Richard Linklater Says the ‘90s Were the “Last Good Era of Filmmaking”

Richard Linklater is being celebrated at Venice for “Hit Man,” the review embargo should lift in the coming hours — although The Guardian seems to have had a jump start, giving it four stars.

Regardless, Linklater is doing the media rounds and spoke to THR about the state of the movie industry and, spoiler alert, he’s all doom and gloom about it:

It feels like it’s gone with the wind — or gone with the algorithm. Sometimes I’ll talk to some of my contemporaries who I came up with during the 1990s, and we’ll go, “Oh my God, we could never get that done today” […] I was able to participate in what always feels like the last good era for filmmaking.

The ‘90s was a great decade for filmmaking, with its invasion of indie auteurs. It almost felt like another movement akin to ‘70s American cinema. Just think of all the great filmmakers that emerged this decade: Tarantino, PTA, Soderbergh, Fincher, Anderson, Payne, Linklater, just to name a few.

Linklater later adds that “distribution has fallen off” and “Is there a new generation that really values cinema anymore? That’s the dark thought.”

Linklater’s fear that there’s not enough of a critical mass in the culture to sustain “what once was” comes off the heels of this summer’s ‘Barbenheimer’ phenomenon. Many are wondering if that was the final hurrah for a medium that some believe is dying off. Others, such as Francis Ford Coppola, see it as a hopeful sign of things to come. Here’s Linklater again:

With a changing culture and changing technology, it’s hard to see cinema slipping back into the prominence it once held. I think we could feel it coming on when they started calling films “content” — but that’s what happens when you let tech people take over your industry. It’s hard to imagine indie cinema in particular having the cultural relevance that it did.

Some really intelligent, passionate, good citizens just don’t have the same need for literature and movies anymore. It doesn’t occupy the same space in the brain. I think that’s just how we’ve given over our lives, largely, to this thing that depletes the need for curating and filling ourselves up with meaning from art and fictional worlds. That need has been filled up with — let’s face it — advanced delivery systems for advertising.

The result is less talented, or influential, filmmakers entering the fray. So, what's the future of American cinema looking like? Grim, to say the least, but there are still some filmmakers forming impressive filmographies, despite the studio system not being interested in giving many of them any room for creative freedom.

Last week, I posted Rotten Tomatoes’ poll of the Best Directors of The Last 25 Years. The results paled in comparison to the fruitful talent of past decades. Sure there’s Nolan, Villeneuve, Chazelle, Baker, Safdie, Lanthimos, but it’s limited to only a few exciting names.

Meanwhile, the good news is that world cinema is in good shape, and some promising filmmakers keep springing up at every film festival.

Through it all, Linklater has managed to amass a staggering oeuvre of films: “Dazed and Confused,” “Before Sunrise,” “Before Sunset,” “Boyhood,” “Waking Life,” “The School of Rock,” “Everybody Wants Some,” “Bernie,” “Apollo 10 1/2,” and now we might have to add “Hitman.”