Richard Linklater
☼ Born on 30 February 1960, in Houston, Texas, USA
Biography
Self-taught writer-director Richard Stuart Linklater was born in Houston, Texas, to Diane Margaret (Krieger), who taught at a university, and Charles W. Linklater III. Richard was among the first and most successful talents to emerge during the American independent film renaissance of the 1990s. Typically setting each of his movies during one 24-hour period, Linklater's work explored what he dubbed "the youth rebellion continuum," focusing in fine detail on generational rites and mores with rare compassion and understanding while definitively capturing the 20-something culture of his era through a series of nuanced, illuminating ensemble pieces which introduced any number of talented young actors into the Hollywood firmament. Born in Houston, Texas, Linklater suspended his educational career at Sam Houston State University in 1982, to work on an offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. He subsequently relocated to the state's capital of Austin, where he founded a film society and began work on his debut film, 1987's It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (1988). Three years later he released the sprawling Slacker (1990), an insightful, virtually plotless look at 1990s youth culture that became a favorite on the festival circuit prior to earning vast acclaim at Sundance in 1991. Upon its commercial release, the movie, made for less than $23,000, became the subject of considerable mainstream media attention, with the term "slacker" becoming a much-overused catch-all tag
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employed to affix a name and identity to America's disaffected youth culture.
In the role of director
Hit Man (29/05/2024)
A college professor moonlighting as an undercover contract killer ends up falling for one of his clients in Hit Man. Gary Johnson (Glen Powell) is a divorced college professor living an isolated life with his two cats. Gary moonlights for the police department, working as tech support for an undercover sting operation meant to catch […]
Boyhood (18/07/2014)
12 years in the making comes director Richard Linklater’s chronicle of a young man’s life from childhood to college. Six year old Mason Jr. (Ellar Coltrane) is a young boy, who lives with his divorced single mother Olivia (Patricia Arquette) and older sister Samantha (Lorelei Linklater), with the kids receiving regular visitations from their father […]
Before Midnight (16/06/2013)
When Richard Linklater first made the romance Before Sunrise in 1995, I don’t know if he expected that the film would turn into a series that tracked the progress of a romantic relationship over the decades. Before Midnight meets up with Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) 18 years after they first met on […]
Bernie (19/05/2012)
It’s been a while since I’ve seen anything by Richard Linklater, with the last film of his that I saw theatrically being 2006’s A Scanner Darkly. However, I would have to that that his latest film Bernie can be included amongst his best. I knew very little about the film before seeing it, other than the […]