• Slacker Twenty Years Later

    It’s been two decades since Richard Linklater’s Slacker shook up American independent film and helped define a generation. This week, on the eve of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, journalist Mark Savlov sat down with Linklater and writer John Pierson (Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes) for an in-depth conversation for the Austin Chronicle about the groundbreaking movie and its tough-to-pin-down legacy. The discussion brings into sharp focus the changes that have come about, in both Austin and the indie film world, since 1991: The city then so evocatively dramatized as a regional haven for aimless bohemians with a lot to say is now a national artistic hub, home to the ever expanding South by Southwest Festival. And the effort and money it once took to make a film have been mitigated by the emergence of digital video.

    One of the most intriguing points Linklater makes in the piece concerns the experimental aspects of his film’s narrative: “Slacker was that kind of film from the generation that was probably the first to have the TV remote. We were the first generation to begin creating our own narratives by watching five minutes of this and then one minute of that and then seven minutes of this. We were also the generation that, as a kid, got dropped off at the multitheater, where there’s eight movies and you’d watch little bits of all these different films. That was in my head as a narrative possibility. I saw Slacker as you’re either channel surfing or you’re going in and out of different movies. And that was a really primitive version of what now would be exponentially more complex.”

    Clippings

Related Films

13 comments

  • By Benjamin Enoch
    January 20, 2011
    02:07 PM

    I'll never understand why this is part of the normally engaging Criterion Collection.
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  • By Harry Lime
    January 20, 2011
    03:30 PM

    Because it's great.
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  • By Jonathan rimorin
    January 21, 2011
    12:09 AM

    Agreed. SLACKER is an epochal, generation defining film that also marks a seminal moment in American cinema as well. It's fully deserving to be included alongside its brethren in the Collection.
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  • By Phil
    January 21, 2011
    07:21 AM

    Just remember, every single commodity you produce is a piece of your own death.
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  • By LJ
    January 21, 2011
    10:28 AM

    I have to agree with Benjamin, this film is one of 2 or 3 CC titles that I have ever regretted picking up. (I have over 60 DVD's and have moved on to almost all of the Blu-rays) Just not my cup of tee I guess.
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  • By JEREMY
    January 21, 2011
    01:12 PM

    I love SLACKER, but where's my Criterion of "SubUrbia" that's been hinted at for the past 4 years?
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  • By Tim
    January 21, 2011
    01:18 PM

    I may live badly, but at least I don't have to have job to live badly.
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  • By ObsidianObelisk
    January 21, 2011
    01:18 PM

    Still waiting for SubUrbia on dvd!
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  • By Toff
    January 21, 2011
    01:23 PM

    I lived in Austin from about 92-95 (and was stupid to ever leave). Arriving there was a bit like stepping into the film. While working at Eckerd's, Gina Lalli came in and bought a tabloid. I recognized her from the film and recalled from the book where she was from originally. I asked if she'd been back to BInghamton lately. I think she thought I was psychic!
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  • By loofrin
    January 21, 2011
    02:15 PM

    @Toff I lived in Austin from '96-'99. Whenever "i get homesick for Austin" I put Slacker in ye olde DVD player. For someone who lived in Austin, like yourself, around the time the movie came out, there is no better film, in my mind, that quite captures the "78705, more than a zipcode," or the "Austin, Keep it weird" that I knew then. Slacker was instrumental in turning me onto film. It might be an 8 1/2, or a Seven Samauri, but it certainly is genre defining, as soon as we can figure out genre it belongs to, or maybe that's the point, maybe it is a genre film of one, many attempt to re-create it, but most, if not all, fail.
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  • By J
    January 21, 2011
    07:11 PM

    SubUrbia ? Really? I'd rather see Criterion release the 1984 Penelope Spheeris directed Suburbia.
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  • By Viny
    February 09, 2012
    02:40 PM

    SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubSubUrbia! SubUrbia!Urbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubSubUrbia! SubUrbia!Urbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubSubUrbia! SubUrbia!SubUrbia! SubSubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubSubUrbia! SubUrbia!Urbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia!Urbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubSubUrbia! SubUrbia!Urbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! Urbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubSubUrbia! SubUrbia!Urbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubSubUrbia! SubUrbia!Urbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubSubUrbia! SubUrbia!Urbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubSubUrbia! SubUrbia!Urbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia! SubUrbia!
    Reply

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  • By WithoutFeathers
    February 11, 2012
    09:33 AM

    Wait, are you trying to say something, Viny?
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