(NOTE: Capsule version of the review is available here.)
1990s were arguably the best decade in the history of American independent cinema. The single event associated with it was 1994 Cannes Film Festival. There Quentin Tarantino triumphed by winning Palme d’Or for Pulp Fiction and established himself as the “coolest” film maker among world’s cinephiles. Another independent film maker to be awarded there was Kevin Smith. He left the festival with two minor jury prizes for his celebrated debut, black comedy Clerks that would ultimately become first in decades-long spawn media franchise based on his fictional universe.
The protagonist of the film, played by Brian O’Halloran, is Dante Hicks, 22-year old retail clerk who works at Quick Stop Groceries store in Leonardo, New Jersey. The plot takes place during a day which started very badly for Dante – he is forced to cover for another employee and later finds out that his boss went on vacation so he must work longer than he expected. During his shift he finds Murphy Law working both in his professional and private life, the latter being complicated due to his relationship with ambitious girlfriend Veronica Loughran (played by Marilyn Ghighliotti) while he still carries torch for ex girlfriend Caitlin Bree (played by Lisa Spoonauer). Dante’s best friend is Randal Graves (played by Jeff Anderson), clerk in nearby video store, who, unlike Dante, doesn’t like take his job seriously and likes to insult customers. Two of them are occasionally visited by duo of street marijuana dealers – Jay (played by Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (played by Smith).
Clerks became the legend even among those who haven’t seen it, mainly due to its production that represent one of the rare “rags-to-riches” stories that prove that American Dream can, at least for some people, do what was told to do in cinema industry. Kevin Smith famously shot his film with ridiculously low budget established after selling his own treasured comic book collection, maxing out credit cards and collecting car insurance; he use cheap 16 mm black-and-white film because colour processing in certain scenes was too expensive; he used actual stores he had worked part-time as locations; the cast was almost entirely made from non-professional actors. The greatest adversity, however, he had to fight after his festival successes at Sundance and Cannes. Increasingly prudish MPAA censors originally wanted to give it NC-17 rating on the sole account of foul language; that led to successful litigation during which famed attorney Allan Dershowitz secured less severe and commercially viable R-rating. The latter allowed the film to be distributed by Miramax and even make more than decent profit at box office, which was and still is a rarity for festival-winning low budget independent films.
Despite the lack of author’s prior film making experience and resources Clerks turned out to be excellent film and Kevin Smith proved himself to be natural film making talent. It was also the film in which content became more important than style and form. Most of it is due to Smith’s talent for dialogue. Despite almost nothing of importance happening for most part of the film, audience’s attention is kept with extremely funny exchanges between characters and Smith’s interesting observations about popular culture or certain non-orthodox sexual activities, as well as keen observations about those members of Generation X who ended or were, like the protagonist, destined to end at the lower levels of American society. Clerks also relies a lot on non-professional actors who act quite naturally, often taking inspiration from their real lives. Clerks is funny and entertaining film, but also quite willing to confront audience with some rather dark motives. Smith originally intended to end the film on tragically sour note, but, thankfully, had second thoughts and allowed viewers to meet end titles with a smile on their faces. This not only allowed two sequels (in 2006 and 2022), animated television series, comic book and, most fittingly, Shooting Clerks, 2021 feature film depicting the production of this extraordinary gem of independent cinema.
RATING: 9/10 (++++)
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