Richard Linklater Waxes Philosophical on French Fries and Lost Love

Richard Linklater doesn’t like fast food, and it’s not just because he cares about his waistline.

“If you look at the whole system, it’s kind of a disaster on every level,” the Oscar-nominated filmmaker said of the fast food industry. “Bad for the animals, bad for the environment, bad for the workers, and bad for the consumer at the end, so lose, lose, lose, lose.”

Linklater has written and directed a diverse array of films, including “Dazed and Confused,” “School of Rock,” “Before Sunset,” “Waking Life,” and most recently, “Fast Food Nation.” At a recent roundtable discussion with Boston-area reporters, Linklater didn’t shy away from political statements about American consumerism.

“Fast Food Nation” is a fictionalized film version of Eric Schlosser’s 2001 nonfiction book of the same name. Written in conjunction with Schlosser, the film makes the case against fast food in America by following the lives of several characters involved in the industry.

Though Linklater’s commitment to the issues in the film seems genuine, he said he’s not looking to deprive people of their burgers. Rather, he said, he wants to inform people so that they can make better choices.

“It is a political movie and you hope people come out of it and maybe read up on the issues or follow through as consumers,” he said. “You know, like you don’t necessarily give up beef, but maybe you buy organic or you want to support the ranchers who are doing it correctly and not the feedlot.”

That said, he emphasized that he was less focused on making a political statement than on creating compelling characters.

“That’s where my heart is in the movie: just depicting life and showing it,” he said.

In fact, though he didn’t work a shift at McDonald’s, Linklater did do his own character research for the movie, staying on various ranches, visiting industrial facilities, and speaking to Mexican immigrant workers

He didn’t try to jump the Mexican border, but he did have an interesting observation about crossing it: “It’s not that hard actually. You can just walk across certain parts.”

Throughout the discussion, Linklater repeatedly suggested the need for change, not only within the fast food industry, but also in the society that sustains it.

“Right now we have this mass delusion, [as] a culture, that you’re not supposed to care about your health, and if you do, you’re an elitist,” he says. “Being healthy these days, or informed, or being of healthy mind and body is the new act of civil disobedience.”

But Linklater seems to have put faith into an uncommon hope: that a new leader will emerge in American politics to save our fast food nation from itself.

“The most effective person, the leader, emerges out of the workplace, and that’s what I think our political culture needs right now—someone to emerge out of the population, a leader with some vision, not a professional politician,” he said.

He also praised college students in particular. “College kids have the luxury where they find that they can sit down, read some books, inform themselves, and be an activist, and that’s important,” he said. “I hope the film doesn’t belittle that in any way because that’s where change actually comes from.”

That belief in the power of action and in taking risks comes through in his own approach to filmmaking. “Anything that’s scary that you’re compelled to do, you should probably do, in the arts at least,” he said.

In fact, he said that one of his biggest successes, the Oscar-nominated screenplay for 2005’s “Before Sunset,” was a major risk—he had already scored an indie hit with its predecessor, 1995’s “Before Sunrise,” and he could have alienated its fans.

“No one was anticipating or necessarily looking forward to or wanting a sequel,” he recalled. “We did that on our own; we’re the only three people who want[ed] this film to exist,” referring to himself and stars Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy.

Speaking of Hawke and Delpy, are their characters from the two films ever going to finally get together? Of course, it was impossible to leave the interview without asking the only man who knows the destiny of these two star-crossed lovers.

Linklater avoided giving a definitive answer, saying instead, “I’m sure they’re fine. They’re both good.”