The director shot his 2014 film over 12 years, documenting his cast growing older. As it’s re-released, the director reflects on his beautiful ‘time sculpture’ as well as a potential follow-up to Before Midnight and his 20-year project with Paul Mescal
The years run like rabbits in Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, that heart-piercing account of a kid growing up, and they continue to sprint after the closing credits have rolled. Production began in 2002. The last scenes were shot in summer 2013. Since then, we have grown older while the film has stayed the same. “I haven’t talked about Boyhood in years,” Linklater says, laughing, as if he is recalling an old high-school buddy or the one who got away.
Now, Boyhood is back in the form of a commemorative Blu-ray, nine years after its theatrical release. It’s good to see it returned and enshrined, although I prefer to imagine it’s still out there somewhere, living and breathing and remaking itself on screen. The director describes it as a life project, a time sculpture – weathered by the years and showing how people change. It’s strange, he admits, that the characters in his movie aren’t changing any more.
