Waking Life

Starring: Julie Delpy, Wiley Wiggins Director: Richard Linklater Original UK Premiere: 2002 Dvd Release: 24th February, 2003 Number Of Discs: 1 Format: Animated, PAL, Widescreen, Region 2 Encoding

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Waking Life is a digitally manipulated film, similar to an animated film, directed by Richard Linklater & made in 2001. The entire film was shot using standard film & then a team of artists using computers drew stylized lines & colors over each frame. In a broad scope, Waking Life is about a young man in a dream state. During his dream he encounters many characters who philosophize about free will, human existence, perception, reality & many other topics. There is a large amount of speech done on the topic of existentialism & the misconceptions that are commonly held about it. As the main character travels through his dream he eventually comes to realize that he is dreaming & that he cannot wake up. Throughout the movie, it is unclear what is happening to the main character & why he is in this dream & among the possible explanations suggested is that he could be dead. There is much discussion of existentialism & lucid dreaming. The typical idea of a philosophical coffee shop conversation that many have either overheard or been a part of is represented in this film.

DVD Extras: Waking Life transfers well onto to DVD but disappointingly has no extra features. With just a language selection, scene selection & play all section the only real added advantage of the DVD format is the ability to play back the dream sequences to allow for greater understanding, something impossible to do in the waking life.

Richard Linklater goes off-kilter with his sixth film, Waking Life. Without a linear plot line, stable images & offering the kind of conversations you normally only find in a University seminar, its clear that Linklater, despite his commercial success with independent films, is determined not move into the mainstream. By taking Wiley Wiggins away from his Dazed & Confused life into a dream which has no structure, & flitting from one philosophical question to another, Linklater presents a filmic discussion into the nature of physical awareness, consciousness & unconsciousness that most surrealist artists would be proud of. However, Linklater goes one step further & removes all notions of the real world by filming the actors then transferring them into animation, employing 31 artists to input their vision onto the film.

The result is a startlingly honest portrayal of the confusion we all face about the difference between life & death, dreaming & awareness, & the unknown as a whole. All the characters Wiggins meets seem to have their own thesis on the unknown, just as in life we are all aware or feel differently about our own self. In addition there are discussions regarding film as a dream-like form, with theorists aligning the sensation of watching a film to that of dreaming, taking your own consciousness into the lives of others. This is what makes Waking Life such a brave & well-structured film. By breaking down the barriers of narrative & reality, Linklater has probably made one of the most realistic films in recent history.

Julie Delpy is a French actress. Born in Paris, the daughter of hippie generation parents who worked as stage actors in the avant-garde underground theater, she was encouraged by her parents to act. She made her stage debut at the age of 5 & at 14 she obtained a role in the Jean-Luc Godard motion picture, Detective. Two years later she landed the title role in La Passion Beatrice & used the money she earned to pay for her first trip to New York City. Delpy continued making regular trips to New York over the next few years before finally moving there in 1990. She currently resides in Los Angeles. She gained international celebrity with her portrayal of a young pro- Nazi in the 1991 film, Europa Europa. Offers came to do films in Hollywood as well as in Europe. White, the second film of his Three Colors Trilogy. Since childhood, Ms. Delpy has had an interest in a career as a film director & enrolled in the summer directing course at New York University. She made her directorial debut with a short film Looking for Jimmy in 1995, which she also wrote & produced. Posters Of Beginners Luck

Editors Choice: Before Sunset, Beginners Luck, Waking Life, Villa Des Roses, An American Werewolf In Paris, Before Sunrise, Europa Europa, Three Colours White, View DVDology

Wiley Ramsey Wiggins is an American film actor & blogger. He is the nephew of Lanny Wiggins, who was a member of Janis Joplin s early band, The Waller Creek Boys. Wiley starred in Richard Linklater s films Dazed & Confused & Waking Life. Wiley Wiggins was involved in early 90s cyberculture & at a young age wrote occasionally for magazines like FringeWare Review, Mondo 2000 & BoingBoing. His current weblogs News of the Dead & Video Thing focus on film, art, technology & Free Culture.

Editors Choice: Waking Life, View DVDology

Richard Linklater is an American film director & writer. He is best known for his independent films, which feature characters having grand philosophical discussions. Its Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books. His first full-length feature, Its Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books, made its debut in DVD form in the Criterion Collection s 2-disc set of Slacker, on the second disc. Channel 4 - The Art Show  , documentary film by Irshad Ashraf. Posters Of Bad News Bears

Editors Choice: Bad News Bears, School Of Rock, Tape, Waking Life, Slacker, The Newton Boys, Dazed And Confused, View DVDology

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