Boyhood

Boyhood, Directed by Richard Linklater, depicts the childhood and adolescence of Mason Evans, Jr. (Coltrane) from ages six to eighteen as he grows up in Texas with divorced parents (Arquette and Hawke). The biggest thing that Boyhood, has going for it, is that it was filmed through 13 years. It started filming in 2002 and ended in 2013. We follow the same actor through his childhood to his adolescent years and then on into college. Now thats very impressive for two reasons: Interest and actors. A lot of directors probably would've just dropped the project halfway through because they had a new idea they wanted to pursue and they needed to make time for it or they just lost interest in trying to tell this story. The other big thing was the actors. The whole film has the same lead in childhood through college. This could've have very easily backfired with the kids growing up and not being good actors. One of the older actors being in an accident and passing or away or just losing interest. Anyway that's not what we're here to talk about. What we're here to talk about is the editing that shows the audience the life of Mason Evans, Jr.

Now of course a big aspect in this film is the editing between scenes. When they were filming this movie they probably filmed a lot of footage with these actors once a year, but obviously not everything makes it in. We don't see a small scene for every year of his life. So we may go from 6th to 8th or to 9th. Now your not able to what year he's in for every scene there a lot where you just assume he hasn't aged much and that'll most likely be it. However because of this you need to make sure every scene counts!

Lets talk about the second husband: Bill. In the scene when the whole family goes out after the newlyweds return from there Honeymoon, Bill snaps at his son, Randy, for playing 20 questions. Nothing huge here. We just see that Bill has rules for his kids. Next time we see him, he's teaching Mason and Randy to play golf. Bill doesn't snap or yell at the two boys but he really urges them to keep trying even though they are clearly not interested. Okay, still good: We see he wants his kids to do work. What's next? He makes Mason get a buzzcut because he dislikes his long hair. Okay... so he's one of those more uptight parents? Alright. Then the next scene he gets upset because all those kids don't finish there chores and while he's warning there kids about doing their work he's getting drink. We can't be 100% sure it's alcohol but it's definitely not water or juice. He also makes his wife, masons mother, Olivia back him up. Alright, he's really strict and he likes drinkinnnnnn... Oh wait. Since there's no main goal in this film, each scene has something small that will continued to be built up even if by the end it's not important.

Also the time lapses can sometimes go right into each other. For example, when we first meet Bill, he's still Olivia's professor and they're only flirting at this point. Bill then offers the idea that his kids along with Mason and his sister Samantha should have a play date. The scene later ends and our next scene opens with Mason, Samantha and the other kids playing on a trampoline. Oh is the playdate happening? The kids run inside and greet Bill and Olivia walking in the door carrying luggage and we see a big Welcome back sign. Oh, they got married! There are a lot of those were we think it's starting off at the next day but in reality it's been a year or so. Which will force you to pay attention.

I remember a lot of older movies in the past would do these huge times lapse and throughout the film too. Actually I watched a film the exact same week as I did "Boyhood". It was called "How the West was Won" and I watched it in U.S. History. This Film had a lot of the time skips throughout. Sadly they were placed with those slowly fade away transitions in between scenes. They never do say what year it is or who's story we're following: We just we have to figure it out for ourselves.