Synopsis (by David Gregory Lawson – filmcomment.com)
Richard Linklater’s first feature, It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (88), is the travelogue of a young man, played by Linklater, riding the rails, hitching, and driving through the southwestern United States. The unnamed protagonist flounders about pleasantly in Austin, visits a friend in Missoula, and hoofs around San Francisco by his lonesome (chatting up strangers, though the conversations can’t be heard, covered by city noise, or waves crashing against rocks at a lighthouse by the bay). Then he returns to Austin, babysits his mother’s dog, and, finally, is given a cassette tape by Daniel Johnston, whom he does not know. During their spontaneous meeting Linklater reveals that the film’s title is written on one of the T-shirts he’s been wearing the whole time: “Old Russian proverb,” he says.Read More »