"Slacker": 15 years later

July 5, 2006 | Whenever people ask Richard Linklater what's special about his adopted hometown of Austin, Texas, he points out the city's odd triptych of industrial-era landmarks: the State Capitol building, the gargantuan University of Texas campus and a mammoth mental-health facility. "Those three worlds kind of all [mix] up," he says. "You get grad students, politicians and crazy people."

In July of 1991, when "Slacker" was released in theaters across the U.S. and catapulted into the mainstream cultural consciousness, a lot of people wanted to know about Austin, where the film was shot -- and about Linklater, then a cherub-faced 31-year-old, who had written, produced and directed what would prove to be one of the decade's most absorbing movies. Influenced as much by Luis Buñuel and Jean-Luc Godard as he was by the conversations he heard around him, Linklater and his cast (most of whom were non-actors) put together a partially scripted, partially improvised movie that puzzled anyone expecting bare-minimum mechanics such as plot or action. Instead, audiences were treated to an ever-changing stream of culturally curious, slightly paranoid 20-somethings, all with cryptic names like "Hit-and-Run Son" and "Dostoyevsky Wannabe. These were the "slackers" of the title -- members of the bummed-out generation who questioned hippies as much as they did yuppies -- and while they may not have had day jobs, when it came to talking, they worked overtime, discussing everything from politics to sex to the Smurfs. Anyone who asked, "What's it all about?" was missing the point; in the end, the big idea behind "Slacker" is that these ideas existed at all.

Fifteen years after its release, "Slacker" hasn't aged much -- today's Internet-addled, career-minded 20-somethings may be wigged out by idea of living without a steady paycheck, but the movie's characters' social and environmental concerns are as timely as ever. And the film's imprint can be found everywhere, from the pop-theory culture-bots in Kevin Smith's "Clerks" to the "Seinfeld" gang's chatty diner get-togethers. (Linklater, of course, has gone on to become one of the most reliably unpredictable directors of his generation, with the sci-fi thriller "A Scanner Darkly" out this Friday, and the Cannes hit "Fast Food Nation" due in the fall -- click here to hear him discuss the films.) With the same pass-the-baton mentality Linklater perfected on-screen, here's an oral history of the movie that defined indie film during its busiest decade-- and the first Siskel & Ebert-endorsed flick to confuse the hell out of your parents.

Richard Linklater: Austin's always had that laid-back vibe. You'd be sitting at this coffee shop with a guy talking to himself. This schizophrenic would just be going on -- very intelligently -- about this or that. On the street, you'd end up getting confronted by people, but everybody's harmless.

Deborah Pastor (production designer and art-department staffer; also appeared in film): I grew up in Houston, and when I got to Austin, I lost my fucking mind -- there was so much to just chew on and sink into. It was a small town, [and] easy to navigate. You'd go over to someone's house, everybody would grab crayons and make postcards. People didn't judge. There was no fear.

Kalman Spelletich (played the TV-obsessed "Video Backpacker"): I had lived in Iowa City. I talked to a few friends who were like, "Man, Austin's happening. It's cheap, and it's full of kids. It's just rocking." And it was insanely cheap -- you could a rent a big old house for, like, $300.

Michael Laird (played an unsuccessful burglar): There were a lot of people around the area of West Campus who you would see at parties. It was a very loose community. The contrast between those people and, say, the fraternity and sorority people was very striking and obvious: The fraternity people had their frat houses -- these great big temples of prosperity -- and people like us, the slackers, wore secondhand clothes and rode bicycles.

Spelletich: Here's what we'd do: Somebody'd call up and say, "I got some pot, and so-and-so has some acid." They'd ride their bicycles over, we'd do some hits, and we'd ride down Speedway Street, bang on the door [of a friend's house], ride around on our bicycles and hear a band playing. It was so simple and innocent and playful, and there were so many other people doing it.

Lee Daniel (cinematographer; also appeared in film): We built a little cinema above this coffee shop called Captain Quackenbush and showed 16mm films. Rick [Linklater] pretty much spearheaded it, and D [the late local artist Denise Montgomery] helped. It was a combination gallery, performance space and cinema; we held about 100 people.

Spelletich: We'd just come out of eight years of Reagan, and we were really fucking bummed out. People felt disempowered, like they were standing at the edge, screaming, and we don't have a big enough bullhorn because we don't have the money to buy the thing.

Daniel: It was sinking in to a great portion of the population of young people that they were the first generation that were not better off than their parents. These young people didn't have the opportunities their parents did, so they were doubling up and sleeping on couches. Not voluntarily, like with the Beat generation; this was more of a pragmatic thing.

Linklater: The generation ahead of me, the boomers, they've got it locked up to the grave. We'll forever be in their shadow, because there are so fucking many of them. They've geared everything toward their own needs. It's a little disgusting. They're the Worst Generation! [Laughs]

Next page: "Nothing in 'Slacker' is true"