Take the character early in Slacker simply and aptly credited as ‘Been on The Moon Since the 50s’. The conspiracies in Slacker are relatively harmless compared to the likes of modern-day theorists Alex Jones or David Icke (both of whom have been banned from Facebook and YouTube, with Jones featuring in Linklater’s Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly as a surreal version of himself, shouting through a megaphone about government surveillance and the systems which control our lives). One convincing overarching reason for the persistence of conspiracies is that humans are very good at recognising patterns, but that sometimes, “We see meaning and significance when it isn't really there,” explains Prof Chris French, a psychologist at Goldsmith’s, University of London, in a BBC article.But if that’s all there is to it, why and when did conspiracy theories become so dangerous? Mums are being radicalised on WhatsApp, 5G conspiracy theorists are destroying phone masts and harassing innocent engineers, and people across the US and UK are violently resisting COVID-19 lockdowns. ![]() But what was once reserved for those on the fringes of society, from part-time stoners to street corner activists, is now much more mainstream – and dangerous. ![]() It’s hard to think of any other film where conspiracy theories are so explicitly rampant. With Slacker, almost every character has their own idea as to who shot JFK, when we really landed on the moon, and how to harness the psychic power of the televised image. But none of Linklater’s other films would ever quite so extremely abandon traditional structure – still, let’s not forget he directed School of Rock – in favour of character and dialogue. It would foreshadow Linklater’s signature directorial style, in which dialogue-driven stories turn the mundane everyday into something beautiful or fascinating, typified in the Before trilogy and Boyhood, both of which were shot over a number of years using the same respective casts. Shot on a budget of just a few thousand dollars and on 16 mm film stock, Slacker premiered at Austin’s Dobie Theatre in 1990, before going on to make waves at the Sundance Film Festival the following year. The characters – whether they be a retired anarchist or the proud acquirer of Madonna’s pap smear – are all subject to some form of social or political exclusion, creating an environment ripe for conspiracy theories to run amok amongst those unacknowledged by mainstream society. From sparsely furnished flats to Austin’s hip cafes and bars, apathy rises from every cup of free-refill coffee and half-smoked cigarette, before settling under a sea of battered Converse trainers. The camera smoothly follows characters down the street before switching focus to those they pass, panning from one location to another in seamless transitions. It is the quintessential film depicting 90s youth culture its lack of plot and direction laid out a blueprint for the disillusionment of Generation X, and by disregarding conventional structure in favour of character and dialogue, it allowed the filmmaker to shine a spotlight on one resident of Austin, Texas, after another. ![]() The IMDb page describes Richard Linklater’s 1990 sophomore feature as an “independent comedy-drama,” but that hardly does the film justice. There is something about Slacker’s appeal which is hard to pin down.
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