"Three recent middle school graduates - Carl, Tommy and Hirschfelder - are walking in the middle of an otherwise empty suburban street as dusk gives way to night. They are sharing a bottle of beer that was gifted to Hirschfelder by one of his assailants following a ritualistic assault by a group of seniors. After the three finish their beer, Carl throws the bottle. As the bottle spins in the air, Tommy and Hirschfelder curse him and the three quickly run from the scene as the bottle hits the ground and shatters.
"I was a high school sophomore when Dazed and Confused was released in the autumn of 1993, and with this scene I realized this would be one of my favorite films. It was then, and remains so now. I had been anticipating Dazed because I was a fan of Richard Linklater’s previous film, Slacker. I don’t even know if I even really liked Slacker at the time, I just know it felt like I would have been a lot cooler if I did. So when Universal dumped Dazed into about 200 theaters for its three week run, my best friend and I convinced a parent to drop us off at the only theater in our area that bothered to screen it. We had to sneak in, which gave us the same sort of suburban adolescent anarchist rush as the sound of breaking glass after smashing a bottle.
"In the bottle moment, Linklater nailed the ephemeral pleasure, perception of great danger, and thrill of escape that my hooligan friends and I lived for at that age. In the scene just prior to this (when Hirshfelder is gifted the beer), one of the senior bullies - Ben Affleck’s deliciously awful O’Bannion - also throws a beer bottle. Only, being four years older, he takes no pleasure in the act. It’s a gesture of frustration, not rebellion. His friends don’t flee the scene, and it would have gone totally unmentioned had it not been seen as a waste of beer. O’Bannion may have gotten that same thrill when he was 14 (is Carl to O’Bannion as Mitch is to 'Pink' Floyd?), but in the intervening years he has grown to seek greater thrills; like those offered by the community sanctioned torture of Jr. High graduates.
"Still, Linklater’s bullies are far from the sadists in Dazed antecedent If…, just as its adults are less tyrannical than the authorities in its other inspirations like the headmaster in Zero for Conduct, or Principal Togar in Rock n’ Roll High School. The adults in Dazed are less threatening, but almost uniformly set arbitrary boundaries and impose prescriptive limitations. The central dilemma in the film - one imposed upon Linklater by the Studio - is that Randall 'Pink' Floyd, a relaxed and confident Jason London, must decide to sign or not to sign a pledge to be a drug-free football player next season.
"His coaches are adamant about him signing, attempting to control his body and mind on and off the field, but additional - and more convincing pressure - comes from the community. In one scene a kindly elderly couple showers Floyd with praise, squeezing his bicep and reigning in his autonomy by anchoring Floyd to their small-town dreams of a State Championship next year. It’s easy to imagine them conspiratorially cackling like the old couple terrorizing Betty in Mulholland Drive once Floyd steps away.
"This societal pressure to conform is underlined by the mise-en-scène reminders of the impending Bicentennial. On the commentary Linklater recalls 'the Bicentennial was everywhere. If you were alive then you were getting it shoved down your throat.' The only time the Bicentennial is explicitly evoked is when a young hippy high school teacher reminds her students what they’ll be celebrating '...is the fact that a bunch of slave owning aristocratic white males didn't want to pay their taxes.' Over at the Jr. High, a Vietnam veteran teacher denies a request from the young boys to leave early and escape the impending abuse, telling them, 'It's like our sergeant told us before one trip into the jungle. Men, fifty of you are leaving on a mission. Twenty-five of you ain't coming back.' This line is the only allusion to Vietnam that made it into the film, despite the war ending only one year earlier.
"Keeping the political landscape of the era in the margins allows Linklater to elevate the emotional landscapes and keep focus on the more quotidien problems his characters are experiencing. Like getting Aerosmith tickets, finding a new location for the party, for the senior to find freshmen to beat, or for the freshman to find ways to fight back. What elevates Dazed beyond the average teen comedy is how deeply invested it is in these mini-dramas without overestimation their importance beyond the moment.
"As Linklater observes in the making of documentary, for teenagers 'the stakes are low, but it’s your life. So the stakes are actually pretty high.' Linklater dips his toes in the tropes of more traditional teen films - the big game, a bust by the cops, a blossoming romance - only to undercut the expected results. Mitch wins the big game, only to get brutally assaulted by the seniors afterwards. The cops bust the seniors for trespassing and property theft, but they’re the town’s football players so they just let them go. The movie builds up Floyd leaving his girlfriend for Jodi (Mitch’s sister), but the last scene of the movie has Floyd and his girlfriend laughing together on a roadtrip with their friends. And when Carl, Tony and Hirshfelder break the bottle, nobody chases them. But that doesn’t make their small acts of rebellion any less meaningful, or any less fun. Since the most crucial thing is just living, man. L-I-V-I-N." ~ Kevin Cecil
This year's “nominees:”
The Age of Innocence (dir. Martin Scorsese)
Dazed and Confused (dir. Richard Linklater)
Groundhog Day (dir. Harold Ramis)
Naked (dir. Mike Leigh)
Schindler’s List (dir. Steven Spielberg)
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