Dazed and Confused (United States, 1993)

During the early part of his career, filmmaker Richard Linklater had a fondness for freeform films that were strong on setting and character interaction and light on narrative. His first three professional productions – his calling-card Slackers, the day-in-a-life Dazed and Confused, and the romantic Before Sunrise, shared many of the same qualities. The middle film of the three, Dazed and Confused, reached theaters in the autumn of 1993 and, possibly because of a bad marketing campaign (the distributor, Gramercy Pictures, advertised it as a “stoner movie”), didn’t make much of a dent at the box office. But, as is sometimes the case with films that don’t initially reach their audiences, Dazed and Confused was discovered in the video store and became beloved by many who saw it – both those who were alive during the time period when it is set and those who were able to experience 1976 through Linklater’s lens.

One doesn’t need to listen to an interview to recognize the autobiographical nature of Dazed and Confused. The movie unspools like a loosely connected collage of memories. It’s Linklater’s American Graffiti. There’s such a strong sense of verisimilitude, amplified by an evocative soundtrack of contemporaneous pre-disco ‘70s music, that it almost feels like a time machine was somehow involved. I’m old enough to remember 1976 (although I was a little younger than even the most youthful characters in the film) and this tracks my memories pretty closely. Maybe there’s a little haze of nostalgia (as well as other things) but future generations who watch Dazed and Confused with the hope of getting some insight into what life was like back then will get a reasonable approximation.

At one time or another, a movie is made about every generation. Dazed and Confused is for the survivors of the 1970s: that group of Americans who came of age when bellbottoms, love beads, mantras, and marijuana were the fashion, drinking and driving hadn't become taboo, and safe sex was used only to avoid pregnancy or VD. As the United States reached her bicentennial, Vietnam was over – although the memories still lingered – and the short-lived disco craze was building to a frenzy that Saturday Night Fever would both exploit and exacerbate.

This movie begins on the last day of the 1975-76 school year, and finishes less than twenty-four hours later. For Randy "Pink" Floyd (Jason London) and his friends, it's the end of their tenure as high school juniors, and with the final bell of the last period, they have reached the ultimate goal for teenagers – they are seniors. At the local junior high school, Mitch Kramer (Wiley Wiggins) and his cohorts have a serious problem to consider. They are members of the incoming freshman class and, as part of a time-honored hazing tradition, they are about to be totally and painfully humiliated by the new seniors.

Dazed and Confused explores the beginning of the 1976 summer from the perspectives of a diverse group of characters. Just about every type is represented: the timid nerd looking for a way to break out of his shell, the mindless jock, the overaged twentysomething guy who likes hanging out with teenagers, the blond bombshell, the stoned-out-of-his mind pot addict, and the timid newcomer. They all come to life to the degree necessary to imbue the film with a character-oriented immediacy, not because Linklater has any great desire to craft fully three-dimension individuals with lasting or meaningful arcs. This is all about people being in the moment with minimal concern for yesterday or tomorrow.  

It's interesting to look back at the cast from the perspective of decades later. Many of these then-little-known or unknown actors have gone on to significant fame. There’s Ben Affleck, whose asshole personality gets a full airing four years before he would hit it big with Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy. Joey Lauren Adams, who would also appear in Chasing Amy, is here as well. Paker Posey, a ‘90s indie “it” girl, made Dazed and Confused before she achieved fame with movies like Party Girls and Kicking and Screaming. A pre-Fifth Element Milla Jovovich is on hand, as is Renee Zellweger (in a non-speaking part). Adam Goldberg, Cole Hauser, Anthony Rapp…it almost feels like a “who’s who.” Then, of course, there’s Matthew McConaughey, whose breakthrough was just around the corner. Here, playing a part the seems modeled after Sean Penn’s iconic Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, McConaughey got noticed big-time. Ironically, perhaps the best performance in Dazed and Confused came from someone whose acting career never got off the runway: Wiley Wiggins, who performs almost every scene (including one where he buys his first six-pack) with an affecting blend of charm and realism.

Dazed and Confused is irresponsible and politically incorrect, and almost worth applauding on those grounds alone. Overall, however, this is light entertainment – nothing groundbreaking or noteworthy. This film was made to celebrate a lost culture, and those who were part of it, or are merely curious, will find a path into the past through it. It’s a pleasant enough way to get lost in for a couple of hours, seeing fresher versions of now-familiar faces and basking in a younger, more innocent time exhumed by a talented filmmaker whose devotion to recreation has resulted in this engaging time capsule.

Dazed and Confused (United States, 1993)