“If you know lit­tle about Felli­ni,” warns Roger Ebert in his review of Felli­ni: I’m a Born Liar (watch it free online here), “this is not the place to start.” Per­haps he right­ly issues such a dis­claimer about a for­mal­ly unortho­dox doc­u­men­tary that plunges deeply and imme­di­ate­ly into the aes­thet­ics of its sub­jec­t’s work while pay­ing bare­ly any heed to the facts of his life. But if you can’t say that Fed­eri­co Felli­ni dealt near-exclu­sive­ly in aes­thet­ics, you can’t say it about any­one. The direc­tor’s love of arti­fice, which even­tu­al­ly led to his total ded­i­ca­tion to shoot­ing all scenes on a sound­stage, pro­duced motion pic­tures so flam­boy­ant yet so dis­tinc­tive and per­son­al that first-time view­ers still find them­selves unde­cid­ed as to whether to call them ele­gant or grotesque. The ver­dict, as any reg­u­lar attendee of revival screen­ings of 8½, Juli­et of the Spir­its, Satyri­con, and Amar­cord knows, is that they’re both: grotesque to the extent of their ele­gance, and ele­gant to the extent of their grotesque­ness. This already gives doc­u­men­tar­i­an Dami­an Pet­ti­grew much to work with, and indeed, he would have had the mate­r­i­al and exper­tise to assem­ble a robust essay film on Fellini’s visu­als alone. But he chose to make a fresh­er exam­i­na­tion.

Though he pre­miered the movie in 2002, Pet­ti­grew’s real work on I’m a Born Liar began near­ly twen­ty years before. In 1983, he met with the Ital­ian nov­el­ist Ita­lo Calvi­no, intend­ing to shoot a doc­u­men­tary about him. But upon real­iz­ing that their con­ver­sa­tions came around inevitably to Felli­ni, the writer arranged a sur­prise meet­ing of the two film­mak­ers. Years lat­er, Felli­ni would sub­mit to the ten-hour inter­view from Pet­ti­grew that struc­tures this film. Cer­tain col­lab­o­ra­tors give tes­ti­mo­ny, notably still-shak­en actors like Don­ald Suther­land and Ter­ence Stamp. But Calvi­no’s own appear­ance turns out to shed the most light on his coun­try­man’s work, and vice ver­sa, not least because both of them pre­ferred to find the truth through elab­o­rate fab­ri­ca­tion. I’m a Born Liar’s sur­pris­ing­ly thor­ough Wikipedia page quotes a pas­sage from Calvi­no’s Mr. Palo­mar that sup­pos­ed­ly inspired Felli­ni on a shoot, but may also reflect the whole basis of his craft: “Life on the sur­face is so rich and var­i­ous that I have no urge to enquire fur­ther. I believe that it is only when you’ve come to know the sur­face of things that you can try to find out what lies beneath. But the sur­face of things is inex­haustible.”

Relat­ed con­tent:

Fed­eri­co Felli­ni Intro­duces Him­self to Amer­i­ca in Exper­i­men­tal 1969 Doc­u­men­tary

Fellini’s Fan­tas­tic TV Com­mer­cials

John Tur­tur­ro Reads Ita­lo Calvino’s Ani­mat­ed Fairy Tale

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

Think back to the Amer­i­can inde­pen­dent film boom (some­times known as “indiewood”) of the nineties. Which of that time’s fresh-faced auteurs strike you as impor­tant? Which of their first fea­tures retain their impact? Quentin Taran­ti­no’s Reser­voir Dogs, cer­tain­ly; Kevin Smith’s Clerks, which sum­moned a vast fan cul­ture out of nowhere; Robert Rodriguez’s much-dis­cussed “$7,000 movie” El Mari­achi; Steven Soder­bergh’s con­cept-prov­ing Sex, Lies, and Video­tape, per­haps the bell­wether of the entire move­ment. But you may under­es­ti­mate Richard Lin­klater’s low-key debut Slack­er at your per­il.

He con­struct­ed the 1991 film (avail­able to view on YouTube) as a series of set pieces — some irrev­er­ent, some mean­der­ing, and some bizarre, but most all of them with stealth­ily uni­ver­sal res­o­nance — tak­ing place across the col­lege town of Austin, Texas. Dou­glas Cou­p­land hav­ing coined the term “Gen­er­a­tion X” with his epony­mous nov­el less than four months before, the North Amer­i­can zeit­geist had come to take seri­ous, if smirk­ing, notice of all these slouchy twen­tysome­things who seemed to turn up with­out warn­ing, spout­ing end­less streams of ideas, the­o­ries, wise­cracks, and elab­o­rate plans, yet drained of any­thing rec­og­niz­able as ambi­tion. These slack­ers, as we now call them with­out hes­i­ta­tion, make up the drama­tis per­sonæ of Slack­er. You can see them in their own pecu­liar type of action by watch­ing the pic­ture free online.

The first slack­er to appear, a deeply con­flict­ed motor­mouth in the back seat of a taxi, comes played by Lin­klater him­self. He seems nor­mal enough, essen­tial­ly an aim­less late-twen­tysome­thing you still meet in cof­fee shops today. But as the cam­era drifts from block to block, from neigh­bor­hood to Austin neigh­bor­hood, pick­ing up on any low-momen­tum sto­ry it can, behav­iors turn stranger. A book­store clerk who lives for JFK con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries log­or­rhe­ical­ly describes his own book-in-progress on the sub­ject to a help­less acquain­tance. A skin­ny stu­dent type liv­ing in a room crammed with tele­vi­sions and even wear­ing one on back claims des­per­a­tion to own yet anoth­er set. Two fel­lows egg a third on to throw a type­writer off a bridge and thus sym­bol­i­cal­ly final­ize a breakup. And let us nev­er for­get the immor­tal seg­ment where­in But­t­hole Surfers drum­mer Tere­sa Tay­lor attempts to sell what she describes as a “Madon­na pap smear.” Like the ear­ly films of Taran­ti­no, Smith, and Rodriguez, Slack­er remains thrilling­ly fun to watch, espe­cial­ly for the enthu­si­ast of micro-bud­get cin­e­ma. But some­where around its final pas­sage, which begins when a slack­er picks up the Pix­elvi­sion cam­era through which we our­selves see the next few min­utes, you real­ize you’ve been watch­ing some­thing on a high­er plane. Forced to bet which of the films of this move­ment schol­ars will rel­ish enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly a cen­tu­ry from now, I’d bet on Slack­er, which has now beed added to our ever-expand­ing list, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

My Best Friend’s Birth­day, Quentin Tarantino’s 1987 Debut Film

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.