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Slacker
Overview
Texan filmmaker Richard Linklater's debut independent feature takes an original approach to traditional narrative, creating an entirely new form of cinema in the process. Shot at a leisurely pace with a style similar to Robert Bresson, SLACKER follows the unmotivated inhabitants of Austin, Texas, over the course of one day, as they waste their time talking about politics, philosophy, and popular culture. Beginning with a cab ride in which the fare (Linklater himself) suggests to the driver a theory about alternate universes (which also happens to mirror what transpires on screen), the film abruptly shifts to another character and situation after an elderly woman is hit by a car. Soon after, another character is introduced, and the camera follows her. This formula sticks for the whole film; by the end, dozens of characters have been introduced and, just as quickly, been left behind. Linklater spent years taking notes in order to infuse original dialogue into every situation, which results in a sometimes pathetic, sometimes poignant, always amusing trip into a lackadaisical college town. Luckily, for fans of new and inventive approaches to filmmaking, Linklater himself wasn't a "slacker," ensuring the film's place in indie film history.
Awards:
Main Cast & Crew:
Richard Linklater - Director
John Slate
Louis Mackey
Stella Weir
Richard Linklater
Mark James
Abra Moore
Albans Benchoff
Aleister Barron
Annick Souhami
Brecht Andersch
Details
- Format: Blu-ray
- Color Format: Color
- UPC: 715515110419
- Genre: COMEDIES
- Rating: R (MPAA)
- Release Date: September 2013
Movie Reviews
Synopsis:
SLACKER, a unique slice-of-life series of linked but barely related episodes, follows the socially disconnected, overly educated, and barely motivated denizens of the coffeehouses, clubs, bars, apartments, stores, and streets of the college town of Austin, Texas. Richard Linklater's debut feature is a cult sensation that launched a thousand imitators, replete with garrulous, too-cool twenty-somethings debating pop culture phenomena, none of which can match the spacey, floating-camera timbre of the original.
Notes:
SLACKER was made in Austin, Texas in 1989 and shown, in a slightly different form, at several film festivals (including Seattle and Munich). Orion Classics eventually picked up the film for distribution, providing money for more post-production work and also funding the transfer to 35mm prints for theatrical release.
Linklater structured SLACKER much in the manner of Bunuel's LE FANTOME DE LA LIBERTE, as a long string of incidentally connected narrative fragments; whenever an individual story begins to take shape the camera moves on to something or someone else, and we never see the characters from the previous scene again.
There are at least 96 acting parts (mostly speaking roles) in the film. The cast was made up of actors with little or no professional performing experience.
Reviews:
"...Scrappy and shrewdly hilarious....Linklater has the gift of a true satirist..." - 07/11/1991 Rolling Stone, p.115
"...[The cast is] so effective that it's hard to believe they didn't make up their own lunacies....Ageless..." - 03/22/1991 New York Times, p.C8
"...Director Richard Linklater pokes loving fun at disaffected twentysomethings..." -- 3 out of 4 stars - 08/15/1991 USA Today, p.5D
"No one's made going for a walk a more appealing cinematic proposition than Linklater..." - 09/17/2004 Entertainment Weekly, p.61
"[A] hilariously deadpan comedy that flawlessly documents that era's floundering-bohemian attitude in Austin, Texas..." - 10/01/2004 Premiere, p.117
"[I]ts nontraditional story structure is quite sophisticated. Performances from the mainly nonprofessional cast are quirky and self-assured, and the camerawork and editing are fluid." - 09/26/2004 Los Angeles Times, p.E14
4 stars out of 5 -- "A bone-dry deadpan stream of vignettes....Still funny and hypnotic." - 02/01/2008 Uncut, p.113
4 stars out of 5 -- "[A] finely tuned and winning life sketch." - 02/01/2008 Empire, p.143
"Despite its title, it isn’t so much about slackers as it is about dreamers, obsessives, and other assorted misfits, many of whom are more industrious in their rejection of conventional society than are the folks who choose to conform." - 09/25/2013 A.V. Club
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