✔️ 2022-03-31 02:39:00 – Paris/France.
New York – Bike rides, kickball, Jiffy Pop, Jell-O and other vintage treats fill Apollo 10 1/2: A Childhood in the Space Age (“Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Childhood”) by Richard Linklater, a loving ode to his own childhood outside of Houston in the late 1960s.
In this image released by Netflix, a scene from the animated film “Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood. (Uncredited/ASSOCIATED PRESS)
NASA and the lunar mission are fast approaching, as are other scientific marvels (Astroturf!). But the sense of wonder that pervades Apollo 10½ it is felt just as strongly in the streets of the neighborhood, where children roam with scratched knees.
Time flows in Linklater's films. His step marked the rhythm of childhood ("Boyhood: Moments of a Life") and immersed in the trilogy before sunrise (" Before dawn "). He dived in the 70s in Dazed and confused (“Rebellious and confused”) and in the 80s in Everybody wants it!! ("We all want something"), and he's been making movies long enough for them to be associated with the '90s.
"It's never too late to look back at another time and say, 'Wow, how did we get from here to here? '” Linklater recently said on Zoom from his home outside Austin, Texas. "It's our relationship, isn't it?" It is our present self and our past self, and the past worlds in which we live. »
Apollo 10½, which opens Friday on Netflix, marks Linklater's third animated film after waking life ("Awakening to Life") and A dark scanner ("A Look in the Dark"). And while the 61-year-old writer-director's films have always moved at their leisurely, philosophical pace, Apollo 10½, in particular, it exudes a brilliant childhood nostalgia for the heyday of the space age and, as its narrator (Jack Black) describes it, "the heyday of the age of pranks."
“I wanted to go back to that time and tell how it was back then,” Linklater explains. “We fall into mythos of heroes and great stories. Correct me if I'm wrong, but when was the last time the world focused and united around a human achievement?
link later spoke to The Associated Press about his films and his nostalgia. Responses have been edited for clarity and conciseness.
AP: When you did "Dazed and Confused" in 1993, the 70s weren't that far away. It's been 50 years now. How long do they seem to you?
Link later: When he did "Dazed", he honestly felt further away. Yeah, it's long, but it doesn't seem that long to me. He remembered everything very well. If I have a natural gift in the world, it's probably a very precise memory of people, details and conversations.
AP: What made you want to write this film? Did doing "Boyhood" spark anything?
Link later: I realized as I systematically reviewed how long “Boyhood” took me, “Wait, that was a pretty interesting time to have been alive, to be a kid. I think that era only grows over time. At that point, you take it for granted. “Oh yeah, it's gonna be like this forever. We extrapolate success and put us on Mars at the end of the century. By not making this happen, it makes this time even greater. The idea for the movie came to me like: what an interesting time to be a kid. The wonder of this meets the wonder of being a child.
AP: Paul Thomas Anderson's “Licorice Pizza,” set in the '70s, was motivated in part by capturing a time when a sense of mystery was more pervasive. It seems that those decades before the internet are getting more and more appealing.
link later: There is a little nostalgia gene in all of us. I don't even think nostalgia is the right word. It is a kind of cultural curiosity. How was it to be alive then? Children are fascinated by ancient history. Then you get a bit older and your immediate story becomes really relevant once your own interests grow. I don't trust anyone who isn't interested in history. It's easy to be nostalgic for a time when you didn't know much, and that's what really fits. Before really knowing how the world works. In "Apollo 10 ½", I intentionally have both. A grown-up narrator who points out ironies and abuses more from an adult-critical perspective, in a good-natured way. I couldn't have approached it any other way. It would be doing a disservice to the complexity of the time to get too much inside your head and not have a bigger critique. Much of this I have discovered over the years. I was surprised to find that there was a backlash about the resources that were spent (on Apollo 11), a legitimate conversation that a company has always had.
AP: You see that in the Questlove documentary “Summer of Soul,” about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival.
Link later: We share some pictures! I had some of these clips about eight years ago. I said to myself: “Oh, there was a soul festival that same day, it's fascinating. Before seeing “Summer of Soul”, I said to myself: “Perfect! ". I had seen these clips years before during our 10 year search. I am so surprised to see Cronkite and Sevareid and the opposing analysts they would have. There is Gloria Steinem who is fair (expletive) in all of this. I have a great clip of Kurt Vonnegut making fun of all that. But that was part of the dialogue.
AP: Being skeptical about the lunar mission, in hindsight, doesn't look so good.
Link later: No, it's a bit like being a Nader voter. You have to see which side of history you can be on. You can't bring your political ax to everything.
AP: Personally, do you fight nostalgia or do you embrace it?
Link later: I was able to do period pieces that I find nostalgic by definition, even if it's a time you didn't live in. You mentioned “Licorice pizza”. Paul was what, 2 or 3 years old when that happened? Where does this fit into nostalgia? It's a time you probably don't remember, but you know it's culturally interesting, so you choose this year carefully. I chose 1937 (for "Me and Orson Welles"). It's nostalgic, but what for? We are before the war, there is a lot of misery on the horizon. But the art is always in the air. Nostalgia is a double-edged sword. I think you can look at the past as long as you do it honestly, without rose-colored glasses. It is always dangerous to say, "It was a better time for everyone", which of course is never true. As much as I love the Apollo program, it breaks your heart to watch it and say, “That was also part of a very exclusive culture. » Where are the female astronauts? Where is someone of color? They worked behind the scenes. Going back to any era is tense.
AP: Yet your film is above all a celebration of a more carefree way of life that now seems outdated.
Link later: My father tells the story: “We just let you out in the morning. If a father needed his son, all he had to do was stick his head out the door and say, “Hey, Tommy, come home. The world has collapsed on everyone. Everyone was scared. You know, the media scare tactics worked. “There was a child kidnapping today in Saint-Louis. So that's it, no more unsupervised children's games. They could report a dad who let his son out for a block. There's something good about playing outside that I think could come back if the neighbors got together and said, 'Hey, we're all gonna do this and it's gonna be awesome and nothing bad is gonna happen. to arrive. " Goes. What are the chances?
In this image released by Netflix, a scene from the animated film “Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood. (Uncredited/ASSOCIATED PRESS)
SOURCE: Reviews News
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