Dazed and Confused (1993)
Directed by Richard Linklater
The adventures of a group of Texas teens on their last day of school in 1976, centering on student Randall Floyd, who moves easily among stoners, jocks and geeks. Floyd is a star athlete, but he also likes smoking weed, which presents a conundrum when his football coach demands he sign a "no drugs" pledge.
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7 films that influenced Dazed and Confused
What critics say influenced Dazed and Confused
"Dazed and Confused" ought to be in a prominent place at the Library of Congress, next to "The Godfather," Frederick Wiseman's "High School," "American Graffiti," "Nashville," "Citizen Kane" and other quintessentially American works.
It is a conservative film in this respect, particularly compared to its most obvious descendant, Richard Linklater's shaggy and rebellious Dazed and Confused from 20 years later; in fact, with its unambiguously conformist, "real men go to college or start families" message, it might be the single most conservative great American film of the 1970s.
It tells the painful underside of " American Graffiti ."
A virtual successor to “American Graffiti,” this time Linklater follows a slew of characters over the course of one hectic night in the late seventies, as summer begins and school finally lets out.
"Dazed and Confused" ought to be in a prominent place at the Library of Congress, next to "The Godfather," Frederick Wiseman's "High School," "American Graffiti," "Nashville," "Citizen Kane" and other quintessentially American works.
Clearly, Dazed pays some debts to American Graffiti, but it seems to me that it owes more to Over the Edge and old Corman exploitation genres that set up a playful, young-people situation and then introduced an injustice or a power abuse that the group had to resolve.
The studio that financed American Graffiti 20 years ago may have been hoping that lightning would strike again, and indeed there are intriguing similarities between the two movies.
While Fast Times was an '80s film about the '80s, Dazed and Confused was a '90s flick about the '70s.
23 minutes of audition tapes and some funny reflections from Linklater further make casting director Don Phillips (who came out of retirement to do this, his last film before Dazed and Confused was eleven years prior: Fast Times at Ridgemont High) seem like soothsayer.
Kiss! Alice Cooper!) and a cast of fresh-faced youngsters who would go on to great things - look out for Matthew McConaughey, Milla Jovovich, Ben Affleck & Parker Posey - but it is Linklater’s novelistic character detail and peerless ear for stoned immaculate dialogue that secures the film’s place alongside American Graffiti and Fast Times At Ridgemont High as one of the great ensemble teen movies.
Universal released the DVD as part of the two-disc "Ultimate Party Collection," along with Dazed and Confused (1993).
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"Dazed and Confused" ought to be in a prominent place at the Library of Congress, next to "The Godfather," Frederick Wiseman's "High School," "American Graffiti," "Nashville," "Citizen Kane" and other quintessentially American works.
"Dazed and Confused" ought to be in a prominent place at the Library of Congress, next to "The Godfather," Frederick Wiseman's "High School," "American Graffiti," "Nashville," "Citizen Kane" and other quintessentially American works.
This is Linklater's follow-up effort to his low-budget independent feature Slacker, which put Austin on the lifestyle map and brought Linklater to the attention of studio executives.
As with "Slacker," Richard Linklater's first film, his latest low-budget, independent production, "Dazed and Confused," focuses on aimless young people in Austin Texas.
It’s clear this is from the director of “Slacker,” only without the wacky conspiracy theories and Madonna pubic hair.
Writer-director Richard Linklater's ("Slacker") second feature is a slightly above average plotless teen film filled with nostalgia that cuts both ways, showing things that were repulsive as much as some delightful lingering memories of rebellion and an innocence now lost.
Linklater, whose "Slacker" reaped similar culturally reflective success (the angst of young Americans with nothing political or life-threatening to fight for), sums up an even younger generation's absurdities, frustrations and joys.
His first picture, Slacker, made on a shoestring, earned him a lot of attention, and he somehow managed to persuade Universal Pictures to spend $6 million on his sophomore effort, Dazed and Confused, which follows a group of two dozen suburban Texas kids on the last day of high school in 1976.