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Richard Linklater: Dream is Destiny

Richard Linklater might be my favorite American director. “Boyhood” is one of the great American movies, the “Before” trilogy might be my favorite series ever, and then you have “Slacker,” “Dazed and Confused,” “Waking Life,” “School of Rock,” and “Bernie.” Linklater’s the rare director who’s kept his indie roots, and even his more mainstream products tend to have something heartfelt and compassionate about them, a spirit of individuality.

The documentary “Richard Linklater: Dream is Destiny” focuses hard on that, glossing over some of the director’s lesser works (“Bad News Bears” only gets a fleeting mention) and centering on Linklater the iconoclast, who has stuck to his Texas roots even as fame and Oscar called. Director Louis Black is a friend of Linklater’s as a founding member of the Austin Film Society (he was also the paranoid man in the cafe in “Slacker”), so don’t look for any dirt or controversy here. The film is hagiography, and fans of the director likely won’t learn much they didn’t know before. But it’s still worth it to hear Linklater tell stories about his early career, listen to Ethan Hawke talk about how the “Before” series changed his life, and watch as this talent grew from the indie scene. It’s a fan’s-only affair, but I’m a fan and I dug it.

Plus, the clips. It just reminded me that I want to watch the “Before” series again, need to give “A Scanner Darkly” a rewatch, and will probably never grow tired of watching Jack Black rock out.