12 X 4 = Incredible filmmaking

Life, as we experience it, unfolds in real time. But that’s rarely the case for characters in a fictional narrative film. A great exception to that rule is Boyhood (2014), Richard Linklater’s American coming-of-age drama. The picture follows Mason Evans Jr. (Ellar Coltrane) from age 6 to 18 as he experiences the challenges and milestones of growing up, while his divorced parents, played by Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette, and his sister Samantha, played by Linklater’s daughter Lorelei Linklater, navigate their own changes. Its groundbreaking production method, naturalistic performances, and universal themes of growth and change made it widely regarded as a cinematic landmark. Boyhood earned critical acclaim, with Patricia Arquette winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and the film itself becoming a cultural touchstone.

To listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of Boyhood, conducted last week, click here.

It’s one of the most unique cinematic experiments ever attempted, in which Linklater followed a small group of actors over 12 years, shooting a few days every year between 2002 and 2013 (amazingly, there were only 39 total shooting days) and filming in real time, with no shortcuts: The age of Mason and sister Samantha, as well as their parents, are the actual ages of these performers at the time of filming. During production, Linklater continuously crafted the script by reviewing the footage from the previous year and then writing the following year’s segment. Additionally, he adapted the screenplay to reflect the natural changes in the actors, allowing the main cast to shape their characters by weaving their personal life experiences into the story.

This consistent year-by-year approach allows us to trace the growth and evolution of these characters and their respective actors, including physical, stylistic, and personality changes. We are given a privileged opportunity to watch this prolonged progression in a conveniently abbreviated package – 12 years summarized in 165 minutes. Hawke described it as “a little bit like time-lapse photography of a human being.”

Per Linklater: “I've long wanted to tell the story of a parent–child relationship that follows a boy from the first through the 12th grade and ends with him going off to college. But the dilemma is that kids change so much that it is impossible to cover that much ground. And I am totally ready to adapt the story to whatever he is going through."

Linklater had fascinatingly experimented with characters affected by the passage of time in his Before trilogy, all three of which were released prior to Boyhood but actually span longer (18 years). This work, on the other hand, ambitiously encapsulates an extreme time stretch into one movie.

Where Boyhood particularly shines is in capturing the rhythms and details of everyday life, especially the mundane moments that other cinematic narratives would certainly leave out in favor of milestone events and momentous occasions. Here, we are given simple vignettes of ordinary moments – some more memorable than others. As Paste Magazine critic Tim Grierson put it: “There are no major revelations or twists. Instead, everything that happens is a matter of gradation.”

Yet Boyhood seizes the zeitgeist of the actual period over which the movie was shot, imbuing the film with docu-style realism thanks to placing the characters in topical situations, like an actual Harry Potter book release party, the 2008 presidential election season, and a bona fide Houston Astros baseball game. Era-appropriate musical markers also punctuate different vignettes; we hear segments from songs by Coldplay, The Hives, The Flaming Lips, Jeff Tweedy, and Arcade Fire played in the year they were released and popular, anchoring a given scene in an identifiable time between 2002 and 2013.

Arguably, this film could have been called Parenthood, as the stories of Olivia and Mason Sr. are just as compelling and given ample screen time. We learn as much about Mason’s mom and dad as we do about their offspring over the course of two-and-a-half hours.

The performances from these child actors are exceptional because they’re basically allowed to be themselves – to inhabit their characters without pretension, over-emoting, or being forced to regurgitate implausible dialogue. Even the adult characters are credible and realistic because Linklater eschews speechifying, grand gestures, and implausible situations.

Boyhood teaches us that even the smaller moments in life matter. The film is replete with relatively minor chapters in the life of Mason and his family, showing you slice-of-life moments, the majority of which are not momentous occasions (aside from Olivia and her kids leaving her alcoholic husband and Mason’s high school graduation). This film reminds viewers that time is fleeting and it’s crucial to cherish even the seemingly unimportant episodes and experiences, all of which shape who we are and who we will become as well as the loved ones around us.

Additionally, this work is all about living in the now. Ultimately, Boyhood espouses a Buddhist-like philosophy that it’s important to live in the moment and be open to permitting the present to change you. Recall the exchange near the end of the film between Mason and Nicole:

Nicole: You know how everyone's always saying seize the moment? I don't know, I'm kinda thinking it's the other way around. You know, like the moment seizes us. Mason: Yeah. Yeah, I know. It's constant–the moment. It's just... It's like it's always right now, you know?

Recall how Mason also exclaims: “It’s as if all of time unfolded so that we could be here.”

Film Comment writer Holly Willis subscribes to this theory, writing: “(Boyhood) is less about what it means to be a young male than it is an evocation of another key theme in the filmmaker’s body of work, namely time. And not just time as a philosophical concept, but our time, the present moment, and what it means to be alive now. Right now.”

The inevitable journey of self-discovery is another key takeaway. As Mason ages and matures, his interests change and new talents emerge, including an affinity for photography. By the end of the story, he still has a lot of growing and choosing to do; yes, his childhood has ended, but the formative experiences, seminal memories, and meaningful relationships that have helped mold Mason’s personality and values will continue to serve him.

This is a narrative about the rite of passage from boyhood to adulthood that every child experiences in a different way, making Boyhood a contemporary coming-of-age classic. Like millions of kids before him, Mason eventually grows up and must apply the tools and lessons bestowed to him by his parents to effectively navigate a path forward on his own. But his story and experiences are unique, and he is not necessarily doomed to repeat the mistakes of his mother and father.

Similar works

• Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy: Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), Before Midnight (2013)
• Linklater’s other films focused on temporal matters: Waking Life (2001), Tape (2001)
• Michael Apted’s Up series of documentaries: 7 Up (1964), 14 Up (1970), 21 Up (1977), 28 Up (1984), 35 Up (1991), 42 Up (1998), 49 Up (2005), 56 Up (2012), 63 Up (2019)
• François Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel trilogy: The 400 Blows (1959), Antoine and Colette (1962), Stolen Kisses (1968)
• Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander (1982)
• Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life (2011)
• Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho (1991)
• Larry Clark’s Kids (1995)
• Lee Hirsch’s Bully (2011)