Edge of Outside

Film I don't think there's anything more exciting than discovering a great film that you'd never heard of but which can change your expectations of what is possible in celluloid. In TCM's excellent new documentary, Edge of Outside, director Darren Aronofsky describes the process of finding Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It after the showing of a Rocky film he wanted to attend had sold out and realising that there was another way of making film with a different aesthetic leading to his own production of the ambitious Pi. This new documentary that surveys the independent spirit over the past century is replete with such stories as filmmakers repay the debt they have to their antecedants.

All of the major independents are covered (Cassavettes, Corman, Welles) but cleverly the definition is widened to include directors who have worked within the studio system but have still been able to keep their independence. Alfred Hitchock for example only shot and printed the footage that he knew he'd want in the film so that when it reached post-production the editor was left with few choices. Martin Scorsese acknowledges Sam Fuller as another example of a maverick working in the studio system and there is a surprising moment in which similar shots from both directors films are intercut to demonstrate the influence Fuller had on the look of Scorsese's films. The documentary is rich with images as the often jerky look of an independent motion picture, with not a camera track or crane available is revealed; it's a shame that none of the many clips are captioned to show which films they're from, although this may have been an artistic choice to allow the cinematography some room to breath.

The programme is particular good in describing the compromises that independent film makers have to make to get their vision on screen on a tiny budget - Stanley Tucci noting how the same five or six cars tend to appear in ever street scene of his own low budget period drama hiding contemporary features. Good archive interview footage too of Sam Fuller and particularly Orson Welles who looks like he could charm money out of anyone - as is revealed this wasn't the case as his producer described how he'd be very close to a deal only to have the rug pulled out when Welles took a dislike to possible financier. A longer documentary might have been able to give more space to international cinema although it does quite rightly list the Italian neo-realists and the French New Wave; understandably auteur theory is mentioned briefly but without the jargon - the importance of the director's vision being paramount in the independent scene.

It's probably really difficult to decide what needs to be left into such a short survey and the director Shannon Davies has quite rightly decided to concentrate on those directors whose work is being featured in the month long season which is appearing on the channel, covering only briefly those subjects such as the new Hollywood directors of the seventies which have been served in documentaries elsewhere. That section does provide one of the best quotes of the programme which also seems like an apt description of the whole piece. From Bonnie and Clyde director Arthur Penn, on the short period when the studios were literally throwing money at any twenty-something with long hair to make features:

'Didn't last but it was fun!'

Edge of Outside is on Turner Classic Movies in the US on the 19th July and a season of films continues every Wednesday night throughout July. Full listing of movies and more details available here.