Richard Linklater on Sex, Murder, Hit Man, and the Infantilization of Culture

Photos by Godlis at the 61st New York Film Festival. Courtesy of Film at Lincoln Center.

It was funny rewatching Hit Man back-to-back with Hometown Prison. Around the time of Hit Man’s premiere you acknowledged the darkness that undergirds the film, which stood out a second time––like Gary getting his first guy, who’ll be going to prison for quite a long while, and saying, “It feels good. It feels really good.” You also have the suicidal client who takes this desperate measure, then gets jailed.

Yeah.

Hometown Prison makes clear the Texas prison culture has been “with you” for quite a long time. There’s quite a darkness to it.

No place darker than prison. I assure you.

I have to wonder if one film about a funny, charming Texas cop being made somewhat concurrent with a sobering documentary about Texas prisons led to one informing the other––or at least informing your own feelings.

Yeah, they do blend into each other in a couple areas. Even when he’s giving his lecture where the young woman asks––he’s kind of the dynamic teacher all of a sudden––and what he’s talking about is the death penalty: the subject of my documentary. Which I had already shot at that point; it hadn’t come out. It’s something I think about a lot. I leave in a lot of the legal; I find myself fascinated with legal and criminal situations. My film Bernie becomes… yeah, it’s a dark comedy, but it’s also a really interesting legal case. I’m the kind of guy who goes to trials and really reads up and finds our legal system very fascinating. And frustrating, too. I leave that in Hit Man: there’s those court sequences where the defense attorney is kind of pointing the finger at Gary and saying, “You’re an entrapper.” So we can parse the ethics of entrapment, which I’m against as a citizen. I have really mixed feelings. Gary was this great guy, and I just don’t know.

In my ideal world, when someone––a housewife or desperate person––is talking about killing someone, what they really do need is, like, mental-health attention. [Laughs] A counselor, counseling, but they’re usually from a class––it’s just not on their mind to get help. Like, they’re desperately reaching out and our society doesn’t know a way to deal with that except punishing them. And a lot do kind of get off, as we show. Juries can be kind of lenient in the right situation––particularly if the subject of [Laughs] who they’re taking out a hit on, they’re back together. These couples that are volatile. Again: it was dark-comedy stuff. But yeah: solicitation of murder is dark, and not everyone has the personal resources to go, “Hey, I’m in a really dark place.” Maybe they don’t have any support. It’s a sad area for sure. I’ve made a comedy about it, but it’s sprinkled into the movie just enough that you can have a little bit of a critique also, I think.

The other auteurist connection I’ll make is that Hit Man ends with Glen Powell giving a Waking Life monologue.

Right out of Waking Life. You’re right. You’re always ready for a Waking Life digressive monologue, yeah.

But the film also feels unique in your corpus for its eroticism. Is there something fresh in your toolkit you’re using to get that right? It becomes an altogether new tone.

It’s rare that that becomes a subject that is necessary. Offscreen I would think Jesse and Céline have that same kind of carnal lust; it’s just not when we’re dropping in on them those times. But before and after, it’s definitely going on. So it’s an element. I’m not that interested in showing it explicitly, but in this case the story––I really had to show that carnal desire. If you see Gary’s story going from a dispassionate introvert––an all-in-his-head guy––to a passionate, sexual being, he’s put himself in a very vulnerable spot. That is how you commit. When you jump to that it’s like, ooh. People do crazy things because of sex. People kill people. People kill themselves. It gets volatile. They do illegal shit. That’s the one thing that can drive you crazy in the world: when you’re in that kind of white-heat passion. That’s what a lot of film noirs are based on: the guy who goes down that path. So we’re our own version of that for both those characters, for sure.

But I think we had to show it, too. It felt like an old-fashioned––in a genre sense––movie. As in: ‘80s. There’s an adult movie. They’re fucking. It’s real. These are real things. It’s just not a part of cinema, by and large, right now. The infantilization is complete. The culture that wants us to… you know, when I was a kid––when I was 13––I was watching a lot of adult movies, very intrigued with that world. “Ahh.” I looked forward to it but it was a little scary because it had all these things I hadn’t experienced yet. But I couldn’t wait to be an adult. They seemed smart. They seemed passionate. There was all kinds of fun things awaiting me. And it was through adult movies.

Now, I think [Laughs] the message society’s sending is, “Just stay a 13-year-old forever.” Maybe a 12-year-old. When I was a kid we were neglected. They didn’t make movies for us. You watch whatever’s out there and good luck. Every now and then there was a kid’s movie, but the whole culture wasn’t bending to kids—any more than the parents were bending to kids. They had an ad at 10 o’clock: “It’s 10 o’clock. Do you know where your kids are?” [Laughs] That was a real thing all over our country because, “Oh, yeah. The kids. I don’t know where they are.” So they didn’t care. They didn’t cater to kids. Now it’s all about the kids. We’re going to overprotect them, and we’re going to make movies. We’re just going to reduce the entire culture conversation and mentality to their level. And guess what? You don’t have to grow up, either. Just stay a kid forever. Play with toys. Read comic books. Never mature. Don’t even have sex while you’re at it. And good luck.

I said it’s great seeing a studio movie where two attractive people have sex. And I’m glad to have Richard Linklater on the record about wanting more sex in movies.

I think people don’t mind watching sex in movies. I think they just have to be attractive, young-ish people. No one wants to see old people.

No, I don’t. I also know I’m about 15 years early to this, but I hope Merrily We Roll Along is going well.

It is. I think you’re technically seventeen years too early, but 16, 17. It’s chugging along. We’ll see. You’re young enough. Hopefully, if I stick around we can talk about it.

They’re giving me the wrap-up. I could ask more questions about The Newton Boys or Inning By Inning, but I won’t.

Oh, my God. We should. Let’s make time, man.

It would be my pleasure.

You bring up Me and Orson Welles. Bernie. Yeah, I do have these movies in my past that people go, “You did this, this, and this” and they just skip. I say, “You just skipped over some movies that really mean a lot to me. [Laughs] That I gave no less effort than the ones you’re talking about.”

Of course.

I’ve made enough movies. There’s gonna be some that fall through the cracks, but––you know. I kind of feel sorry for those movies that didn’t get their moment.

Hit Man arrives on Netflix on June 7.