“Boyhood,” “Boyhood,” “Boyhood,” “Boyhood,” “Boyhood.” The chatter about the Richard Linklater indie has been omnipresent in the last two weeks, but for good reason: if you somehow haven’t heard, it’s really something else. At almost 3 hours, “Boyhood” is a film shot over twelve years documenting a divorced family as seen through the eyes of a young boy (Ellar Coltrane). You might have quipped to yourself when you saw Linklater visiting at Industrial Light & Magic this past week on Twitter, that the ambitious director could have saved himself a little time by just going the ‘Benjamin Button’ route of special effects. But there’s no CGI here. “Boyhood” is the real deal. We watch a boy of six years old grow into a man around the age of eighteen right before your eyes over the span of a 164-minute movie.
Beyond a gimmick or a stunt as some people could ostensibly describe it, “Boyhood” is much more than that; time is really a character in the movie alongside Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette and Lorelei Linklater and the movie is a loving and affectionate tribute to family, but also the passage of time, memory, growth and well, life and all that it entails.
The incessant chatter over the last few weeks has posed the question often: is this beautiful, big, epic film going to come to the Criterion Collection that has a healthy and already-established relationship with IFC Films? Linklater’s answer up until now has been “hopefully,” but in a interview published today at Hypable, the filmmaker was definitive.
Asked if "Boyhood" was coming to the boutique DVD Label Linklater said, “Yeah, we’ve got a ton of behind the scenes stuff. We made this in the era where everyone has a digital camera so we unearthed an interview from year one with Ellar, Lorelei, Patricia and myself; Patricia interviewed me in 2002. I hadn’t seen this since we shot it, Ellar had forgotten quite a bit of it but he got to see himself as a wide-eyed six year old. For people who like the movie, I think there will be a lot of cool little treasures.”
Linklater said they shot interviews throughout the twelve-year production, but didn’t have a timetable for its release. The director is clearly a fan of the label (and hell, if you’re anything remotely resembling a true-blue cinephile, who isn’t?). “Bless Criterion, without them where would we be?,” he said. “And it’s magical the stuff they dig up. The ‘Persona’ Blu-ray had this making of a Bergman film. It was fascinating. It’s incredible to see what it’s like to hang out on the set of ‘Persona.’” Indeed. Glad to hear the news is confirmed. That’s one many will treasure, even in spite of a Coldplay song. Oh and check out a new alternate poster below.
Richard Linklater dropped by the studio today to discuss ‘Boyhood’ (and say hi to Yoda of course.) pic.twitter.com/DjZqWHauIY
— ILM Visual Effects (@ILMVFX) July 18, 2014
