Introduction: Linklater’s Itinerant Oeuvre

This chapter introduces Linklater’s rich and varied body of work as well as extant scholarship on his films. It introduces the collection’s overarching considerations: Linklater’s ambiguous relationships to both Hollywood and the American independent film tradition, to the dominant cultural sensibility of the late twentieth century—postmodernism—and to corporate America and neoliberalism more generally; his tendency to switch genres; and his ostensibly unassuming stylistic register. It argues that what unites Linklater’s significant and eclectic filmography is a fundamental concern with, and for, America.