(Airs: July 5, 2006, 8:00 PM with an encore July 19 at 11:30 on TCM)

Edge of the Outside

What is an independent filmmaker? What is an independent film? How difficult is it to make one, and how important is it?

These questions and more are asked, addressed and somewhat answered in Edge of Outside, Turner Classic Movies' invigorating, funny, sometimes-scattershot new documentary which chronicles independent cinema through film clips, newsreel footage and interviews with prominent figures like Martin Scorsese, Ed Burns, Peter Bogdanovich and John Sayles. A lot of it will be old hat for film lovers, and raw beginners may sometimes get lost, but there is still enough interesting matter here for both parties to be satisfied.

The general thesis that the film puts out is that an independent film is independent not for budgetary reasons but rather for an independent spirit, and that an independent filmmaker is someone who doggedly pursues his (alas, no Jane Campion) vision without letting the outside world "” namely, the studio system "” interfere. This broad conception of terms opens up a lot of room; for example, Stanley Kubrick is hailed as an independent filmmaker despite having studios finance twelve of his thirteen films.

Other names are dropped that one might not expect, like Samuel Fuller, Nicholas Ray, Sam Peckinpah and Woody Allen, all of whom stuck to their guns (and, in Allen's case, continue to) with other people's money; the Italian neorealist movement is hailed as an inspiring compendium of independent films abroad, as is the French New Wave. D.W. Griffith is called the first independent filmmaker, The Birth of a Nation the first independent film, and we are reminded that United Artists actually began as an independent company, as Griffith, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks banded together in the 1920s to create their own films.

An alternate title for the documentary, in fact, may be In Praise of Great Directors, as it chooses not to chronicle the history of the independent film movement (for example, while we get Quentin Tarantino and Spike Lee, Steven Soderbergh and Richard Linklater are nowhere to be found) so much as heap platitudes upon film legends; the closest thing to criticism comes from historian David Thompson, who wonders if Kubrick's obsession with technology overwhelms his films' substance. This approach, while superficial, still reveals interesting nuggets; Burns recalls being moved to make films by Lee's She's Gotta Have It, and Arthur Penn recalls both the common practice of studios taking films once they were done shooting and editing them without the director's consent and how he only got to direct Bonnie and Clyde once Francois Truffaut turned it down.

To both the difficulty and the importance the questions the film answers, "Very," and its ostensible "heroes", as perhaps they must be, are Orson Welles and John Cassavetes, one a cautionary

tale and the other an inspiration. Both men fought to make the films that they wanted to make, cobbling together finances and even acting in other peoples' movies in order to finance their own. Welles, who only had complete control on Citizen Kane, is seen as mercurial, charming but confrontational; Bogdanovich relates how he would often pick on potential financiers. Exiled by the studio system and left with a number of unfinished projects, he ended life a broken man, and in an interview he says, "It's been two percent filmmaking and ninety-eight percent hustling. That's no way to spend a life."

Cassavetes, by contrast, is seen as someone whose life's work was deeply satisfying to him, and frequent collaborators Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk speak lovingly of his commitment. The studios took an early film, A Child is Waiting, out of his hands, but otherwise he forged his own path, assembling friends and relatives over and over again to act out personal stories with a semi-improvised feel. The people that the film interviews all worship the freedom that Cassavetes represents and loathe having to make compromises; Burns speaks for the film's point of view as a whole when he says of studio pressure, "It's insane that filmmakers have to play that game, and that's why movies suck," begging the question of what the future has in store.

Edge of Outside also uses a continual visual motif to try to drive its point home. The film occasionally cuts back to a young man in a motel room who hits things, skulks and watches TV, and archival footage plays on his TV screen. This young man seems to somehow represent the independent spirit of frustrated isolation, but the motif feels superfluous and doesn't quite work.

Flaws notwithstanding, though, Edge of Outside is a strong, provocative piece that manages to pack a lot of information into sixty-five tight minutes. It isn't really effective as a comprehensive study of independent film movements (those interested are advised to read Peter Biskind's books, Down and Dirty Pictures and Easy Riders, Raging Bulls), but as an introduction it proves quite enjoyable. If nothing else, it has great taste.

A final note: A title appears at the end of the documentary apologizing for any filmmakers that its creators leave out. Well and good, but I still can't forgive them for ignoring Robert Altman.

Film Grade: B+