He likes to lead the story in the direction of intense conflict, but he will stop before he loses control. As an audience, you don't know if what you are worried about will happen; you are pulling your heart, thinking that both sides of the conflict will tear up, so he doesn't. I will call it a "surprise but no danger" story routine for the time being.
This kind of routine, he will repeat it after a while, and again after a while. As a result, his films have a rather weird but very unique rhythm of overlapping repetition and change, which constantly stimulates the audience and gets reactions.
Personally, I feel that this rhythm is very well controlled in "Boyhood", basically reaching the height of relaxation.
For example, the alcoholic and violent stepfather prevented his mother from taking Samanda and Mason away. According to the general screenwriting method, it should be a fierce + violent conflict scene, but it did not.
Mason was bullied by two male classmates in the toilet. What a great campus injury theme, but it is only limited to language conflict and slight shoving.
The same goes for Mason and the second stepfather. The stepfather had an opinion on his late return. Mason said badly. It looked like the father and son were going to do it, but they didn't.
You see, originally these places can make the conflict a bit more intense, and the character's personality is a bit more distinctive. But the director just doesn't play the cards as you want. "There is no danger" is his trump card in making stories, and of course it is also his trump card. I think that by seeing through this card, I have seen through Richard Linklater's story.
When it comes to "Everything Has a Youth", I think he has used the "surprise but no danger" routine very well.
Twelve "battle chickens" live in a house, chattering non-stop, and give full play to Richard Linklater's chat style (the whole world knows about intensive conversations, so I won't say more), feel There will be conflicts at any time. The director seemed to want the audience to think so. He overcooked every joke in it, but he stopped every time when the climax was about to come.
Not long after the movie started, Jack brought a girl back from the bar, and wanted to ask Bill, who was in the same room, to let him out of the room and have sex with him. But Bill said nonsense and refused. Jack is a big fire, but it just stops at a big fire.
When Bill went back to the country to watch his unexpectedly pregnant girlfriend, everyone lost it again. First, he gave him the most native American name "Beuter
Perkins", and then made a joke of her girlfriend. Sometimes, you can't grasp it, is this a joke or is it true?
"Ping Pong Champion", everyone knows that Gran can't afford to lose, and is still losing. This group of hurt friends kept poking and poking until Gran Fury smashed the racket. Then, there is no more.
In the rock bar, everyone was playing, and then they clashed. One of the guys was hit directly on the wall and cut off from the bottom.
On the baseball training field, it seemed that they would be gang-pushed at any time. . .
There are many similar plots. In order to keep the pleasure of watching movies, I will not list them all.
I personally feel that Richard Linklater is very good at telling stories. He suspended the intense conflicts, but he made the audience feel that the conflicts would immediately arise. This energy has been holding back, hooking the audience down.
Therefore, his greatness lies not in the story itself (the material he used for picking up girls and smoking marijuana is everywhere in American youth films), but in the way he tells the story. Once you have captured the audience’s psychological G-spot in the way you tell the story, the audience will follow you forever. You may not see this "surprising but not dangerous" way of dealing with conflicts and conflicts that keeps the story at its climax, you may not see it in any book of screenwriters. According to those so-called screenwriters, you may only write boring and mediocre stories.
However, for many domestic films, it is already a high standard to be "mediocre". Sometimes domestic movies are really weird, especially in the summer. All kinds of bad movies are released in a concentrated manner, and the screenwriters are completely out of order. The big fish eats crabapples, let alone.
Of course, success and failure can also be achieved. I personally think that because of this kind of "surprise but no danger" routine, it was used a little bit in "Everything Has a Youth", and it was too stretched, and the expected dramatic climax was not coming (obviously not It's coming), which may be one of the important reasons why many fans are indifferent to this movie.
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