Slacker

Year:1991 - Detour Film Production Director: Richard Linklater Screenplay: Richard Linklater Starring: Richard Linklater, Jerry Deloney, Teresa Taylor, Frank Orrall, John Slate, Charles Gunning, Louis Mackey, Joseph Jones, Kendal Smith

Slacker is a wonderfully inventive film by Richard Linklater about the intellectual, creative, and many times weird, do-nothings in Austin, Texas. With this film, Linklater defines the term "slacker" and brings it into the pop lexicon. Anyone who has lived in the vicinity of a major university will recognize many of the characters in this film. Perhaps you may even recognize yourself.

The film opens with Linklater arriving in Austin by bus and then catching a ride in a taxi home. In the taxi he begins to tell the cabby about the dream he had on the bus. In his dream he is reading a book in which the premise is about the different paths people could take in their lives everyday if they just made a few alternate choices. He laments that in life and traditional narratives we are stuck in the reality of following one story. We do not get to see the consequences of taken other paths. In essence, Linklater is telling the audience the premise to the movie. The director takes the novel approach of not sticking with one story line in this film. Characters are followed for a time, and when they met another character, the film usually follows that new character. In this way, we are taken all around Austin and meet a wide range of characters whose only common attribute is that they are all just hanging out, waiting for something to happen in their life. These include students, artists, poets, bouncers, wait staff, weekend grease monkeys, and the unemployed. Interesting enough, the cabby that Linklater is talking to is the only hispanic in the film. Just as Woody Allen can make films taking place in New York without encountering hispanics or blacks, Linklater can take us all around Austin without chancing upon any hispanics. Perhaps Linklater considers all hispanics too industrious to be considered slackers.

After leaving the taxi, Linklater comes upon a woman who is a victim of a hit-and-run driver. The driver circles the block, exits his 1960's era auto, climbs a staircase to a tower-like addition to a home, and enters his bedroom. The driver, dressed in an army T-shirt, is his victim's son. This being Austin, one can conclude that this is the film's reference to Charles Whitman, the ex-marine who killed fifteen people and wounded scores of others from his sniper position atop the clock tower on the campus of the University of Texas in 1966. Whitman's infamous actions still perplex, fascinate, and haunt the citizens of Austin nearly thirty years later. Linklater must feel that Whitman, like the clock tower itself, looms over the psyche of Austin. Whitman's hapless victims were chosen randomly as he surveyed Austin from on high, like a god dictating death. The camera in this film is like the sniper's rifle site, panning from one unrelated character to the next.  Late in the film we see a man driving through Austin advocating, over a public address system mounted on his car, total, violent anarchy.

The film passes from the killer to many different characters and locations around Austin the next twenty-four hours. I will just highlight a few of them. There is the UFO devotee who prefaces his first remarks with, "I was just reading in the Weekly World News.."  He then proceeds to expound on all sorts of conspiracies involving alien abductions, secret government operations, and covert scientific studies which have since become the staples of such shows as the "X-Files". Jerry Deloney does a wonderful job of portraying this manic fanatic, who is so caught with his conversation he walks right out of a coffee shop with his glass and drink still in hand. Having cornered someone long enough to unload the weight of his knowledge, he blissfully exclaims, "What a day!" In a used bookstore is a JFK conspiracy theorist. He has trapped an old college classmate into listening to his recommendations on the best JFK Assassination books. Enthusiastically he enumerates the many wild theories advanced by each author. The theorist also recommends his own JFK book which he is planning on publishing soon, Conspiracy A-Go-Go.

Most of the characters in the film, while being laid back and outwardly respectful, are very self- centered. Everyone is trying to hustle someone for something; money, a favor, sex, or an ego stroke. One of the funniest characters in the movie is a hustler trying to sell what she says is Madonna's pap smear. She pulls the slide out of the bottle to show her prospective customers a pubic hair. Why anyone would want to have such an item tells much about the characters in the film. Everyone is either relating their strange opinions and ideas, or they are recording every mundane detail of life around them. There is a woman who has made a sculpture representing her menstrual cycle. An old man wonders about town recording his thoughts into a tape recorder. One character sits in his room all day watching a large array of televisions all at once. He prefers events he can replay, slow down, and manipulate to events outside his home. For this man, reality is not as valid as what he sees on television. Linklater points out that the trouble with many slackers is that their opinions are usually derived from other sources that they have appropriated for their own use. As one woman criticizes her boyfriend, "It's like you've just pasted together these bits and pieces from your authorities. I don't know. I'm beginning to suspect there's nothing in there."

Slackers are not just limited to generation-x. There are many examples in this film of older slackers. The most noticeable are a man returning from his much hated step-father's funeral and an elderly self-proclaimed anarchist. Charles Gunning as the bitter step-son looks like death himself. He is middle-aged and out of work while waiting for his "true calling". When interviewed on camera for a student film, he spews forth his low opinion of the working man. To him, as with must characters in this film, his situation is the result of his choosing not to participate in a society he doesn't agree with. The old anarchist, played by Lois Mackey (a real life philosophy professor), is only an anarchist in his mind. His home and manner do not indicate anything rebellious or anarchist. He revels in the deeds of others and then calls himself one of their own. After surprising a burglar in his home, he takes perverse pleasure in taking a nice walk with the robber while telling the thief about the virtues of anarchy, lying about taking part in the Spanish Civil War. When the burglar leaves, the old man thinks he has imparted some important knowledge to the young thief. In reality, the robber has stolen some valuable manuscripts from the anarchist. As is the case over and over in this film, when the characters feel as if they have fooled others, they have actually only been fooling themselves.

One of the faults in this film is the poor acting in some of the scenes. This is unfortunate because several scenes are wasted or else pale miserably when compared with other scenes. Another problem in this film is the inclusion of a couple of scenes that just do not work. The scene with the reading of post cards left by a departed roommate, while probably clever in the script, falls flat on presentation. This, however, is expected in a low budget independent film.

The almost constantly moving camera is, on the other hand, one of the better aspects of the movie. This is one of the most compelling reasons to see this movie. It must have been a real nightmare setting up shots and coordinating action. The result is worth the effort. The last scene, with the camera being joyously tossed from one person to another and finally off a cliff is the simplest and one of my favorites in the film. As a physical demonstration of what the entire movie is, the scene makes a nice bookend to Linklater's opening monologue.

Throughout the film, Linklater presents characters who take no responsibility for their actions. By blaming their state in life as being a result of conspiracies or of a choice to live an independent bohemian lifestyle, they free themselves from having to participate and contribute to society. By showing slackers in all age groups, the film shows that this attitude is not necessarily something one grows out of. One the whole, the film is a funny and somewhat scary look at how many people choose to waste their lives.