Interview:
Melissa Maerz,
author,
“Alright Alright Alright:
The Oral History of Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused”
Written by journalist Melissa Maerz, “Alright Alright Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused” offers the definitive account of the highs and lows of the making of the Austin-shot, 1976-set high school comedy. Through interviews with the Slacker director as well as his cast and crew, Maerz details the conflicts Richard Linklater endured with producers and Universal Pictures executives on and off the set of his first studio-financed project to maintain his artistic independence and creative vision. Maerz also chronicles how Linklater based Dazed and Confused on his experiences growing up in Huntsville, gathered an ensemble cast that would include multiple future Oscar winners, and watched as the film failed at the box office in 1993 only to gradually obtain classic status following its release on VHS. In addition to Linklater, Maerz interviews such cast members as Matthew McConaughey, Ben Affleck, Jason London, Joey Lauren Adams, Parker Posey, and Wiley Wiggins, as well as casting director Don Phillips, editor Sandra Adair, producer Sean Daniel, and then-Universal Pictures chairman Tom Pollack, who died earlier this year. Harper will publish “Alright Alright Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused” on Nov. 17. The Austin Film Society presents the virtual event Richard Linklater in Conversation with Melissa Maerz at 7 p.m. Nov. 18. A founding editor of the New York magazine website Vulture, Melissa Maerz also served as a staff writer for Entertainment Weekly and the L.A. Times and an editor for SPIN and Rolling Stone.
Aired: Nov. 12, 2020. Web site: http://www.austinfilm.org/ https://www.harpercollins.com/ https://www.harpercollins.com/blogs/authors/melissa-maerz |
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