Richard Linklater

For Those about to Rock, Late Afternoon in Paris, and Remixing a Little League Season

74 | Richard Linklater review), but they also indicate a longer-reaching historical significance, the abatement of the animal in the United States as well as the Native American cultures that depended upon it, a connection Levitch makes explicit in his desire to put the bison “existentially front and center.” This gesture, however, is not intended to supplant the events of 9/11; instead, Shiva’s proposal is attempting something larger, to allow us to grieve the specificity of what occurred at Ground Zero while acknowledging the existence of other historical traumas that may yet be grieved. They need not cancel each other out; there is room enough in the city for these traumas and so many others. But if there is room for trauma, then there is room for its mourning, and if that is the case, then there may also be room for rethinking our past, both recent and more distant, in more rich, complex ways, by attending to a present itself more rich and complex. In so doing, we might, as we end our walk through New York City the place and New York City the idea, begin to look toward the future with something that this extraordinary act of the imagination might generate as well: hope. Hope, or at the very least levity, characterizes the next three films that Linklater would direct, two multiplex comedies and, between them, an arthouse sequel. For Those about to Rock, Late Afternoon in Paris, and Remixing a Little League Season Linklater’s next film begins with a deceptively simple anecdote that belies the difficulties of script development: in this case, a recurring image that screenwriter Mike White had of his neighbor Jack Black. White had previously penned a script for producer Scott Rudin, Orange County (2002), about a would-be college student whose brother Black had played. In thinking about another feature for Rudin, the writer returned to a notion that captured both Black’s obsession with music and his childlike persona, one he later described as “this idea about him jamming around with a bunch of kids” (“The School of Rock Handbook”). When White had a more polished screenplay, Rudin approached Linklater, who initially declined the project, but after meeting with White, Rudin, and Black, the director signed on to the film for Paramount Pictures. From the outset, Linklater’s desire for authenticity Time Is a Lie | 75 guided the production process, no matter how far-fetched the premise of a substitute teacher who forms a secret rock-and-roll band with his class; real musicians, for example, would play the parts of students, rather than actors who might only pretend to know their instruments. His normal insistence on rehearsals led to preparations for the acting and the music itself, as the musicians learned to work with one another, and once production began, shooting took place at Wagner College in Staten Island, for the school’s exterior, and Buckley Country Day School in Long Island, for its interior. Costing $35 million, Linklater’s highest budget to date, the film would open domestically on October 3, 2003, and would make $19.6 million in its first weekend, putting it at the top of the box office. Additionally, it enjoyed a very warm critical reception . Viewed now, with its outsider protagonist, love for popular music, antiauthoritarian sympathy, allusions, and humor, the film seems like a clear fit with the rest of Linklater’s work, even as it represents a break as well, at least with the immediate past, given how little it resembles Waking Life, Tape, or Live from Shiva’s Dance Floor. That Linklater’s film, and the two that follow, should seem both inevitable and surprising speaks to the genuine pleasures that his career path, if not cinema history in general, always seems capable of delivering. This leads us, then, to Dewey, who is likely smirking off-camera at these reflections, as the rock-and-roll-obsessed protagonist of The School of Rock (Baumgarten; Macor 304–5; “The School of Rock Handbook”). From the outset—typically where the “inciting incident” of scriptwriting manuals sets the plot in motion—The School of Rock’s Hollywood origins are evident in its efficient narrative. Almost immediately, Dewey is kicked out of his band and threatened with eviction, and both of these events lead to his taking the job at Horace Green. More broadly, the film uses a basic three-act structure: act 1 sets up Dewey’s new job, act 2 introduces complications...