2001 Directed by Richard Linklater
Waking Life is about a young man in a persistent lucid dream-like state. The film follows its protagonist as he initially observes and later participates in philosophical discussions that weave together issues like reality, free will, our relationships with others, and the meaning of life.
Ethan Hawke Julie Delpy Wiley Wiggins Bill Wise Alex Jones Steven Soderbergh Ken Webster Charles Gunning Lorelei Linklater Trevor Jack Brooks Glover Gill Lara Hicks Ames Asbell Leigh Mahoney Sara Nelson Jeanine Attaway Erik Grostick Robert C. Solomon Kim Krizan Eamonn Healy J.C. Shakespeare David Sosa Otto Hofmann Aklilu Gebrewold Carol Dawson Lisa Moore Steve Fitch Louis Mackey Alex Nixon Show All…
Anne Walker-McBay John Sloss Jonathan Sehring Caroline Kaplan Palmer West Jonah Smith Tommy Pallotta
Line Research Fox Searchlight Pictures Thousand Words Flat Black Films Detour Filmproduction Independent Film Channel
Valve-unessa, Despertando a la vida, Waking Life: Prisonnier du rêve, Пробуждение жизни
Humanity and the world around us Faith and religion journey, scientific, humanity, documentary or breathtaking death, profound, symbolism, philosophical or surreal documentary, fascinating, sad, emotional or heartbreaking weird, surreal, dream, bizarre or confusing biography, artists, musician, emotional or songs Show All…
>Be me
>At Dimple Records
>Planned on purchasing 'Aladdin 2: The Return of Jafar'
>In line, see a gorgeous clerk
>Looks like Cybill Sheperd
>Long ass line
>Finally the penultimate person at the front of the line
>I take that back, she looks more like Ingrid Bergman
>Hear her mention her favorite director - Richard Linklater
>Get nervous
>Spaghetti falls out of my pockets
>I run out of line, nearly slipping on the spaghetti
>Picked up 'Waking Life', trying to impress her with my taste in film
>Discard the Disney masterpiece
>Line is shorter when I get back in
>Getting more nervous
>Start farting
>Shouldn't have eaten Taco Bell for breakfast
>See her laugh at her co-worker
>Her smile is…
I briefly checked the letterbox'd page for this before deciding on whether or not to watch it and glanced at the top review - "The most pretentious film ever made" - it solemnly says, half a star. Interest is piqued. The synopsis says "A man shuffles through a dream meeting various people and discussing the meanings and purposes of the universe", erection rising, well, whatever could this film be.
The number one rule of lucid dreaming they tell you is never lose sight of your goal or your ass will be teleported to the moon or some shit. The meat is all here but the lines are constantly shifting without telling anybody, the notion that there ever were any lines…
Everyone knows what it's like to dream, but for some reason it's really hard to translate that feeling on screen. So far only Satoshi Kon and Richard Linklater succeeded.
Socrates said "The unexamined life is not worth living," but WAKING LIFE suggests that it is impossible to live without self-examination, that dreams are a way to take a break from consciousness to ruminate on it. I saw WAKING LIFE when I was 18 or 19, freshly into film and suffering from an acute case of being a college freshman. I called it pretentious, pointless, self-absorbed, and all the other adjectives young people use without a hint of self-awareness when they confront something that is (at least for the moment) insurmountably difficult and decide to play a game of chicken instead of just backing down.
I'm mature enough now to be upfront and admit that a number of the treatises…
i kinda wanna give this 5 stars for how good of a watch this was but on the other hand it is just npc dialogue for an hour and 40 minutes
70/100
Third viewing, first since 2002. A lot has happened to me since then, dreamwise—I now have occasional lucid dreams*, which had never happened to me back then, and have also experienced multiple consecutive false awakenings, which really is disturbing as hell. (The factoid mentioned here about adjusting light levels is 100% true, by the way. When I suspect that I'm still dreaming, after seeming to awaken in my bed, I head for the bathroom and try to turn on the light, which never works and usually wakes me up instantly for real. What's more, the house is always darker than it should be, though it's hard to perceive that in the moment.) So I identified more with Wiggins' feeling…
The worst mistake that you can make is to think you're alive when really you're asleep in life's waiting room.
Who would've thought 100 minutes of animated people talking about existential life questions would be so fascinating? Certainly one of the most thought-provoking and intriguing films I've ever seen.
(The Average Joe’s Movie Club Cast)
I hate to say it, but it was all I could think about while watching this ... why did Richard Linklater decide to remake 'Slacker' as a pretentious animated movie?
"I mean, I'm not saying that you don't know what you're talking about, but I don't know what you're talking about."
I remember getting so annoyed while watching the first part of 'My Dinner with Andre', when it was just the one guy talking about all the amazing things he had done. Well, All of Waking Life is just like that but with a series of one-sided philosophy lectures coming at you one after another after another ... and it does not even leave…
One of my favourite versions of filmmaker Richard Linklater other than the naturalistic and ever-growing Before trilogy would be his meandering animated experiment Waking Life. But maybe this meandering is the only way that Waking Life can work as perfectly as it does, and it's another brand of Richard Linklater that I wish I could see more of. It draws back to what he created in his debut film, Slacker, but something about Waking Life makes it feel like a more fully realized project in itself. But it's a sort of Richard Linklater that I like atop all the rest because of how it feels just like what its title describes it as: a wake-up call for our lives and…
Cinematic Time Capsule
2001 Marathon - Film #15
”Hey! Are you a dreamer?
I haven’t seen too many around lately.”
With its trippy rotoscoping visuals and random flood of ideas, Richard Linklater’s meditation on dreams, life and existence is the very definition of film as art.
Every time I watch it I feel like I’m only picking up about 10% of what he’s laying down, but it’s always a different 10%. So I guess if I watch it enough I’ll eventually get it and that’ll probably happen just before I’m swept away on a stream of consciousness….
”As the pattern gets more intricate and subtle, being swept along is no longer enough.”
Cinematic Time Capsule - 2001 Ranked
Imagine that you found yourself at a speed dating event, where all your potential suitors were philosophy majors in college, and the topic of discussion was their favorite concept about the human condition. If you can picture yourself in such a situation, then you pretty much have the gist of Waking Life.
The film follows nameless character who finds himself in discussions with a variety of people that range from things such as communication and understanding between two individuals to topics such as free will and lucid dreaming. Eventually the protagonist realizes he is in a lucid dream-like state and he begins to participate in these conversations. If you enjoy listening to people pose philosophical theories, then you’re in for…
