I wrote this paper for my one of my film classes. It is a paper I didn’t think was too bad. I just turned it in (late) so I don’t know what I got on it but I think you might enjoy reading it.
With a budget of $27,000 dollars all put onto a series of credit cards, Clerks is the shining inspiration for do it yourself film making. Director Kevin Smith believed so much in his project and his friends that were helping him so much so that he was willing to gamble with his entire future in order to make a film that most involved in the project had little faith would even been seen in Smith’s basement let alone in theaters. However the film was successful and Smith’s gamble paid off. Smith is now a highly respected film maker and it is all thanks to his first film. Clerks is such an engrossing film for the counter culture of the early 1990′s. The reason Clerks became a cultural phenomenon rather than a $27,000 mistake was because it captured the mood and feeling of the Generation X common man.
The film is ultra-low budget and as a result there is not a lot of highly technical and complex camera or lighting in the film. While this could be viewed as a bad thing is really is a strong selling point of the film. The film was shot on 16mm and on black and white film stock. The grainy black and white gives the film a really lower class feel. The lighting is almost a non factor in the film, it was meant to serve as a purely utilitarian aspect rather than an artistic one. Yet the low budget aspects of this film evolve into something very artistic. All of the bare minimum technical facets of the film really fit the subject matter. The characters in the film are all about the bare minimum in their lives. They don’t care about fancy things in life, but rather they only care about small things that provide distractions to their lives. The characters all wear basic, cheap clothing, drive cheap cars and have low paying jobs. There is nothing expensive in these characters lives. Thus all of the low budget techniques and raw feel of the shots add to the overall mood of the film. Ninety percent of the film takes place inside the Quick Stop convenience store. The fact that the film rarely depicts the world outside the store suggests that the characters are stuck inside their jobs like a prison. It also makes the store something of a character is self. The audience gets the feeling of actually spending and extended amount of time within the store. Viewers are no longer looking at the place as a store that one goes into for less than three minutes and runs out. By the end of the film the audience feels as if they work at that store and they know all of the ins and outs of the location. It is as if the viewers has just finished a shift in the store. The store personifies the The situation the two central characters are in. It is the setting for most of the annoyances and frustrations that the characters, and by extension, the audience feels.
Clerks is centered around two hapless store clerks, Randal and Dante, that are bored and disenfranchised with society. Dante is dealing with the feeling of not living up to his full potential, the expectations everyone else has for him, and the relationships with the women that are further complicating his life. Dante struggles with things that he can’t control. He thinks that a lot of things are holding him back but he really is just letting things that he doesn’t want to deal with hold him back. He is comfortable in his situation yet he can’t stand it. Dante pines for his high school girlfriend that he lost in the past. He can’t get over her which is perpetuated by the fact that he is keeping a connection with her. Dante’s current girlfriend seems to be a really great catch but he can’t leave her past actions in the past and is bothered by trivial things in her personality. Dante is also easily molded by his peers. He doesn’t have that strong of convictions which explains why Randal is able to convince Dante to get into all of the hi jinx that ensue throughout the film. Dante is meant to be the everyman of the working class of the 90′s, and he shares all of the common philosophies of his generation.
If Dante is the everyman, Randal is the embodiment of what every real life “Dante” wants to be. Deep down inside all of the the frustrations that Dante has he wishes he could vent it in such a violent and free way as Randal. Randal is more of a force than a man. Whether he is berating a customer at the store or trying to convince Dante about something that the two of them happen to be discussing, his unflappable crassness and devil may care attitude make him the quintessential model for everything that appealing to the “Dantes” in the audience. Randal really has no personal problems or concerns other than ditching his retail duties and having fun while getting paid for it. Randal is eloquent and convincing. He really has a way with words and can convince Dante into doing just about anything .
The really interesting thing that Clerks does is that both of the main characters are archetypes for the counter culture in the 90′s.
The biggest strengths of the film are the writing and dialog. A good example of this is when Randal and Dante discuss their favorite Star Wars film. Randal is in the Quick Stop store to avoid doing work at the video store while Dante has just pulled a Pringles can off of a man’s hand. Dante describes the feeling he has at the end of The Empire Strikes Back which is a feeling that most people of that generation attribute to the film. Randal then goes into an eloquent discussion on why Return of the Jedi is the best film by way of the mass murder of innocent construction workers. Aside from the inherit comedy in this scene there are some other really deeper, interesting aspects of this writing. Randal and Dante are participating in an activity that the most of the viewers of this film have participated in. Moreover, Dante’s feelings on the theme and mood of Empire are shared by the target audience. This type of writing really lets the audience empathize with the character; like Dante could easily be a member of the viewers’ circles of friends. Randal on the other hand seems to have a unique position on the entire situation, yet not an unbelievable position. The thing that makes all of this so interesting is that these characters are pulling you into their worlds. The audience really gets a feeling for how these characters are living out their everyday lives in their respective jobs. Dante and Randal don’t really care about anything that is going on around them, rather they only want to follow their own goals (talking about anything rather than work). The fact that not much happens in this scene speaks to the feeling that the film is trying to get across. People’s lives are filled with things that they hate and any little distraction that can get them away from it will be exploited.
Another scene that adds to the overall feel of this film is that scene after the fight Randal and Dante have. The two young men are sitting on the floor in a sea of candy and snacks that their altercation produced. Dante starts to yell at Randal about the surface frustrations he is feeling towards Randal, who the obvious catalyst to produce the sordid state that they are in. How ever Randal retorts back at Dante for blaming all of his problems on others. This scene is the writer Kevin Smith telling his target audience that he understands how people can get in this situation and that he knows it is difficult to better one’s station in life, yet it is a two way street. People can’t keep wallowing around in self pity, wondering why luck dealt them such a terrible hand. Randal is giving the audience a lesson about themselves, in an albeit blunt fashion. The bluntness works for the film however. The message of what Randal is saying needs to be put so bluntly since Dante can’t see it for himself.
Clerks is a film that describes a generation. It can be looked at as a way to look at the attitude and mood of the 90′s. Dante constantly feeling down on himself and feels like there is so much to live up to. When things fail he holds himself up in a sanctuary of coolness and nonchalance. If Dante feels less personally attached to the things in his life it will not be as hard on him when things fail. Many young people shared these same feeling toward their lives and Kevin Smith’s skillful lighting and low budget film making allow people to easily relate to the characters and therefore feel like they can take something meaningful away from the picture.
