Well, now that Criterion Collection has put Linklater into the ‘canon’ by releasing his cult indie-film ‘Slacker,’ perhaps it’s also time to take another look his other films and try to re-assess his work as a whole. I’ll have to say straight-up that I’m a fan of Linklater, if for no other reason that I’m also from Texas. While being able to say I feel almost a border-line militant intolerance for those conservative, truck-driving, gun-loving, god-fearing assholes down there, I can still say there’s something about the damn state that I love. Call it an infection. And Linklater’s films capture something of that essence, which is no doubt most palpable in his self-proclaimed liberal hometown of Austin.

First of all, if you’ve never been to Austin, you have to know that people ‘chill’ in Austin. It’s actually quite a remarkable feat. Imagine a town with the cheap beer-guzzling and live-music watching of Williamsburg or Portland, the intellectualism and pot-smoking of Berkeley, the underground ‘arts’ culture of the Bay Area, in general, but with cheap rents, cheap eats, balmy winters, and really fucking hot summers… that’s Austin. Probably from the mix of all that comes what you mostly see, a bunch of non-fashion minded people, intelligent but perhaps a tad over-educated, who spend a lot of time in cafes and generally rhapsodizing about anything… overall, a very remarkably non-rushed people. But the other thing to know is that Austin has, by now of course, sold out. There’s plenty of washed-up hippy Austin-ites who will talk your ear off about how the dot-com yuppies ruined everything and bought everyone out.

But it’s true. The Austin of ‘Slacker,’ for better or for worse, does not exist anymore. From a purely cultural standpoint, it serves well as a time capsule. And so with its graininess, its rawness, its missed lines, its mistakes (there’s almost a constant roar of passing cars), its scene after scene of unattractive non-pros, the general sense that its hapless bystanders are looking on and asking, ‘What the hell you boys doin’ with that video-box contraption? Get off my property, goddamn!!’ it’s even more remarkable to witness just how much this film was able to accomplish.

I first saw ‘Slacker’ when I was in high school. My older brother was living in Austin, though, going to school, when I first got my hands on a grainy dub of the film. It immediately filled me with a sense of immediacy but also of entitlement. I was at the very beginning of my burgeoning interest in film and ‘Slacker’ taught me (based off some very wrong assumptions) that if I really wanted to make a great film, I had to go out on my own, give Hollywood the finger, get a bunch of my cool friends to improv some cool dialogue and I’d become an instant classic. Little did I know just how huge of an effort Linklater made to get this film finished. (Now that Criterion Collection has rectified the picture-quality and sound-quality)

Exemplifying the Texas libertarian ideal, Linklater is a completely self-educated filmmaker, never warm to the idea of educational institution. While he was still very young he got a job on an oilrig. It paid a large sum of money and while he was stuck on the rig he read about films… all the time. He also religiously kept a notebook in which he kept notes and comments about the films he watched. Eventually, he moved to Austin and essentially loafed on the money he made on the oilrig while others were enslaved to student loans. He founded the Austin Film Society, started screening films that Austin rarely had a chance to see, and almost single-handedly started a type of film forum (or audience) of amateur film-watchers and film-makers.

Considering that ‘Slacker’ was funded completely out of his own pocket, that there was no Hollywood or New York hired camera crew, that there were mostly non-professional actors, that he did the majority of the writing, directing, and producing, it’s one of those rare films that succeeds way beyond all expectations. And so, therein lies the most interesting aspect of the film: it seems inherently contradictory for a film to depict nothing but lazy, over-intellectualizing, 20-something slackers, but to have actually been made by an incredible singular, focused artistic endeavor. It’s an experimental film that’s covered with crash-and-burn warning signs all over it… but Linklater pulled it off with flying colors. ‘Slacker’ is a damn good film.

It’s interesting to watch this film while we are deep in the anus-end of this current Administration’s term. In this age of huge get-out-the-vote efforts from both Dems and Republicans, we’re a little distant from that early 90’s voter apathy. In Texas, liberals have always been forced to sneak their ideas in sideways. Try being a radical-liberal, or god forbid, an atheist-anarchist in the wrong place at the wrong time… let’s just say that large portions of the state don’t trust anyone who isn’t the god-fearing type. The apathy in ‘Slacker’ is particularly interesting to me. It’s an assumed type of apathy, that if you’re watching the film you’ll inherently be able to identify with it. I still have liberal-minded friends in Texas who don’t vote in any election. Why? ‘What’s the point?’ is the answer every time. And they’re absolutely right. Unless you grew up in a hugely entrenched red state (and Texas is the biggest) it’s hard to imagine the degree to which apathy seems perfectly natural.

What happens to a small city of politically and socially conscious kids with no hope of ever changing anything? They create a viable sub-culture. It’s here where the non-linear narrative of ‘Slacker’ makes perfect sense: it’s characters understand the issues, perhaps even have interesting solutions, and yet have already given in to the fact that they will never have a voice in society… what better way to distract yourself from this overwhelmingly depressing fact than by sitting through a string of strikingly informed dialogues without any clear storyline (there is no moral in ‘Slacker’)? They’re liberals in a society that totally lacks any semblance of socially progressive ideas. Welcome to Texas. But finally, what makes ‘Slacker’ a more subtle film than an initial viewing might suggest, is that the film seems to be a silent protest, very much akin to one of Altman’s more politically subtle films like ‘McCabe and Mrs. Miller.’

There are a couple scenes now that stand out in my mind more than before. First of all, what an amazing scene it is when, at the very beginning, a kid runs his mother over with a car, drives around the block, parks his car, goes up to his bedroom, plays a record, lights candles at a freaky shrine, then plays a super-8 home-movie with the reel wound to repeat over and over again -- a child being pushed on a bicycle by, we assume, his mother -- which is all, as we soon find out, essentially a stage for his arrest. This is where some kind of silent protest is going on.

Again, keep in mind that Austin is a relatively small town. Have you seen the credits for ‘Slacker’? They’re huge. Linklater very literally found a way to mobilize a significant fraction of the community to help him film. (Let’s not forget the huge list of Austin bands in the soundtrack who’ve since, of course, never seen the light of day.) You either helped him out personally, knew someone who did, or definitely knew someone who knew someone who did. All in all, Linklater has mutant-like powers when it comes to getting his shit together. It’s incredible to think how many people volunteered their time for this film which, ultimately, is also a very loud message.

By the time ‘Dazed and Confused’ came around, Linklater was approaching cult status. If there’s anything he proved with his second film it was that he was not simply a fluke and that somehow a mature filmmaker had risen out of nowhere from the deserts of West Texas. Anyone who had any significant interest in film had their eyes on him. Because of its extremely palpable presence with anyone even remotely involved in the arts in Texas, ‘Dazed and Confused’ became more of a cult classic in Texas than perhaps anywhere else. (One of the more prominent 8th grader roles in the film was a kid a couple grades ahead of me at my high school.)

It’s a film that is unfortunately always compared to ‘American Graffiti,’ though ‘Dazed and Confused’ blows ‘American Graffiti’ out of the water. There are, admittedly, a lot of similarities: a story that takes place over the course of one day, kids driving around in a bunch of cars doing nothing, kids hanging out in drive-ins, kids playing pranks on one another, an ever-present soundtrack filled with the hits of the period… both films collected a lot of young untried, talented actors together whose careers would eventually become very successful. Essentially, ‘Dazed and Confused’ is an R-rated version of ‘American Graffiti’ that has shaken off the gloss of the 50’s and replaced it the grit and grain of the 70’s… and got stoned and drunk. Thank God. Now that we have ‘Dazed and Confused’ we can forget about ‘American Graffiti.’

But the biggest difference between the two movies is in the tone. Linklater truly captures a sense of present-ness, the sense we all had when we were in high school, that the future would eventually work itself out, and in the meantime there’s more pressing matters to attend to, like beating the shit out of one of those stupid 8th graders. Lucas’ film is far more self-conscious, whether it’s the guy stuck driving around the 15-year-old girl, or the guy with the absurd hope that a beautiful blonde girl driving around in a Thunderbird is in love with you, or the guy whose girlfriend might freak out enough to make you actually reconsider going to college. The difference between the two films can be summed up at their respective endings. Where Lucas tags on a grim and unnecessary footnote telling us what happened to the four main male characters (why not any of the girls?), Linklater’s characters catch a third wind (after telling off the football coach) and drive to Houston to get Aerosmith tickets. Where Lucas has melodrama, Linklater has goofiness but mixed in with a sense of empowerment. Where Lucas forces us to idolize an old radio DJ, Linklater throws in a line from a history teacher as her kids are being let out for the summer, ‘while you’re celebrating the bicentennial this summer, remember that your country was founded by rich, white guys who didn’t want to pay their taxes.’

(Here’s an interesting side-note: if you ever check out the DVD of ‘American Graffiti’ be sure to skip over the special features. If you don’t you’ll find an amazingly arrogant and immodest Lucas (of today) spouting off about how innovative ‘American Graffiti’ was when it was originally released: he strapped cameras to cars and spent $80,000 solely on the soundtrack! You can also watch him complain about how he really didn’t want to have to write the script for ‘American Graffiti’ because of how big of a hassle it was to write the entire script for THX-1138.)

With his third film, ‘SubUrbia,’ Linklater clearly demonstrates his addiction to stories that take place over the course of one day. Perhaps not as compelling as his previous films (it’s one of Linklater’s forgotten films), ‘SubUrbia’ is nonetheless a package of great directing and great performances. The main challenge for the story is the almost complete lack of action. That’s usually okay for a stage adaptation but is usually somewhat stifling for a film adaptation. The film is, consequently, very chatty. But there are two basic things I like about this film: that it’s filmed somewhere in the deep, dark flood-plains of Texas, and that it reminds me of my own pathetic high school experience come graduation time. If ‘Dazed and Confused’ was about becoming a senior, ‘SubUrbia’ is about being a year out of high school, living in your parents’ house, taking a couple courses from a shit-town community college, not having a job, maybe thinking about becoming a writer, and losing your girlfriend to a total asshole-poser-ex-friend-from-high-school who’s miraculously succeeded in the music business. For a lot of naive reasons, the kids I went to school with were completely hypnotized by the lure of New York and what it represented about feeling important or being close to the action. Of course, coming from such a culturally void place as Houston, it makes sense to let yourself be lured away to glitzier places. So, watching all the dilemmas faced by each character in ‘SubUrbia’ is immensely entertaining to me. It reminds me of my own experience back in the day… except, of course, with snappier, more intelligent dialogue, and more interesting people. ‘SubUrbia’ does have its flaws but they’re of the type I tend to look over.

Linklater’s next film, ‘The Newton Boys,’ is an anomaly in my opinion, in that it’s not a very successful film whatsoever. It’s the first film Linklater directs that doesn’t have story that takes place over the course of one day. Of course, the film is about a handful of real-life Texas good ole’ boys trying to strike it rich by robbing banks, just following the American Dream. Linklater signed on to do this big studio feature with big actors and big sets. Perhaps the story was too big and cumbersome for Linklater’s skills at the time. In terms of the production, it’s obvious that Linklater had too many things going at once. The scale was probably too large for him. Who knows? But in the catalogue of Linklater films, ‘The Newton Boys’ can certainly be passed over.

2001 was a good year for Linklater films with both ‘Waking Life’ and ‘Tape’ in theaters at the same time. Most significantly, ‘Waking Life’ caused a tremendous amount of buzz simply because of the technique by which it was made. Linklater made the film with handheld digital cameras, edited it down, then hired a team of computer-animators to draw over each frame of the film. Add a free-floating plot with random people speaking a lot of philosophical mumbo-jumbo and you have quite a visually-enhanced cerebral experience. Oh yeah, and the main character is a guy who can’t seem to wake up from a dream… it’s spooky. There’s one guy who describes his attempts at developing 360? vision with his dream-eyes. But if ‘Waking Life’ has any flaws it’s that in repeated viewings the dialogue gets pretty damn old pretty damn fast. The film is at its best when the respective talking heads are actually talking about dreams. One other puzzling thing for me is why Linklater actually hired Wiley Wiggins for a second film after watching him suck so bad in ‘Dazed and Confused.’

‘Tape’ is more familiar territory. It’s Linklater’s second attempt to adapt a play. Like ‘SubUrbia,’ the film was largely ignored by critics who considered ‘Waking Life’ to be a superior film (and which, more or less, happened to also be in theaters at the same time). Shot in only a handful of days (on digital), on a truly shockingly-low budget, ‘Tape’ has more to offer than most people give it credit for. The story takes place entirely in one room (contrary to popular belief, it was actually a set and not a real mid-western U.S. backwash motel) which immediately creates a challenge to a filmmaker: how can you possibly keep the audience interested in what’s going on visually if there’s no change of scenery? Linklater’s answer was to use a very interesting camera technique. As he explains on the audio commentary, there was camera operator A and camera operator B (himself). Camera operator A got all of the safe, straight-forward shots while he describes himself as the guy climbing on top of chairs and beds trying to get odd angles. They filmed each scene a few times, carefully overlapping them as a whole. Finally, the performances were streamlined and consistent enough (simplified, of course, by the small set) to be able to incorporate some truly fascinating editing. It’s fun to watch just how many times the perspective flips and the camera suddenly has had to ‘disappear.’

I think a lot of Linklater fans were surprised to see his name pop up on the marquee for the one-man-comic-performance-show called ‘School of Rock.’ At the time of its opening, I was dreading to imagine that this was the signal that Linklater was dumping the whole indie scene. Of course, I saw the film anyway and was pleasantly surprised. Jack Black is hilarious… no surprise there. There is nothing innovative going on in this film, but Linklater’s talent as a director shines through nonetheless. Directing a talent and ego as large as Jack Black must be highly entertaining but highly frustrating. How do you keep a guy exploding with energy within the frame? If there’s anything that Linklater demonstrates in ‘School of Rock’ it’s that he has the tact to know when to step in and assert his control, but also when to just simply stand aside, let the cameras roll, and let Jack Black be himself. Despite all the jokes and slapstick, you still have to have a story that makes sense and ‘School of Rock’ is extremely well-paced.

Linklater’s most recent endeavor I’ve chosen to lump in with a film he did between ‘Dazed and Confused’ and ‘SubUrbia’: ‘Before Sunrise’ and ‘Before Sunset.’ Whereas the first film is a somewhat contrived romantic story too chatty for its own good, the second film is clearly made by someone with an advanced knowledge of storytelling. Remarkably enough, each of the films embodies the maturity of the actors and the director at the time they were each produced. ‘Before Sunrise’ was made when Linklater himself was in his early-30’s. Both Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke were in their mid-20’s. All that sparkling youth is captured by the film: both characters don’t have much experience with love, both are pessimistic but also somewhat idealistic, and both don’t have much experience to draw from, in general, while they attempt to learn about each other. Linklater takes on an enormous task: showing how two people fall in love at first sight, perhaps the most failed theme in film history, and he doesn’t altogether entirely fail… which is good! I found myself being charmed and but then subsequently annoyed by both characters. It’s a frustrating film to watch overall, which makes sense because they’re a couple of 25-year-olds bungling their way through falling in love. At the end you vaguely feel like it’s a good film but you can’t quite put your finger on it.

Since ‘Before Sunrise’ really didn’t do that much for me, it was to my great surprise to learn that ‘Before Sunset’ is a far superior film, which is a rare thing to admit about a sequel. If the first film represents a kind of stumbling then the sequel is the film that rights itself back up. The major stylistic theme of the first film is repeated: two romantically-charged people having ‘intelligent’ conversations while strolling through one of the old-world’s most picturesque cities. The first film’s primary dramatic pull came from the fantasy of meeting someone (cute) randomly on the train. It ends with us never knowing if they ever meet again. The second film is premised on the idea that they randomly (again) meet 9 years later. Of course, ‘Before Sunset’ begins with a major advantage: we don’t have to be introduced to these characters. From the very first scene we are in full knowledge of their complex, intimate past. We can immediately get to the nitty-gritty drama. At the same time there’s the obvious anticipatory dramatic pull of watching all the gossipy ‘answers’ of the past 9 years be unraveled. There’s a whole lot of intimacy here, heightened by the inherent organic nature of the filmmaking, taking place in real time.

Perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of the film is wondering where the autobiographical/fictional line is being drawn. When is Ethan Hawke talking about Jesse and when does he slip into talking about his own life? When Jesse talks about his wife is Ethan referring to Uma? And how much is Julie Delpy, as Celine, revealing to us about her own personal life? I would answer ‘quite a bit.’ Since part of the appeal of all films is the voyeur quality about them, watching life’s drama unfold but perched safely out of view, there’s a very strong sense of connection the audience develops with Jesse and Celine, call it a ménage a trois, with it’s climax being our long, winding path into Celine’s little apartment. The writing (credited to Linklater, Hawke, and Delpy) exemplifies a great deal of humbleness and thoughtfulness. The actors treat each other with a tremendous depth of honesty. Whereas ‘Before Sunrise’ was mostly smiles, giggles, and aw’ shucks, ‘Before Sunset’ unveils windows with deep views into its characters and even has moments of dark despair (like when Celine loses it in the taxi). Refreshingly, a kind of maturity is revealed (besides the obvious wrinkles and dark patches around the actors’ eyes) through the characters admitting their mistakes. This aspect is strengthened by the fact that, stylistically, through the act of improving upon the first film, Linklater is admitting his mistakes. The production, overall, has its greatest strength in its under-spoken balance: truly, it’s rare to see a film with as perfect of an ending as performed in ‘Before Sunrise.’ In fact, my only criticism of the film would be that Ethan Hawke should not receive any more encouragement to continue his novel-writing career.