From Slacker (1991) to The School of Rock (2003), from Before
Sunrise (1995) to Before Sunset (2004), from the walking and talking
of his no/low-budget American independent films to conversing with the
philosophical traditions of the European art house, Richard Linklater's
films are some of the most critical, political, and spiritual
achievements of contemporary world cinema. Examinations of Linklater's
collaborative working practices and deployment of rotoscoping and
innovative distribution strategies all feature in this book, which
aspires to walk and talk with the filmmaker and his films. Informed by a
series of original interviews with the artist, in both his hometown and
frequent film location of Austin, Texas, this study of the director who
made Dazed and Confused (1993), A Scanner Darkly (2006), and
Bernie (2011) explores the theoretical, practical, contextual, and
metaphysical elements of these works along with his documentaries and
side-projects and finds fanciful lives and lucid dreams have as much to
do with his work as generally alternative notions of America,
contemporary society, cinema, and time.Â