Criterion Collection (series)

Slacker

DVD Features:

Audio:

• Dolby Digital Stereo - English

Additional Release Material:

• Audio Commentary - 1. Richard Linklater - Director + Cast & Crew Members
• Trailer - 1. Original Theatrical Trailer
              2. Trailer For Documentary About Les Amis, The Diner Used As A Location In The Film Slacker
• Deleted Scenes
• Additional Footage - 1. Casting Tapes
                               2. Footage from the SLACKER reunion in 2001
                               3. History of the Austin Film Society
                               4. Home Movies

Text/Photo Galleries:

• Stills/Photos
• Additional Text - Early Treatment

Additional Products:

• Booklet

Additional Features:

• Trailers - 1. Original Theatrical Trailer
• Bonus Feature/Short - 1. WOODSTOCK
• Featurette - 1. SLACKER Tenth Anniversary

Text/Photo Gallery:

Product Description:

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.

Plot 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.

Plot Keywords:

Character Study | Comedy | Coming Of Age | Essential Cinema | Recommended | Self-Discovery | Theatrical Release

Production 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.

Cast and Crew: