Linklater, Richard (1962– )

US film director and writer. An influential figure in the US independent film sector throughout the 1990s, he created a series of serio-comic cinematic studies of disaffected US teenagers and twenty-somethings. His dialogue-driven narratives – Slacker (1991), Dazed and Confused (1993), Before Sunrise (1995) – owe much to the traditions of post-1950s European film-making, epitomized by the work of Eric Rohmer. His later film School of Rock (2003) had a wider, more commercial, appeal.

One of his trademarks is his technique of creating animation by tracing over live action movements, as in Waking Life (2001) and A Scanner Darkly (2006).

Linklater's own work proved inspirational for fellow young American film-makers like Kevin Smith. His first feature film was It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (1988), a low budget film shot with a Super-8 camera. He went on to direct the dark comedy subUrbia (1997), the crime drama The Newton Boys (1998), the Before Sunrise sequel Before Sunset (2004), and the fast-food industry expose Fast Food Nation (2006).