Austin Dispatch. 2.

The biggest laugh from the SRO crowd following John Pierson's conversation with Richard Linklater this afternoon came after the author of Spike, Mike, Slackers and Dykes pulled out a letter from an aspiring filmmaker written to him around 1990 or so. Slacker, the young Linklater suggested, might be aimed at a niche described in an enclosed Time magazine article profiling an aimless generation of 20-somethings who not only might identify with the characters but also happened to be a rather cinema-savvy bunch. This was an audience that actually read about movies before they went to see them.

Linklater, now 46, listened stoically and then remarked that so often, when one's confronted with such evidence of youth and naivete, deep cringes of embarrassment are the only possible reaction. But not this time. Listening to the letter, his immediate reaction is, "You know: that guy's on it."

Of course, he also admits to being very lucky as to what immediately followed the film: Douglas Coupland's Generation X, Nirvana and so on, events that would both shape and define 90s-era culture in such a way that Slacker can now, in retrospect, only be seen as one of a very few essential ur-texts of the decade.

At the time, though, it certainly wasn't perceived as a cultural milestone. Pierson roused more laughs with an Austin Chronicle letter to the editor complaining that the characters of the film were contributing nothing to the world or to the city of Austin and were not deserving of screen time in a film that, at any rate, isn't about anything - "underlined twice."

When Pierson asked Linklater about three of the greatest and three of the worst moments in his career, one from each category, it turns out, was experienced during the making of Slacker and the struggle to get it seen. Hardly a surprise, given that this was his first feature and the emotional ups and downs would only be intensified by the make-or-break stakes. The good moment: Credit cards maxed out, bank account emptied, the works, he thought he'd have to stop production indefinitely when a letter plopped in from German broadcaster WDR: it contained a check for $35,000 - enough to complete the film.

Oddly, there's a German angle to the worst Slacker moment as well. Once the film was complete, he took it to the Market at the Berlin film festival. Four people showed up at the screening. Three were friends. The stranger wandered out before the film was over. But of course, ultimately, thanks in no small part to Pierson, Slacker did find a distributor, the bunch that would eventually become Sony Classics.

As for other highs and lows, the highs are mostly experienced during production. Cramped in a car, shooting Before Sunset, for example, his camera trained on Julie Delpy and taking in that moment just before tears when all the preparation, the logistics, the scheduling comes together and the film catches fire. Of all the five or so phases of filmmaking, in fact, rehearsal and production are Linklater's favorites. Writing is "kinda lonely." He loves getting a cast together and for those first rehearsals: "That's when the magic starts happening."

Production is "where it really comes alive. I've always approached it like a process." He cites the examples of Godard and other French New Wave filmmakers for whom, he says, a day on the set is like any other day in your life. His first couple of features, and all of his shorts, have been made in this spirit. But once there's money involved, there's also the "clamp-down of efficiency." Nothing in "the system really cared about the art." You'd think that by giving the writer/director what he wants, he notes, a better film might result. Instead, producers and such tend to make things difficult.

Every day on the shoot of Fast Food Nation, he kept thinking: 10 or 12 years ago, "this movie would have just melted me." The ambitions were "so much bigger than our budget." Confidence, he says, is using experience to accomplish what you've done before. At the same time, though he thought test screenings of FFN went well, the studio sensed and indifference he wasn't picking up on. For one thing, commented one suit, "You don't give them anything." Too many fates in the film are too devastating.

Over the years, Linklater's learned not to expect much. "Just be glad film is made and available on DVD. Ultimately, it's a total crap shoot."

Odds and ends:

• His two favorite films of 2006: The Lives of Others and Pan's Labyrinth. When it came to the Oscars, "I didn't even know which one I wanted to win."

• Warners promises it'll "out-Criterion Criterion" with its DVD for SubUrbia.

• The feature-length documentary he's making for ESPN is "really a portrait" of the head coach of the University of Texas baseball team. "Remind me never to do another documentary. It's just so much work, so much editing." Now he knows why it takes some of his friends five years to complete a documentary.

• Like David Lynch, he can't see himself going back to film.

• Linklater's currently writing a narrative feature based on his freshman year. The elevator pitch: Dazed and Confused Goes to College.

Posted by dwhudson at March 10, 2007 1:35 PM