More mustachian than slacker: Richard Linklater

[Zoot Allures]

A Wealth of Common Sense has an interesting post about filmmaker Richard Linklater's early years: "How Personal Finance Helped Launch Dazed and Confused"

Clip:

Linklater dropped out of college after two years to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. While he was figuring it out he needed some money so he worked for an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Texas. After losing this job and being rejected by multiple film schools, Linklater realized becoming self-taught on the movie industry was his only option.

Linklater didn’t do a whole lot while working on the oil rig so he was able to save up $18,000.

A combination of that savings, some unemployment checks and a frugal lifestyle allowed Linklater to teach himself about the movie business from ages 23 to 27.

He tracked all of his expenses mercilessly and lived on $300 a month in Austin, TX when it was still a relatively inexpensive place to live. Befriending the manager at a local movie theater allowed him to watch up to 500 movies a year, taking notes on all of them. Watching movies became his full-time job.

Linklater and his friends in Austin began experimenting by shooting Super 8 films, eventually creating his first movie Slackers, which was an indie hit.

Slackers was so well-received Linklater finally got his big break to do a studio movie. He wrote Dazed and Confused about his own high school experience and directed the movie at the ripe age of 31. The movie is now a cult classic.

[dcunitedfan]

Allright allright allright allright...

[StetsTerhune]

That's such a great story. Dazed and Confused has long been one of my favorites, and is definitely the most realistic movie I know of about high school.