SnoopyStyle
Outside of Milwaukee, Mark Borchardt is trying to make his independent film Northwestern. He's a film enthusiast with no money and some minor experience in filmmaking. Using relatives, his credit card, slackers friends and open casting, Mark struggles to pull everything together. He decides to finish his horror short Coven and use the proceeds to finance his dream movie. It's a long winding unexpected journey.I think most people took this movie as a straight up documentary and enjoy the real world of guerrilla indie filmmaking. I take it a little differently. It never seem real that the documentary is far superior to anything that Borchardt could achieve. This movie seems set up somehow. Yet I can't really say that it is. This conflict colors my enjoyment of this movie. I couldn't really decipher how much of this is true and how much is true for the camera.
tnrcooper
This movie, about supremely untalented American film-maker Mark Borchardt and his attempts to make a short film in order to make a small amount of money which will launch him into fame and fortune as a film-maker, is riveting. As they say, fact is stranger than fiction. That is certainly borne out by this picture. Borchardt uses his friends, family, and assorted local actors to try and complete this picture.Borchardt is a character who could drive a novel or inspire cult members. One sometimes wonders why so many of the folks who people his film work for as long as they do, with him. But in truth, it's not hard to tell. Borchardt, however misguided, has vision. He doesn't have much talent and he has a drinking problem, but he has a vision. He has determination and perseverance that others can only dream of. He has charisma. It makes him a compelling leader, but unfortunately he is devoid of many great ideas. His lack of focus and alcoholism extend the length of the production almost indefinitely. He does complete "Coven" and even gets a premiere in his hometown theater, but it takes him a long time.He never makes the movie "Northwestern" which he dreams of making. Perhaps he didn't have the vision to bring that movie to fruition, but he did want to make epic films and leave the everyday grind of life in the US. He had his dream. Unfortunately, he didn't have the vision to bring his dreams to life but he had an awful lot of determination. If people take potshots at Borchardt for his supposedly being "white trash" then I hope they are living lives of total sophistication and order because if they aren't, they're total hypocrites. Yes, Borchardt might exhibit characteristics of being "white-trash", but the purity of his belief in getting out from under the life he had, is absolutely inspiring.
MisterWhiplash
Sometimes all you need is passion, or a need to keep working at something so that all of what you want the world to see is in the work. The so-called 'American Dream' is all about somebody trying to get out of the little world they're living in and make something of themselves, to be more than they are. In this case we have a filmmaker, very independent minded and determined through years of trial and tribulation, who wants to get his dream somehow. Which is not easy since the guy, Mark Borchardt, is an beer-guzzling factory/cemetery worker who has three kids with an ex-wife he barely sees, a mountain of debt, an executive producer Uncle who is half-senile and half never supportive (despite giving up the thousands for the film-making), and, obviously, gets very depressed. But it's a story, in spite of everything that happens, funny or tragic, is hopeful and inspiring about the future for Mark.And it's also about something else, how making a movie takes time, and money, sometimes both in equal measure. Borchardt's movie he's planning is a feature-length exploration of his life and times in Minnesota, Northwestern, but he's having trouble getting it off the ground: not ready to direct, not ready with the script, no locations or a solid cast. So instead he goes back to a short film he started years ago, a psychological horror called 'Coven' (or CO-ven as he points out), which is a mere 40 minute movie that takes him more than three years of production. As he's making this movie we get to know who Borchardt is- or at least what Chris Smith gets to know him as or reveals- and his family and friends, including his old and not-all-there Uncle Bill, his friend Mike who is an ex drug addict turned gambling addict, and his colleagues and girlfriend who all comment about Mark's ways as an artist and as a human being.A marker of a truly knowing and superb documentary is how close a filmmaker can get to the subject and make it into a story, make it into a story that is absorbing and true to something in the human condition, and can be just told well through the usual means of film-making itself. As Smith's film is about such a subject that he's making, one might think back to other documentaries on directors with a super (and I mean SUPER) passion for the story they're telling, almost to the point where they might not know when to let go (Herzog and Coppola docs come to mind like Burden of Dreams or Hearts of Darkness). But here we see a man who is a decent guy, though never truly professional. As one says, he's instinctual and primal, he knows his stuff, but whether he can finish his movie, and maybe finally get a catharsis from it (if only financially) remains to be seen.His struggle isn't just one of being an artist and after something he needs time and money to find, but about the ways that a person goes about finding it his own way, and that's a big key to the success of the movie. We care about this guy, even if some of the things he does or comes across are, frankly, quite funny in the way that Borchardt goes about filming Coven, or directs (or mis-directs) his actors, or says he'll ship out 3,000 copies of his short film without a clear idea who his audience is. And Smith really captures the other people around him with a precise but tender accuracy: we understand who they are at first, but then that understanding deepens based on the circumstances they live in (i.e. the method of alcoholism among Mark and his friends over the years, vodka being a big component), such as his Uncle's disillusioned feeling about Mark's lack of success, despite his backing of the project and what he does. Watch the scene where Mark directs his Uncle in the ADR recording of a certain few lines and one gets a key moment: Mark will stop at nothing to get what he's after, even if all hope might be lost.American Movie is a bittersweet experience. We want to root for this guy even if he is hapless and whose troubles might hit close to home for some, or may seem pathetic to others. He's not born into Hollywood royalty and didn't go to film school, but he'll keep on what he's doing just because, if nothing else, there is nothing else really except for the toilet at the cemetery full of feces. It's an entertaining parable, and a revealing portrait of truly independent film-making. Speaking of which, make sure to watch Borchardt's movie Coven on the DVD of American Movie - ultimately, when all is said and done, despite what the few clips in the documentary might suggest, he's a really good director. Sometimes, perhaps, humping the American dream in a small Northwest town is worth it.
