Comparison · 3 shared techniques

Dazed and Confused vs Everybody Wants Some!!

Dazed and Confused (1993) and Everybody Wants Some!! (2016) share 3 techniques. Here is how each film uses them.

Dazed and Confused (1993) poster

Dazed and Confused

Richard Linklater · 1993

Everybody Wants Some!! (2016) poster

Everybody Wants Some!!

Richard Linklater · 2016

Shared

Same technique, two films

Ensemble Characterization Without Backstory

Introducing a large cast only through what they say and do in the present. There are no flashbacks or explained histories, yet each character feels distinct.

Dazed and Confused

The film follows dozens of students and you never get a flashback for any of them. You learn who they are from what they do tonight, from Pink to Mitch to the intellectual trio of Cynthia, Tony and Mike. Each one feels distinct anyway.

Everybody Wants Some!!

The film introduces a house full of ballplayers, including Finnegan, Roper, Dale, Plummer and Beuter, and never explains where any of them came from. You get each one from how they talk and what they try on a given night. By the end you know them anyway.

The Party as Transgression

Using a party or celebration as the place where normal rules are dropped and characters show who they really are. Afterwards, order often comes back down hard.

Dazed and Confused

A keg party in a field under a moonlight tower is where normal rules fall away. Mike, who has been humiliated by tough guy Clint, makes a stand and punches him. Tony reconnects with Sabrina, and Pink faces the football pledge. People show who they are when no adult is watching.

Everybody Wants Some!!

The coach's two rules are broken almost at once. The team's house party and the performing arts students' costume party both let people drop their usual masks. Jake's teammates step into a room they assumed they would hate and loosen up.

Pop Music Needle Drop

Playing an existing popular song at a precise moment in the film. The song's lyrics, era and associations add irony, period feel or emotion that an original score could not.

Dazed and Confused

The film runs on 1970s rock songs that fit the moment. The ending puts the song right on top of the last image. Mitch gets home after sunrise and the music tells you the night was a happy kind of tired.

Everybody Wants Some!!

The team hops from one music world to another in a single night. They visit a disco, a western-themed bar and a punk show, and each room has its own songs and attitude. The songs tell you the period and show how these athletes act in unfamiliar crowds.

Different

Where they split