Call it the Rorschach theory of criticism: some movies function best as mirrors, inspiring writing that says more about the writer than the film. Watchmaker Films’ fabulous new DVD release of Eagle Pennell’s The Whole Shootin’ Match, the 1978 DIY feature which famously inspired Robert Redford to launch the Sundance Institute, which would eventually take over the Utah/U.S. Film Festival where he saw it play, includes an unusually artful documentary by Pennell’s brother/composer and nephew, an interview with the filmmaker, a soundtrack CD and an extensive package of writings on the film from the likes of Paul Cullum, Emmanuel Levy, and SXSW founder Lewis Black.

Two reviews by Roger Ebert are reprinted: the critic’s original three-star assessment from the Chicago Sun-Times, dated April 9, 1980; and a reevaluation pegged to the film’s 2007 restoration. Upping his rating by an additional star, Ebert focuses much of his second Shootin’ piece on Pennell’s alcoholism (the filmmaker essentially drank himself to death shortly before turning 50 in 2002) and the ways in which it can be seen to inform every frame of his first feature. Ebert remembers seeing Shootin’ for the first time at Telluride in 1980: “I went for a walk on the mountain-side with Eagle and mentioned that he had made a film about alcoholism. He said that had never occurred to him, though he thought I was right.” If this lengthy CHICAGO magazine profile on the critic is to be believed, that conversation took place just a year after Ebert entered treatment to deal with his own drinking problem.

It’s possible that this is just that time of year and I have SXSW on the brain, but when I watched The Whole Shootin’ Match a few days ago, more than seeing the film as a love/hate letter to the bottle, more than spotting its shared DNA with various films by Richard Linklater and Andrew Bujalski (and, to a lesser extent, Wes Anderson and Gus Van Sant), I saw it as a catalyst for a conversation about Austin’s evolving film cultural history.

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