1999 Directed by Chris Smith
American Movie is the story of filmmaker Mark Borchardt, his mission, and his dream. Spanning over two years of intense struggle with his film, his family, financial decline, and spiritual crisis, American Movie is a portrayal of ambition, obsession, excess, and one man's quest for the American Dream.
This movie is often cited as an example of a documentary that exploits its subject, but if you watch this and can only laugh at Mark Borchardt, that's on you. I'd hate to live in a world where his story isn't told.
This movie is hilarious and inspiring. It is absolutely untouchable. I can pop this DVD in at any time and enjoy this film as much as I did the first time I saw it. One of my favourite films of all time.
I guess some people think this is exploitative, but it and the people in it are so inspiring to me. I love Mark Borchardt’s obsession with film; how he talks excitedly about shooting on 16mm black-and-white reversal stock and then later spends months stuck at a flatbed, cutting his direct-market thriller together. Watching this at a time when everyone has an HD camera and edit suite in their pocket, it’s amazing to watch a group of people who probably have no formal training actually shooting, tracking, and cutting their own movie together. Using a camcorder to make a cheapo SOV version of Coven or Northwestern would’ve been copping out — they wouldn’t be movies.
I love every single person in…
This movie plays so much better for me now than it did in 1999, when I just saw it as an uncomfortable, mocking portrayal of a couple of awkward stoners trying and sort-of-succeeding at making a movie. Watching it now, I realize how rich a character study it is, and how much viewers get to learn about the lives of these men, and what filmmaking means to them. It comes across as friendly and understanding rather than sneering, but it acknowledges that not everyone is cut out to make the Great American Movie.
Currently a Movie Of The Week feature at TheDissolve.com.
"I was called to the bathroom at the cemetery to take care of something. I walked in the bathroom, and in the middle toilet right there... somebody didn't shit in the toilet, somebody shat on the toilet. They shat on the wall, they shat on the floor. I had to clean it up, man, but before that, for about 10 to 15 seconds man, I just stared at somebody's shit, man. To be totally honest with you, man, it was a really, really profound moment. Cuz I was thinkin', "I'm 30 years old, and in about 10 seconds I gotta start cleaning up somebody's shit, man.""
... guys... this is a documentary....
For anyone who ever wanted to make a film or ever left a dream behind
Making movies is hard work.
Obvious statement, right? Well, yeah, but it really can't be stressed enough.
Every project has its unique set of challenges, be it a multi-million dollar big studio production or a little passion project shot with your buddies on the weekend with a camera you got from the local pawn shop and whatever money you've saved from mowing lawns last summer. The maddening amount of organization one has to do. The scriptwriting (and re-writing). The storyboarding. The scheduling, location scouting and casting. That's not even mentioning getting the shots in a certain number of takes and the hours of editing afterward.…
It’s easy to imagine Mark Borchardt as another Nick Castle or Dan O’Bannon. Had his parents had the money to send him to the likes of USC – the famed Californian film school whose notable alumni include Castle, O’Bannon, John Carpenter and George Lucas – things might have turned out differently. Borchardt might have made Coven and Northwestern and kicked off a successful career in genre film-making. But this isn’t that movie. This is American Movie, a story about the futile pursuit of the fabled American dream and everything it represents.
Borchardt and his friends are regular working-class Wisconsin kids; they lack the connections and financial frameworks that so often facilitate the middle classes and their rise to the top.…
Love this film. Loved it even more at Prince Charles in London, a place that has thoroughly stolen my heart.
Mike is my hero.
"He wants to be somewhere where he's not...but don't most people want to be somewhere where they're not?"
I think we've all been a little Mark. We've all be a little Bill. And we could only hope to be as blissfully aloof as Mike.
Mark is all gumption and moxie. If all it take to realize dreams was heart and soul, he would be straight at the top.
Don't get me wrong, I was more Mark than I care to admit. I've been there making family stand waiting around in the woods so I could get a stupid shot for my stupid movie. I've kept people for hours and hours trying to do something I couldn't put into words, only…
i don't make movies or ever really plan on it, but this seeing this really hit home for me. maybe it's for fear of one day ending up a bit like Mark, but watching him do everything in his power to make Coven in hopes of one day financing Northwestern was the most inspiring thing that i've seen all year.
also, his friend mike is a truly special person that made me smile throughout.
It was a really profound moment, I'm 30 years old man, and in about 15 seconds I'm about to be cleaning up somebody's shit man...
If that single line doesn't describe what this movie is all about and isn't an exact metaphor for life in general then I don't know up or down, left or right. All I know is I wanna grasp the American dream just as hard as Mark Borchardt. Highly HIGHLY recommend watching this too good to be true documentary.
This movie is so fucking funny and so fucking sad. It is easily one of the most genuine and honest films I have ever seen and not once does it come off as exploitative or disingenuous. It is a real look at a filmmaker who, as far as he's concerned, is gonna make that big American dream a reality. Nobody in this movie is a saint and nobody has it quite all together and I love it dearly for that. This movie always reminds me to not even try, it just reminds me to go and fucking do it.
Hay gente cuyo mayor sueño en la vida es dirigir películas sin importar si carece de recursos, un buen guion o actores profesionales. ‘American Movie’ nos introduce a un grupo de personas que parecen salidas de un pueblo vecino a los de ‘Napoleon Dynamite’, pero que nos entretienen no solo en su excentricidad sino en la pasión de su líder, Mark Borchardt.
‘American Movie’ es la clase de película que nos obliga a reírnos de sus personajes un minuto y crea completa empatía por ellos al siguiente. Sin duda, sigue siendo uno de los retratos más entrañables y divertidos sobre la pasión por el cine.
Tobias Andersen 5,011 films
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