Waking Life

Waking Life is a digitally rotoscoped and animated film, directed by Richard Linklater and made in 2001. The entire film was shot using digital video and then a team of artists using computers drew stylized lines and colors over each frame. This technique is similar in some respects to the rotoscope style of 1970s filmmaker Ralph Bakshi, which was invented in the 1920s.

The title is a reference to George Santayana's maxim that "[s]anity is a madness put to good uses; waking life is a dream controlled."

Synopsis
In a broad scope, 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 appearance and reality, free will, our relationships with others, and the meaning of life. Along the way the film touches on other topics including existentialism, situationist politics, posthumanity, and the film theory of André Bazin. The young man eventually comes to the realization that he is dreaming and that he is unable to wake up. By the end of the film, he fears that he might be dead.

Unsurprisingly, given the above themes and content, Waking Life is much more focused on dialogue (often even monologue) than on plot action. In this emphasis, it echoes the 1981 film My Dinner with Andre and the 1990 film Mindwalk. Long scenes in Waking Life consist of nothing but head shots of characters while they run through explanations for philosophical questions. The characters and their speech are very reminiscent of Linklater's earlier cult classic, Slacker. (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy even appear as their characters from Linklater's Before Sunrise)

Technique
Adding to the dream-like effect, the film used an innovative animation technique based on rotoscoping. Animators overlaid live action footage (shot by Linklater) with animation that roughly approximates the images actually filmed. A variety of artists were employed, so the feel of the movie continually changes. The result is a surreal, shifting dreamscape.

The animators used inexpensive "off-the-shelf" Apple Macintosh computers (as opposed to the expensive supercomputers and computer clusters used by Pixar and DreamWorks). The film was mostly produced using Rotoshop, a custom-made rotoscoping program that creates blends between keyframe vector shapes, and created specifically for the production by Bob Sabiston (the name is a play on the popular bitmap graphics editing software called Photoshop, which makes use of virtual "layers" inspired in part by the work of Sabiston).

Awards
Nominated for numerous awards, mainly for its technical achievements, Waking Life won the National Society of Film Critics award for "Best Experimental Film," the New York Film Critics Circle award for "Best Animated Film," and the "CinemAvvenire" award at the Venice Film Festival for "Best Film." It was also nominated for the Golden Lion, the festival's main award.

Soundtrack
The soundtrack was performed and written by Glover Gill and the Tosca Tango Orchestra, except for one piece written by Frédéric Chopin, and was relatively successful. Featuring the nuevo tango style, it bills itself "the 21st Century Tango." Influence for the compositions stem from the Argentinian "father of new tango" Ástor Piazzolla. The actual tango scores are revised renditions of Ástor Piazzolla's works.

Trivia

 * There is a Sealab 2021 episode titled "Waking Quinn," a reference to Waking Life.
 * The Philip K. Dick essay being discussed is How to Build a Universe that Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later, the introduction to his short story collection I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon.
 * The final song in the theatrical trailer is "The Passenger" performed by Iggy Pop.
 * The entire film was shot with a MiniDV camera.
 * The film's opening and lucid dreaming conversations are used in the song "Botanical Dimensions" by Shpongle. The lucid dreaming conversations are also used in the song "Acid For Nothing" by 1200 Micrograms.
 * In the scene with the chimpanzee giving the lecture, scenes from The Last House on the Left, Akira Kurosawa's Dreams and live performances of Nirvana and Dead Kennedys are playing on the projector.
 * The scene with the man in prison ranting about torture is taken almost directly from Hubert Selby Jr's 1971 novel The Room
 * Samples from this movie are used in (həd) p.e.'s song "Walk On By".
 * The 1970s Bally pinball machine "Fireball" appears in the film.
 * Since none of the characters are mentioned in the film by name, the closing credits show a clip from the film with the character's face on screen, with the actor's name beside it.
 * The man simultaneously driving and shouting into the megaphone is Alex Jones, known for expressing even more controversial and conspiratorial viewpoints on his syndicated radio show.