Gary Johnson is a philosopher and university professor in New Orleans. A shy character who combines studying with a job as a professional hitman for a special police operation, until his desire for Maddy Masters, one of his clients, will make him cross the limits between the facets that combine his reality. . “Hitman It’s based on real events. It is a film about identity, it plays and explores the idea of becoming someone different. When we get older we get stuck but, deep down, we all have the fantasy of changing and acquiring new qualities,” explained filmmaker Richard Linklater (Texas, 63 years old) about his latest film that this Friday closes the eighth edition of the International Film Festival. Barcelona Sant Jordi Cinema (BCN Film Fest). The American will receive the Festival’s Honor Award tonight, a “coincidence” that has allowed him to return to Barcelona. “This is one of the most wonderful cities in the world, although I prefer to come without a purpose and spend entire days walking and enjoying Gaudí,” he stressed from a room at the Hotel Casa Fuster, on Passeig de Gràcia.
Linklater met the real Gary Johnson through an article. “I was intrigued by his way of making a living, combining the academic world with a job as a hitman. I became obsessed because it is an unusual job and I like films that talk about an occupation that you have never thought about, like a taxi driver,” the director acknowledges. The story, written by Linklater himself and Glen Powell – also starring alongside Adria Arjona – has all the elements to be a perfect thriller, but the director has preferred to turn it into a “sexy comedy.” “Sex is the last passion in which we really put ourselves in danger and this compulsion is what makes Gary risk his entire world for her (Maddy Masters),” he noted.
The filmmaker who creates “to understand the world” and who defines himself as a “surgeon of dialogues” ―working them to the point of satiety― repeats the comic perspective in the film that just yesterday he finished shooting in Paris, “you can no longer work in secret,” he joked. The story is set in Paris in 1959 and reflects the spirit of the New Wave, “The only thing I will say is that every filmmaker should make a film about how to make films.” This production is not the only one that occupies his mind, Linklater is immersed in the production of Merrily We Roll Along, the adaptation of the musical of the same name by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth. . “It’s a reverse chronology of the life of Broadway composer Franklin Shepard. The story works better in the cinema than in the theater but it will not be seen for 17 years,” he admits.
Filmings of 12 years (Boyhood), stories that mature along with their characters (the romantic trilogy Before…) y Films that take place in less than 24 hours make time an essential character in Linklater’s work, which is also affected by its passage: “I like how my films are aging, some more than others. My stories are about people and times change, but people not so much, we maintain an essence,” he noted. The director downplays the impact of Universal History on individual stories and, specifically, on art. “I said that very little art would come out of Covid-19, people do not want stories about horrible times that we have gone through, there is no art around the flu epidemic of 1918. The case of war is different because it is surrounded by false heroics and patriotism”.
With this prolific career behind him, Linklaters refuses to be proud of anything other than his children, the Austin Film Society in 1985 – the independent film center he founded in Austin, his city of residence – and his friends. “Pride is a feeling that we should abandon at 11 years old. “I feel grateful for my cinema,” he stated. Receiving the Honor Award from the BCN Film Festival is a “delight” and a reflection on the time he has spent in this profession, a profession that, for now, he does not plan to abandon: “I prefer the process to the awards. I just finished a film and I’m writing the script for two others. “Many years ago I got married to cinema and to dedicate my life to it.”