He’s drawn to the story, not fitting a genre

RICHARD LINKLATER doesn’t consider himself an auteur because he doesn’t know “what the standard is. The truth is everyone has a feeling out there who is making personal films and who isn’t. I think it is one of those [terms that is] completely undefinable.”

Since the release of his well-received first theatrical film, 1991’s plotless comedy “Slacker,” the Austin-based filmmaker has tackled the western genre (“The Newton Boys”), romantic dramas (“Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset”), an experimental drama (“Tape”) and even animation (“Waking Life”). Linklater has also made two excursions into the major studio world -- directing the 2003 hit comedy “School of Rock” and the poorly received 2005 remake of “The Bad News Bears.”

“Some people are kind of genre busters,” he says. “I never thought of myself like that. There are certain stories you want to tell. When I was doing ‘Before Sunrise’ I never thought, ‘I am in the genre of romantic comedy.’ I was more like ‘I am telling the story of these two people.’ It is never genre first.”

Linklater’s latest film, “A Scanner Darkly,” slated to open July 7, is a surreal psychological thriller. Based on the Philip K. Dick novel, “Scanner” is set in Anaheim in the not-so-distant future where an increasing number of the population is addicted to a drug called Substance D.

Keanu Reeves plays an undercover cop assigned to spy on his Substance D-abusing friends. Just as with “Waking Life,” the movie was filmed as a live-action feature and then animated through a time-consuming but relatively inexpensive rotoscoping technique -- each frame of the live-action film is traced over and painted in to give it the look of a graphic novel. (The movie cost a reported $8 million to make.)

“I always saw the movie [animated],” says Linklater, 45. “I thought the effect of this animation put the viewer in the right head space to take in this movie.”

Linklater wrote the script years ago but had delays getting it off the ground. “There was the thinking that ‘Adults don’t go to animated movies and we should do it live action.’ ” The problem with that, Linklater said, is that the subject matter doesn’t warrant the $20 million to $30 million that a live-action movie would probably cost.

“It is a low-budget counterculture film,” he said.

-- Susan King