Slacker (1991) - The Criterion Collection

Synopsis

Richard Linklater’s Slacker presents a day in the life of a loose-knit subculture of marginal, eccentric, and overeducated citizens in Austin, Texas. Shooting film on 16mm for a mere $3,000, writer/producer/director Linklater and his crew of friends eschewed a traditional plot, choosing instead to employ long takes and fluid transitions to create a tapestry of over a hundred characters, each as unique as the last, culminating in an episodic portrait of a distinct vernacular culture and a tribute to bohemian cerebration. Slacker is a prescient look at an emerging generation of aggressive nonparticipants, and one of the key films of the American independent film movement of the 1990s.

Cast

Should have stayed at the bus station	Richard Linklater
Anarchist’s daughter	Kathy McCarthy
Taxi driver	Rudy Basquez
Roadkill	Jean Caffeine
Jogger	Jan Hockey
Running late	Stephen Hockey
Hit-and-run son	Mark James
Grocery grabber of death’s bounty	Sam Dietert
Officer Bozio	Bob Boyd
Office Love	Terrence Kirk
Street musician	Keith McCormack
Walking to coffee shop	Jennifer Schaudies
Been on the moon since the ’50s	Jerry Delony
Pap smear pusher	Teresa Taylor
Quotes Hitler	Dan Burrows
Conspiracy A-Go-Go author	John Slate
Old anarchist	Louis Mackey
Post-modern Paul Revere	Kendal Smith
Smoking writer	Regina Garza

Credits

Director	Richard Linklater
Screenplay	Richard Linklater
Producer	Richard Linklater
Cinematography	Lee Daniel
Editing	Scott Rhodes
Production manager/casting	Anne Walker-McBay
Dolly grip/ assistant cameraman	Clark Walker
Sound	Denise Montgomery
Script supervisor	Meg Brennan

Disc Features

DIRECTOR APPROVED DOUBLE-DISC SET:

New high-definition digital transfer, with restored image and sound supervised by director Richard Linklater and director of photography Lee Daniel, made from original 16mm film elements
Three audio commentaries featuring Richard Linklater and members of the cast and crew
It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (1988), Linklater’s first full-length feature, with commentary by the director, available here for the first time on home video
Casting tapes featuring select “auditions” from the over one-hundred-member cast, with an essay from production manager/casting director Anne Walker-McBay
An early film treatment
Home movies
Woodshock, an early short 16mm film made by Linklater and Lee Daniel in 1985|
“The Roadmap,” the working script of Slacker, including fourteen deleted scenes and alternate takes
Ten-minute trailer for a documentary about the landmark Austin café, Les Amis, which served as location for several scenes in Slacker
Stills gallery featuring hundreds of rare behind-the-scenes production and publicity photos
Footage from the Slacker tenth-anniversary in Austin, Texas, in 2001
Original theatrical trailer
Slacker culture essay by Linklater
Information about the Austin Film Society, founded in 1985 by Linklater with Daniel, including early flyers from screenings
English subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired
PLUS: A 64-page booklet featuring essays by author and filmmaker John Pierson (Spike Mike Reloaded: A Guided Tour Across a Decade of Independent American Cinema) and Michael Barker, head of Sony Pictures Classics, as well as reviews, production notes, a complete cast and crew listing, and an introduction to It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books by director Monte Hellman (Two-Lane Blacktop, The Shooting)

From the Current

Young Mr. Welles:
An Interview with Richard Linklater

Dec 21, 2009

Me and Orson Welles is the latest film from director Richard Linklater (Slacker, Dazed and Confused). Set in late-1930s New York, it’s . . .

Slacking Off

by John Pierson Sep 13, 2004

The following excerpt dates from 1996, five years after Slacker was “officially” released and not too long after Before Sunrise. It’s all still true, only more . . .

Slacker’s Oblique Strategy

by Ron Rosenbaum Sep 13, 2004

One of my favorite things about this column is the opportunity it gives me to put in a word on behalf of an overlooked or underrated classic: a book or film that may have gotten respectful attention when it came out, but deserves more now. Deserves not just celebration for the way it’s “held . . .

Slacker:
Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothing to Do

by Chris Walters Sep 13, 2004

About a year and a half ago, a friend and I found ourselves exiled to a cold Midwestern city, where we spent most of our time missing the lazy Texas college town that shaped our idea of the good life. One night we stood in a crowded club and tried to figure out why the smiling, well-fed Midwesterners . . .

Slacker: Looking Back

by Michael Barker Sep 13, 2004

What I’ve found in the many years that I’ve been in the film business is that you often find the best films under the oddest of circumstances. The independent film maven John Pierson invited me to speak at a film workshop offered in Rockport, Maine one summer. When I arrived to meet him at the . . .

On It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow
by Reading Books

by Monte Hellman Sep 13, 2004

Fifteen years ago I received a letter from a young film director in Texas, who enclosed a tape of his first film, with the unlikely title It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books. It might as well have been called It’s Impossible to Learn to Make Movies by Reading Books . . .