Tag Archive: Ethan Hawke


RICHARD LINKLATER’S ‘BEFORE’ TRILOGY

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September 16, 2014
linklater

Richard Linklater

BEFORE SUNRISE (1995), BEFORE SUNSET (2004)

+ BEFORE MIDNIGHT (2013)  directed by Richard Linklater

There’s a fundamental difference between being older and acting older. This came out strongly in Richard Linklater’s ‘Boyhood’ and is also a strong feature of the characters of Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delpy) in the director’s consistently marvelous ‘before’ trilogy.

What makes this such a mighty cinematic achievement is the absence of what I would call Hollywood moments. You know those scenes where couples break up and make up during a freak downpour or in a public place where the emotional (melo)drama is absurdly heightened.

Hawke and Delpy are so completely in their roles that there is never the sense that we are watching stars pretending to be ordinary. There is a genuine lack of artifice which makes their love story both romantic and moving without ever being cloying or sentimental. You don’t feel manipulated into taking sides. Continue reading →

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THE BRILLIANCE OF BOYHOOD

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August 4, 2014

BOYHOOD directed by Richard Linklater (USA, 2014)

boyhood changes

"Don't grow up - it's a trap" - T-shirt slogan.
 "So be it when I shall grow old, / or let me die! /  The child is father of the man" - William Wordsworth - My Heart Leaps When I Behold (1802).

What a marvel of a movie this is!

12 years in the making, shooting for a few weeks each year, it follows the growing pains of Mason Jr from the age of 6 to 18. Over the course of 166 minutes, the movie shows this boy becoming a man through selected episodes that function in much the same way as memory does, through a gapped linear narrative.

Some reviewers have criticised Ellar Coltrane’s acting prowess which seems to me to miss the point of the project by a merry mile. To realise his role as Mason Jr, Coltrane is not required to get into character; he just needs to be himself. This means we see him as an ungainly, mumbling teenager and empathize with his discomfort as he reaches puberty. Linklater’s own daughter Lorelei plays his older sister and steals the show in the early scenes but it’s this boy’s life that takes centre stage. Continue reading →

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THE DEVIL’S IN THE DETAILS

Filed under: Movies — 1 Comment
February 21, 2014

BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD directed by Sidney Lumet (USA, 2007)

before-the-devil-knowsSadly, this movie title now seems more than a little ironic.

It comes from a Irish proverb (“May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead”)  and turned out to be Lumet’s swan song (he died in 2011) as well as being one of a long list of films that stand as testament to the greatness of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman.

To say that it is a story of a dysfunctional family is a massive understatement.

Hoffman plays Andy Hanson who bullies younger brother Hank (Ethan Hawke) into carrying out the botched robbery of a ‘mom and pop’ store and Albert Finney is the overbearing father who discovers the horrible truth about his sons. Continue reading →

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