Role: Michelle Burroughs
Genre: Comedy
Director: Richard Linklater
Written by: Richard Linklater
Running time: 102 min
Release Date: September 24, 1993
Additional Cast: Jason London, Wiley Wiggins and Matthew

Synopsis

It’s the last day of school at a high school in a small town in Texas in 1976. The upperclassmen are hazing the incoming freshmen, and everyone is trying to get stoned, drunk, or laid; even the football players who signed a pledge not to.

Reception

Entertainment Weeklyranked the film #17 on their list of “The Top 50 Cult Films”,third on their list of the 50 Best High School Movies, 10th on their “Funniest Movies of the Past 25 Years” list, and ranked it #6 on their “The Cult 25: The Essential Left-Field Movie Hits Since ’83″ list. Quentin Tarantino included it on his list of the 12 greatest films of all time in the 2002 Sight and Sound poll.

The Criterion Collection released a two-disc boxed-set edition of the film on June 6, 2006 in the U.S. and Canada. Features included an audio commentary by Richard Linklater, deleted scenes, the original trailer, the 50 minute “Making Dazed” documentary that aired on the American Movie Classics channel on September 18, 2005, on-set interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, cast auditions and footage from the ten-year anniversary celebration. Also included is a 72-page book featuring new essays by Kent Jones, Jim DeRogatis, and Chuck Klosterman as well as memories from the cast and crew, character profiles and a mini reproduction of the original film poster designed by Frank Kozik. Entertainment Weekly gave it an “A” rating and called it a “fine edition grants this enduring cult classic the DVD treatment it deserves”.

Book

In September 1993, St. Martin’s Press published a 127-page, softcover book (ISBN 0-312-09466-3) inspired by Richard Linklater’s screenplay. It was compiled by Linklater, Denise Montgomery, and others, and designed by Erik Josowitz. It was presented as a kind of yearbook, with character profiles, essays by characters, a time-line focusing on the years 1973 to 1977, and various 1970s pop culture charts and quizzes. It also featured dozens of black-and-white photos from the film.
Some of the material contained in the 1993 book was reprinted in the 72-page book included with the 2006 Criterion DVD.

Filming

Linklater’s improvisational and experimental style of directing caused concern with studio officials, as did the ability of many members of his Slacker crew. Lee Daniel was almost fired after the rushes of the day, deemed unusable, were shown. Atmosphere on set was characterized by mutual animosity between the Slacker crew and studio crew and executives. Linklater would tell the actors that it was “us against them”, which first assistant director John Cameron noted mirrored the plot of the film.

Universal encouraged Linklater to add nudity to the film. According to Jacks, the studio “really wanted more sex. Their point was, if we were gonna get an R rating, why not get it for sex? They weren’t saying don’t have language and drugs, but it was like, we might as well have sex, too.” Linklater recalls Universal chairman Tom Pollock telling Don Phillips to “get me some tits in this movie”. To attempt to secure an extra half a million dollars, Linklater wrote in a scene in which Mike, Tony, and Cynthia are flashed by a woman while cruising around, which he later removed. Linklater was initially to have a cameo in which he would have made out with actress Autumn Barr, but he dropped out due to not having time to film it.

Bedichek Middle School in Austin was used as the location for the film’s fictional Robert E. Lee High School, while Everette L. Williams Elementary in nearby Georgetown stood in for Williams Middle School. The scene in which the freshman girls are hazed was shot in a hot parking lot, with many actors and extras lacking sunscreen. The prop crew could not find an acceptable substitute for the condiments to be poured on the girls, so real mustard and ketchup was used. Posey improvised many of her lines in the scene as Darla. Posey revealed that the line “wipe that face off your head!” came from a mistranslation of the play In the Jungle of Cities. According to actor Jeremy Fox, Affleck and Cole Hauser both hurt Fox when filming his paddling scene, leading to complaints from Fox’s mother. The scene in which Mitch throws a bowling ball out of a car was filmed in a residential neighborhood south of Austin. Wiley Wiggins surprised the cast and crew by actually throwing the ball out on the first take, letting it crash into trashcans and lawns as it rolled down a hill. Wiggins lied to Linklater about his baseball abilities, leading to the hiring of a stunt double to pitch in the movie. While filming, Posey and Adams wrote additional scenes, including the entirety of the scene in which the character Shavonne says “she called you a bitch and you a slut”, for their characters, as many scenes with female characters had been cut or whittled down.