boyhood

Alexander returns to Cornell, and I meet Robyn to see a screening of Boyhood.

This astonishing film was shot annually, over a period of 12 years. In a Q&A after the film with the director and actors, this remarkable project is discussed. It is a story of everything and nothing.  The ebbs and flows of growing up. The big and small mistakes people make.  And how the passage of time sneaks up on us.  Life is fleeting; existence happens in an indescribable blur.

I like to think I never took for granted Alexander's boyhood.  But it does go by so quickly.  
Sometimes the changes are imperceptible, other times they are not.  The adult actors change over time too.  Their hair becomes grayer or shorter, and their waists become larger.    But like the children, they mature and evolve. 

Toward the end of the film, a character asks, "You know the phrase carpe diem, seize the day? Well I wonder of it's really the reverse that is true.  Do we really seize the moment, or is it the moment that seizes us?"  

The director chose grades 1 through 12 as the years to define his protagonist's boyhood. It is no doubt a defining time in a boy's life.

Nursery

Kindergarten

1st grade

2nd grade

3rd grade

4th grade

5th grade

6th grade

7th grade

8th grade

9th grade

10th grade

11th grade

12th grade