If you fancy a night in watching a DVD, then take a look at the selection available at Island Libraries. At just £1 per night, they’re a great bargain. Ed
A well-known and highly regarded artist in London I once had the extreme pleasure to meet, mentioned that he was saddened by the digital convergence from video simply because ‘a lot of films will probably be lost.’
However, thankfully at least one film ‘Dazed and Confused’ has been released on DVD and is still astoundingly good, some considerable time after its initial release.
Ventnor Library does not balk at films originally released 17 years ago. Hope always springs eternal for Linklaters’ first released film ‘Slacker’. (I managed to see on its original theatrical release in an Independent cinema in San Francisco at the start of the 90’s. ‘Slacker’ was an immediate cult classic).
Richard Linklater has had continued and deserved success, not only because he manages to contain humour and seemingly spontaneous improvisation into scripts he writes and yet everything is extremely well thought out and rehearsed.
Even in later projects such as ‘Singles’, ‘Before Sunrise’, or even ‘Almost Famous’, this particular American Director seems to work around any subject rather than confront the subject directly.
In the truly excellent ‘Slacker’, Richard Linklater would direct the camera to follow an object picked up by a character that was passing onto another scene, rather than follow the character. Hence ‘Slacker’ seemed totally improvised.
The freshness that Richard Linklaters’ films have, never seem to date. ‘Dazed and Confused’ although set in 1976 in America is still enjoyable so many years later. Yet should the digital revolution be literal, click on the Amazon link for the DVD of ‘Slacker.’ It will almost certainly be a welcome purchase.
