Richard Linklater is a national treasure and should be treated as such. I’ve interviewed the man three times in my life and have experienced nothing but a cordial, resolute and wise individual in the process.
His great films — The Before Trilogy, Dazed and Confused, Waking Life and many more — will last for generations to come.
Three years ago, Linklater had lined up his most ambitious project yet. In fact, maybe the most ambitious project in the history of cinema. It was an adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s “Merrily We Go Along,” but that wasn’t the intriguing part.
No stranger to ambition, Linklater famously filmed his “Boyhood” over 12 years. However, even that was not enough for him. So, how could he possibly outdo one of the rare films in history? Well, how about shoot ‘Merrily’ over a span of 20 years.
Linklater has barely spoken about the project, until now. Last night, he briefly updated IndieWire:
“On the one hand, yes [it is a more difficult production than “Boyhood”] But they’re very different, just using the same longitudinal storytelling technique. They’re just such different stories. But also, ‘Boyhood’ was every year like a time-lapse, but ‘Merrily’ is like nine times shooting in 20 years, so there’s a two-year gap between each time shoot. Sometimes, two years in a row, but the schedule is all over the map.”
Linklater knows that for some movie fans of a certain age might not be around in 2040 to watch the film, but he doesn’t know if he’ll be alive either:
“What I do feel is when older people, pushing 80 perhaps, come up and say, ‘Oh, I hope I’m around when it comes out. Someone on that age scale, you might look… I can see how the actuarial tables say you may or may not be around to experience the final movie. But frankly, I’m on that same table, so I tell them, ‘Don’t count yourself out.’ We’re all getting there.”
“Merrily We Roll Along” has already been shooting now for three years. Eighteen more to go. Linklater will be 81-years-old by the time shooting wraps.
The plot concerns a Broadway composer whose life we learn about through flashbacks. Paul Mescal, Ben Platt and Beanie Feldstein are part of the main cast.
When Mescal’s casting was announced earlier this year, he replaced Blake Jenner, film journalist Mark Harris complained on Twitter about the unique production: “Please, just shoot the movie all at once, use makeup, it’ll work fine,” Harris wrote.
What an empty take from Harris. Linklater has always been obsessed with the passage of time. What made “Boyhood” so uniquely organic was the way the characters aged naturally before our very eyes, which was just as to experience as the story being told.
I look forward to “Merrily we Go Along” being released in 2040, probably slotted somewhere between the 57th MCU movie and Fast and Furious 19 (in space).
I’ve narrowed down the hundreds upon hundreds of films that will screen this fall to 34 titles—vote for your most anticipated.