“So, do you have any new movies in?”
For many of us of a certain age in the mid 90s, Kevin Smith’s seminal Gen-X manifesto helped define our post-graduate slacker ennui.
Clerks was released right when indie film was reaching critical mass. For a while, Sundance was the credibility pipeline of choice and every slacker with access to a camera was dreaming of a Tarantino-level takeoff. But Smith wasn’t chasing the new auteur hauteur cool, he went lo-fi fuzz and feedback. He had $27K on maxed-out credit cards, access to a convenience store, and something to say about doing nothing and going nowhere fast.
Shot in grainy newsprint black and white, the thing reeked of dirty ashtrays, burnt coffee, and missed opportunities, so of course it landed just perfectly with the Docs and flannel crowd. It looked and smelled like we did.
Dante’s whole arc is stasis-dressed-as-martyrdom. “I’m not even supposed to be here today” became our generation’s alibi.
These guys aren’t about losers, but they know they’re losing and can’t quite summon the will to care – but also can’t stop talking about it. Buried under the debates about Death Star contractors and annoying customers is a film about people trapped in the liminal space of early adulthood.
If you were the right age at the right time, Clerks tapped into that pure, undistilled malaise. The path not taken. The one that got away. That point in life when we stop pretending the future’s gonna show up and rescue us. -Pop
Clerks arrived on Home Video this week in 1995, after an October 19th, 1994 theatrical release.