12 Greatest 'Performance' Directors Of The 21st Century
12. Richard Linklater
Directed Memorable Performances In: Tape (2001), Waking Life (2001), A Scanner Darkly (2006) and Bernie (2011)
Best of the Best: Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight( 2013)
The primer American 'Slacker' got his start in the 90's with generational defining works such as Dazed and Confused and Slacker, but it was in 1995 that defined his trademark naturalist performance style. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy play Jesse and Celine a star-crossed couple who meet by chance on a train heading to Vienne. What follows is essentially a 100min free flowing conversation about... everything between two engaging minds. Experimental, character driven and refreshing the movie was Linklater's style all the way through.
In the early 2000's he teamed up with Hawke again to do another experimental film with the one-room thriller Tape, shot completely on digital the director was one of the first filmmakers to embrace the emerging technology. He continued to embrace new technology with motion capture animation in both Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly. In the latter, he makes even Keanu Reeves into an engaging character, drug enforcement officer in the near future (or alternate future...) who succumbs to the pressures of being undercover and having to take the drugs he is supposed to be stopping to keep his cover. However, the very best of his work performance-wise comes in his recently completed so-called 'Before' trilogy.
Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy returned as the talkative couple in the sequel Before Sunset set nine years after their first chance meeting. Although nearly a decade has passed the two haven't lost a step in their chemistry together on-screen as Jesse and Celine, a great deal of that due in part to their director's apt handling of the material.
Though both Hawke and Delpy are veterans of over twenty years, they are never better than in these series of films about the very nature of companionship and relationships. Their naturalism and rapport single-handily drive the narratives of all the 'Before' films. Allowing his actors room to breath real-life into their characters makes Linklater deserving of the very best in directing for the last ten years.