Slacker will follow a character for the span of an extremely passionate conversation on nothing and then move on to the following character and their extremely passionate conversation on nothing after the two characters briefly meet. The camera has an aimless sort of quality, it constantly wanders around. If we’re all doomed to underachieve either way due to the odds being stacked against us in most cases, then we’ll be proud underachievers by choice. Perhaps in our hyper productive society, in which most of us are overworked, underpaid and underrealized in regards to personal ambition, lacking all ambition is a positive quality. In his debut Linklater took the term and gave it a completely new meaning, an entirely positive connotation. Slacker was initially a derogatory term used to describe and criticize people who lacked work ethic and generally did not want to work, hence the term, ‘slacking off’. Linklater is self taught and it shows in his aptitude towards cinema and in his unconventional choice of subjects in Slacker he follows around all sorts of characters during a day in Austin, Texas, all of whom share the main trait of being somehow associated with the concept of the “slacker”. He then went on to have a directorial career centered exclusively around slackers, in Dogma (1999), not to be confused with Dogma 95, even his archangels are slackers. Richard Linklater’s first film is Slacker (1990) a film which then propelled another famous slacker, Kevin Smith, to sell his much adored comics collection to self produce and shoot his directorial debut Clerks in 1994. Somebody who’s trying to live an interesting life, doing what they want to do, and if that takes time to find, so be it.” – Richard Linklater I’d like to change that to somebody who’s not doing what’s expected of them. “I think the cheapest definition would be someone who’s just lazy, hangin’ out, doing nothing. Shot on a classic 16MM print which immaculately captures the sun and the ambience of a small town evokes more than a feeling but a lasting impression, making its mark on film nostalgia.“I don’t know where I’m going, all i know is I’ll hit the ground running” – Hit The Ground Running (Smog) It’s beauty also lies in its familiar dialogue where you might feel a strong resemblance or an attachment to it, allowing a glimpse of a minute-long conversation to go beyond the screen and into your character too. It may seem strange and nonsensical but with brilliant direction and writing, Linklater creates a natural flow throughout the film that really just feels right. We then follow Linklater’s character till he crosses the path of a woman who is struck by a car then follow the perpetrator being arrested then a busker crossing the path of the policemen then a passer-by giving the busker change then a group of ‘slackers’ conversing about Dostoyevsky and so on. The film starts with Linklater (a ‘slacker’ himself) as a taxi passenger warped in E.T/UFO conspiracy theories who spills piles of information to the disinterested taxi driver.
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