having a few too many endings, I could probably spend a lot of time discussing some of Boyhood's flaws: that it's a little unwieldy and unshapely, that it needs some trimming and some work, that it can be uneven. And yet, for all of those flaws, I can't deny that I absolutely loved Boyhood, and that those flaws in some ways make it the magnificent accomplishment that it is. Boyhood was filmed over the course of 12 years, with director Richard Linklater uniting his cast once or twice a year to film a few scenes each year and then editing the final product into a film that charts the growth of a young boy from age 6 to age 18 on screen. And around him, the rest of the cast ages along with him, as does the world around him; we see references to old Presidential campaigns and technology, TV shows and athletic heroes, songs that charted for a while and then vanished. But unlike so many nostalgia pieces, Boyhood never stoops to using dramatic irony; indeed, it can't, given that the scenes were filmed with no knowledge of what was to come in the years after they were filmed. That means that midnight book releases of Harry Potter books fit right alongside scenes of characters smoking in bowling alleys, and both seem like dispatches from a world we don't remember much anymore. And there's more aging than just the world and the characters; we're also watching Linklater evolve as a director, indulging in longer plot arcs before discarding them, incorporating more philosophical musings, taking longer takes, and simply going through the phases we watched him go through over the past 12 years. But while all of that is rich and compelling stuff, what really leaves you astonished about Boyhood is that it's rare to see the passage of time so richly depicted in a single film. The shapelessness that occasionally frustrates about Boyhood is also part of its greatness; rather than focusing on milestones or cultural moments, Boyhood is a life told in moments, from camping trips to tense family dinners to long drives with parents, and it allows its characters to develop offscreen, letting the actors and the audience fill in the gaps along the way. Boyhood eschews the typical coming of age tropes to simply give you slices of life that add up to a picture of a life, and as we watch Mason grow from a Dragon Ball Z watching 6-year-old to a long-haired photography student, we feel like we're watching someone we know grow up - and I'd be lying if I didn't say that wrecked me a bit as a parent of two young children who are growing up awfully fast. So, yes, Boyhood has some flaws. But it's also an incredible accomplishment, and many of those flaws also give it the rich, lived-in feel that it has as the characters come to life and we see their pains and their issues evolve over their lives. And the fact that Linklater guided this project over 12 years and came out with something as focused, thoughtful, and effective as he did is no small accomplishment. Is it a gimmick? If you're feeling uncharitable, sure. But it's also a way of telling a life story that no one's done before, and it's made something wholly remarkable, unique, and deeply moving in the process.

- Josh Mauthe

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.