Independent Film News

TCM's 'Edge of Outside' Honors Indie Pioneers

"And that's why movies suck," laments Ed Burns at the end of Edge of Outside, Turner Classic Movies' new special on independent filmmakers. He's referring to the films, and the people who make them, that compromise so much that they lose any hint of an artistic spark.

Airing Wednesday at 8pm Eastern, TCM's one-hour documentary is the voice of filmmakers like Burns (including Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee, Alexandre Rockwell, Darren Aronofsky), actors (Gena Rowlands, Steve Buscemi) and historians who owe their craft to a boy's club of early directors who remained committed to that spark, whatever the cost. Sam Fuller, Nicholas Ray, John Cassavetes, Stanley Kubrick and Orson Welles (pictured) are all among the directors highlighted.

A crash course in independent film history, the special is sans narrator; instead, we're treated to unassuming anecdotes and insights from the people who lived and worked with these men, as if sitting down over a cup of coffee. Garth Craven, a film editor, recalls the way Sam Peckinpah referred to himself as a hired-hand. "He was anything but the hired hand," Craven muses, setting the record straight. "He would go his own way." Gena Rowlands, once married to John Cassavetes, remembers Cassavetes personally calling theater owners to ask them to show his films.

For filmlovers, Edge of Outside is like looking through a keyhole into the creative process of these largely uncompromising artists. No respectable independent filmmaker would give up having final cut--the last word--on their film. These were the men who made masterpieces with it (Welles's Citizen Kane), or demanded their names be removed from the credits when they didn't have it (so the story goes with Cassavetes's A Child is Waiting). True filmmakers go to any lengths to get their films made--Kubrick took Lolita to London, Paths of Glory to Germany. And while a shortage of financing and resources can seem like the kiss of death, Orson Welles chose to see it differently. "He said, 'The enemy of art is the absence of limitations'," remembers Henry Jaglom. A director making his film for love of the craft will find a way to get his shot without breaking the bank.

While studios aren't going anywhere and big summer blockbusters will keep bringing in millions, Edge of Outside is a welcome reminder that art is not lost from filmmaking. Far from it, in fact. For every Ron Howard there's three Noah Baumbachs. For every Superman Returns there's five Little Miss Sunshines. Like a painter who never sells a print, these filmmakers don't do it for the money. They do it for the art.

Edge of Outside premieres Wednesday, July 5th on TCM. It will encore throughout the month.

Posted by Lisa on July 1, 2006 06:02 PM
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