This spring we’re celebrating the 23rd birthday of Richard Linklater’s counterculture classic, Slacker.
Capturing the way-out fringe of his Austin, Texas neighborhood, Linklater put himself on the map with this rolling conversation of a film that’s as subtly sophisticated as it is endearingly odd, smartly self-conscious and deeply human.
Here’s some nice words on the film from the Indie Beat site:
Although festival masterminds and film critics like Roger Ebert and Vincent Canby found something intriguing and exciting in the film Slacker, slacker as a word was seen as something of a negative in the media of that time. As such Slacker was labeled as a film for and about ‘Generation X’, which is in large measure amusing for Linklater himself was at the tail end of the baby boomers. Linklater himself would later say in the commentary for the Criterion edition of the film that he used the word in an affection manner, and never felt that the denizens of his film were lazy or apathetic people, they just chose to strike out on very non-traditional paths compared to most of the population. Indeed if one looks at the film today its wandering philosophical debutants of Austin’s counter culture (equally grunge and folk or metal as coming from no scene at all) feel just as fresh and exciting, if not possibly more so considering the backdoor compliance to consumerism that befalls the current hipster. Composed in what almost feels like one long, fluid take, the camera bobbing along the river that is the collective unconsciousness of Austinites, Slacker is visually impressive for its acute simplicity and preciseness. To this day, Linklater’s technique is never showy nor flashy (even in his far-out animated projects), but to call his images dull is the ultimate misstep in how to look at his pictures. Like Nouvelle Vague-er Eric Rohmer, there is a no-nonsense nature to Linklater’s compositions, as if he is making sure there is enough space for his characters and all their multicolored thoughts and feelings to fit on screen with enough space left over for us to stand side by side with them. His images account for the existential in a way that is rarely abstract, surreal or fantastic. So yes, while they may appear to be more or less practical in nature, that should not mean we are taking them in without wonder. Linklater is a craftsman who builds minimalist structures which house complex constructs, often on the everyday, if strange, beguiling and even miraculous nature of life itself.
Here’s the film…
Stay Awake!
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