National Film RegistryLibrary of Congress · Inducted 2019
“A hilarious, in-your-face, bawdy-yet-provocative look at two sardonic young slackers (Dante and Randal). One toils as a New Jersey convenience store clerk while his alter-ego video store friend works when the mood strikes him.”
Selected for preservation as culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.
Directed by
Kevin Smith
Studio
Miramax · View Askew Productions · 92 min
Box office
$3.2M worldwide on a $28K budget
Honors
Sundance Filmmaker Trophy Dramatic — 1 winAll 1 wins · 0 nominations on record
Sources: Wikidata · Library of Congress · OpenAlex. The record of the motion picture, not an assessment of this cell.
FILM NOTES
Clerks arrived in 1994 as a low-budget black-and-white feature shot largely after hours at a real New Jersey convenience store, financed on credit cards by writer-director Kevin Smith. Picked up by Miramax after a strong showing at Sundance, it became a defining artifact of independent film's mid-90s breakthrough, prized for its dialogue-driven pacing and its portrait of retail purgatory rendered with dry, vernacular humor. Its success helped establish the View Askewniverse and made Smith a notable voice in American independent cinema.
This cell centers on Dante Hicks, the reluctant clerk whose day off gets cancelled and whose exasperation anchors the film's episodic structure. Collectors seek him out because he functions as the everyman through which the store's chaos, customers, and philosophical tangents are filtered. A cell bearing his name preserves a piece of that central thread, a fragment of the character who holds the whole enterprise together while everything around him spirals into absurdity.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm black-and-white theatrical release print of Clerks (1994).
Gauge
35mm, four perforations per frame on both edges; the strip holds three frames.
Perforations
Four per frame on each edge, evenly spaced; punched edges appear clean with no visible tearing or deformation.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track is visible running along one edge beside the picture area, appearing as a single bilateral variable-area track; Dolby Digital data blocks are not clearly distinguishable at this size.
Edge print
A small signature-style mark is visible in the lower portion of each frame but the edge print text along the strip border is not legible in this capture.
Base & colour
Base appears neutral to very slightly cool; the black-and-white dye image shows strong contrast with no visible colour shift or fading.
Projection history
Light horizontal scratching is visible across the frame area, consistent with a print that has passed through a projector gate.
Picture
Positive black-and-white image; all three frames appear to be consecutive frames from a single continuous shot, consistent with the black-and-white photography of the film on record.
Era check
A single variable-area optical track alongside a black-and-white positive image on what appears to be a safety base is consistent with a 1990s theatrical release print of Clerks (1994), which was shot and released in black and white.
Read from the original intake capture shown below. Observations only — film is authenticated, not graded.
This original motion picture film element has been examined and authenticated by Crown Grading in partnership with National Film Vault, and encapsulated for archival preservation.
Why so little survivesRelease prints were leased to theaters, not sold. When the run ended they went back to the distributor to be destroyed, and most were. What collectors hold today came from the prints that escaped that order, and no new 35mm prints of these films are being struck.
CROWN SERIAL 000063068
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
