Movies - Dazed and Confused

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	Movies - Dazed and Confused

Dazed and Confused is a 1993 American movie written and directed by Richard Linklater. The movie's large ensemble cast features a number of future stars. The title is derived from the Led Zeppelin song "Dazed and Confused", which is not actually featured in the movie, as Led Zeppelin usually don't allow their songs to be featured in films.

The movie tells the stories of the last day of school in May 1976 in a Texas suburb. It was shot on location in Austin, Texas. The camera dips in and out of the lives of a variety of students at the school, rather than focusing on a single individual - in a manner reminiscent of, but less extreme than, Linklater's earlier film Slacker, which was likewise shot on location in Austin, Texas.

The film took in less than $8 million at the box office, but in recent years has achieved cult film status, particularly on U.S. college campuses. Quentin Tarantino included it on his list of the ten greatest films of all time in voting in the 2002 Sight and Sound poll.

Plot summary

The film paid considerable attention to period and locational detail, mostly the cars, clothing, slang and music of the time, the soundtrack featuring rock staples of the era and fads like citizens' band radio. It also occasionally featured a sense of melancholy, the belief of having "missed out" by several years on the monumental events of the turbulent late 1960s.

The film's lack of conventional narrative structure and undemonized depiction of marijuana use have associated it somewhat with "stoner" culture.

"Dazed and Confused" has been compared to American Graffiti
in its loosely-structured depiction of one night in the lives of a group of high school students.

As the movie starts, the last day of school at a high school in Huntsville Texas is beginning. Most of the main characters are introduced during this time. One of the characters is Randall "Pink" Floyd (a reference to popular progressive rock band Pink Floyd), a star football player who hangs around with not only the jocks but also with members of the two other cliques at the school, stoners and nerds. Randall thus serves as a link connecting all of the school's different social groups.

The last day of school proceeds with regular classes but the soon-to-be-senior class (Class of 1977) is more interested in getting ready for the annual hazing of the incoming freshman class, which will take place after school. The boys spend the day making paddles in shop class, the girls buy groceries which will be used for the hazing. In the film, the hazing is depicted as a ritualized event that has the support of the town (a local concession stand is even opened for the event). Boys and girls have different hazing rituals; freshman boys are chased and paddled when caught, freshman girls have food poured on them, do "air raid" drills, and then have to propose marriage to boys in the senior class.

Mitch Kramer, one of the incoming freshmen, is a pitcher on his baseball team and he is singled out for hazing by the seniors, who wait for him after a late afternoon baseball game. Among the seniors there is Randall "Pink" Floyd; perhaps because Pink is a star quarterback and Kramer is a starting pitcher, Pink sees Kramer as following in his footsteps as one of the school's top athletes, and invites him to tag along to party for the rest of the evening. An interesting note is that Mitch and Randall were both leaving youth baseball leagues when they got their first licks by seniors during the summer before high school.

Another subplot involves the coaches introducing a new policy for the upcoming 1976-77 school year in which athletes have to sign a written pledge that they will not use alcohol or illegal drugs. Pink refuses to sign the pledge sheet. The coach berates Randall Floyd for hanging out with "that other crowd" (referring to his stoner friends) and Floyd takes offense to it.

After the hazing is over, a night of partying begins. One of the students, drug dealer Kevin Pickford, was planning on holding a get-together at the home of his parents. They had been planning on leaving town that day for a vacation. A truck delivering kegs of beer for the party arrives early before his parents have left and they find out about the party, quickly cancelling their vacation. Through the rest of the movie, various characters arrive at the home prepared for the party (some brandishing drug paraphernalia) only to be met by Pickford's parents.

The party thus cancelled, the kids head downtown to a pool hall called the Emporium. Kramer is sent to buy beer at a convenience store even though he is only a 14-year-old freshman. The movie conspicuously shows the much more relaxed attitudes toward both teenage alcohol consumption and driving with open beer containers at the time; Kramer can easily buy beer as the lawful Texas drinking age at the time was 18 and even that was lightly enforced. Afterward, a victim of the boys' mailbox baseball, suggested as disgruntled or intoxicated, confronts them with a gun and the threat of calling the police. Jarred by the event, the boys tear off in their car as the man fires bullets haphazardly in the general direction of where they had sped.

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Movies - Dazed and Confused

Plot summary

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