The movie Richard Linklater calls “the greatest comedy of all”
The works of Richard Linklater are varied in genre and tone. He’s delivered philosophical and scientific ruminations in the shape of Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, romantic drama with Before Sunrise and its sequels, and even coming-of-age stoner comedy with a film many consider to be one of the greatest in the genre, Dazed and Confused.
In a feature with Rotten Tomatoes, Linklater once revealed his five favourite films ever made and drew particular attention to a movie he considers the “greatest comedy” of all time. It’s the 1941 Preston Sturges film Sullivan’s Travels, which Linklater claims “hasn’t aged a day”.
“It’s amazing — especially with Hollywood in mind,” he said. “It’s the ultimate inside Hollywood movie. It’s about a guy searching for meaning in his art who’s had all this success in Hollywood… The human dynamics of it are very true to life.”
Linklater continued, “I mean, it’s a comedy, and it’s all pitched at that point, but Preston Sturges was such the master of dialogue and delivery that the whole tone and pitch of it is totally unique. It’s amazingly contemporary.”
The movie serves as a satire on Hollywood and the film industry in general. It focuses on a high-profile comedy filmmaker, played by Joel McCrea, who decides to live a life as a homeless man to gain an understanding of a character for his next movie. He soon meets an aspiring young actress played by Veronica Lake.
Continuing to express his admiration for Sturges’ movie, Linklater said, “This character’s desires and the timeless subject of, say, art versus commerce is one of the best film depictions of that you could ever find — and in a very comedic way. He has a project that the studio doesn’t want him to make about homelessness — this is coming out of the Depression — and he’s a spoiled rich guy, and he has a project he wants to make.”
He added, “Of course, the Coens made a film with that name, O Brother, Where Art Thou? That’s where that comes from. And it’s kind of a ridiculous desire to say something that has social significance and meaning about suffering and all that stuff, but he’s really kind of desperate to make a comedy. He ends up on a chain gang by a series of misadventures… So he really is suffering. It’s just a brilliant movie and surprisingly contemporary.”
Check out the film’s trailer below.
