Significance
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 and is ironically a "Baby Boomer" himself. Moreover, the movie actually includes various generations, and many of its themes are universal rather than generation-specific.
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.
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Famous quotes containing the word significance:
“I am not afraid that I shall exaggerate the value and significance of life, but that I shall not be up to the occasion which it is.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“The hysterical find too much significance in things. The depressed find too little.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)