#dazed.analysis

so starting with tony. anthony rapp was one of the only actors they cast that had any solid acting experience before Dazed*(sidenote about this under the cut). he came to set with his lines memorized, and it Shows. there were some times i found it a tad distracting, but that was mostly because i pick up on mannerisms really easily and i'm pretty familiar with rent (which, iirc, was pretty recent after dazed, so it makes sense there were similarities in both of his character's speech patterns).

anyway, i think it totally makes sense for tony as a character. he's one of the "intellectuals," he's a little awkward, he isn't comfortable at parties, and he speaks more eloquently/uses less slang than most of the other characters. it makes perfect sense that tony would speak as if he was reading from a script/had his lines memorized. i could totally picture tony like standing in front of a mirror and practicing what to say, you know?

then, there's mitch. absolutely no shade intended, love wiley wiggins, but the Nose Pinch. i gotta bring up the nose pinch (later) but looking at it purely from a casting stand-point, it makes so much sense to cast an actor with little-to-no experience as mitch. not only because they were already casting lesser-known actors from Austin , but because mitch is SUPPOSED to be awkward.

mitch is the epitome of the nervous up-coming freshman that just wants to fit in and look cool. throughout the movie, we see how mitch acts around older people he wants to impress, but not so much how he acts when he's alone. he's just absolutely fumbling his way through the night and it's funny, but it's also so earnest and it's honestly one of my favorite parts of the movie. (the "like how?" scene, i mean come ON) but seriously.

there are plenty lines that back up mitch's awkwardness, but the Acting ChoicesTM are also so fitting. as anyone who's paid any attention to mitch during Dazed knows, he has a habit of grabbing his nose. like SO. MUCH. and i see it talked about a lot in a negative way and, like. listen. is it award-winning acting? not really. but AGAIN. it's so earnest and endearing and in character!!

the big times i remember mitch pinching his nose are actually not directly in front of any of the high schoolers, but mostly when he's with his friends his age. at the baseball field with carl, at the emporium with sabrina, and at the beer bust with julie. what i got from all these moments is that mitch doesn't only try to play it cool in front of pink and everybody, but also in front of his peers. (i could definitely explore that in a different post, but not tonight)

at the baseball field, the football players are watching from the stands, but i don't think mitch was over-acting for them, specifically. he actually tries to act cool in front of carl later, when he buys the six pack for melvin and acts all nonchalant when carl asks him what he's got in the bag. so we know that mitch tries to act cooler than he probably is, regardless of who he's around. very relatable, tbh, ESPECIALLY because he's not even in 9th grade yet LMAO

i would say mitch also wants to act cool in front of sabrina, especially because he's still at the emporium and pink is right behind him. iirc, the nose pinch happens when sabrina tells him hirschfelder got busted, so it's possible that that was his genuine reaction, but also is it really that surprising? he could very well be playing into the hazing, because he knows that if he plays it right, he can get in with the cool crowd like pink.

and he DEFINTELY wants to act cool in front of julie. his lines totally support this, but again i think wiley wiggins' mannerisms (mitch-isms, if you will-) come across with julie, too.

whether or not the nose pinch was intentional or a habit or whatever is obvious up to interpretation. but i guess all this is to say that you can pry wiley wiggins' nose pinch and anthony rapp's perfectly delivered lines out of my cold dead hands.

there's a couple additional thoughts/facts about casting under the cut if you're interested! thanks for reading and, again, please lmk of any thoughts you have! :)

i think the reason dazed works so well (or, more specifically, feels like there aren't any loose ends, despite the fact that there ARE) and is so re-watchable, is because all the loose-ends are momentarily resolved as soon as they're introduced.

the scene/line that never fails to make me think about this idea is mike's "i wanna dance!" scene. he spends an entire monologue talking about how he doesn't know if he actually wants to work with the general public, be a lawyer, or WHAT. (all very valid, real, and relatable concerns, ESPECIALLY in a movie about high schoolers, who are about to start applying to colleges and planning their careers) instead of dwelling on it or exploring it more, though, we get a silly one-liner and immediate cut-away that makes us forget/not worry about it for the rest of the movie.

another time this happens is right before the gang goes to the football field. instead of wondering what will happen with jodi and pink, pink says "you win some, you lose some." he's not only speaking to wooderson in this instance, but also the audience. we don't need to worry about what happens, because it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

mitch doesn't end up in hot water because his mom ends up being pretty chill about the whole ordeal, and even the fact that he comes home drunk doesn't seem to lead to any harsh punishment, so we're good there. tony and sabrina get their little resolution. the huge end-of-the-year party at pickford's gets shut-down, and carried on as a bit, until it gets replaced with the beer bust. a dude calls the cops waves a guns in the character's faces, and they just drive off!

even the pledge sheet, which is pretty much the main plot, gets resolved with one sentence: "i might play ball... but i will never sign that." does that actually resolve anything? i mean yes and no. we know that pink doesn't sign the pledge, but we don't know if he's even allowed to play, if he quits, if he gets "demoted" to a different position, put on the bench until he actually signs, or what.

and it's the same thing with the other plots! we don't actually know what mike goes to school for, we don't know if pink and jodi end up together, or if pink and simone break up, we have no clue how mitch turns out, we don't know if the mailbox guy filed a report, and we don't know if pink actually does play ball. but you know what? we don't need to.

because dazed isn't about tying up loose ends, or masterfully pulling off an intricate web of connected plotlines. it's about high school, and it's about how things feel like the end of the world but really aren't. and more than that, i think it's about showing a group of fully-fleshed out characters (because we know linklater spent a good amount of time making mixtapes for each character, and had the actors answer interview questions as their characters, so we know the characters have more to them than what we get to see on-screen) on one particular day that, while significant and memorable, is ultimately trivial compared to what they each have going on in their lives.

i like to think of it like looking through a window. dazed is the window. what you see just by looking straight into it is the movie. but sometimes, you can turn your head and see more of the room. that would be the original script, the character interviews, the mixtapes, etc. etc. all that gives us the impression that these characters are complete, and that if you look hard enough, you can see something you might not otherwise have caught. and then linklater's brain is the house, because he lives there and he's the only one that knows "everything" there is to know about dazed.

this is pretty much my hyperfixation blog! currently centered around dazed and confused, but the url and content of the blog is subject to change

i plan to post my thoughts on dazed, its characters and actors, and maybe some fanfic! (if i ever finish it!) i draw from various sources such as the movie, the original script, interviews, etc.! i'll try to either post links in each post or make a masterpost where you can find all the sources i use!