“I just did the ‘tell’ part, hoping they’d imagine the ‘show’ part.” That’s Stan, the child protagonist of Richard Linklater’s latest animated feature, speaking to his mother about a class presentation he botched. But the statement could equally double as a credo of Linklater himself, whose films often violate the maxim that one ought to “show, don’t tell.” In Linklater’s best works, the constant stream of dialogue does not just articulate the actions and reactions of characters, the minor intrigues and quibbles that connect one person with another, but an entire process of sociability that is external to, yet manifests itself , the exchanges between individuals. Take (1990) for example. The film presents a kind of elaborate game of telephone, where one character comes into contact with another, who
