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From : thefilmarchive
Added: Sep 13, 2009
Film scholars and commentators consider Richard Linklater's films to be significant in a number of ways. In the early 1990s, Slacker was hailed as something of a manifesto for Generation X because the film's young adult characters are more interested in quasi-intellectual pastimes and socialising than career advancement. However, Linklater has long since eschewed the role of generational spokesperson. Moreover, viewing Slacker years after its production and at a distance from these debates throws into relief the film's inclusion of various generations, as well as themes that are universal rather than generation-specific. The film's purported relationship to Generation X is also undermined by the fact that the slacker existences depicted are as appealing for today's teenagers and young adults as they were for youth in the early 1990s. In this way, the film remains significant for documenting alternative pursuits of fulfilment in the face of a competitive, career-orientated and materialistic society. Those of Linklater's films that have non-formulaic narratives about seemingly random occurrences, often spanning about twenty-four hours, have been hailed as alternatives to contemporary Hollywood market-driven blockbusters. In conjunction with these unorthodox narratives, the emphasis on philosophical talk over physical action in Slacker and Waking Life aligns Linklater's work with art cinema traditions, particularly those of Europe, from which much recent American cinema is estranged. Linklater's films thus embody the potential for contemporary American filmmaking to explore and develop new alternatives to formulaic entertainment. The use of the rotoscoping animation technique in Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly has captured the imaginations of film viewers, scholars and filmmakers. In Waking Life, the combination of this technique with dream subject matter seems to have stimulated new visual approaches to representing subjective experience. An example is Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir (2008), an animated documentary that is based, like Linklater's work, on video, although without using the same animation technique. Filmography * Woodshock (1985) * It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (1989) * Slacker (1991) * Heads I Win/Tails You Lose (1991) * Dazed and Confused (1993) * Before Sunrise (1995) * subUrbia (1996) * The Newton Boys (1998) * Waking Life (2001) * Tape (2001) * Live from Shiva's Dance Floor (2003) * School of Rock (2003) * $5.15/hour (2004) * Before Sunset (2004) * Bad News Bears (2005) * A Scanner Darkly (2006) * Fast Food Nation (2006) * Inning by Inning: A Portrait of a Coach (2008) * Me and Orson Welles (2009) * Boyhood (~2013)
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