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.…
Man, I need to do something, anything, so that I don't relate to this movie.
This is not only one of my all-time favorite documentaries, but one of my favorite movies of all time, period. Mark Borchardt's journey to make Northwestern, and then Coven, is one of the great filmmaking stories of a generation.
Mark really does have an indomitable spirit. He's out there risking everything to make his art, which is more than can be said about most of these types of stories, wherein established industry people wax poetic about how "they risked it all" to get their vision on the screen. Borchardt actually is doing that. This story has real stakes, some of them so high it makes you feel actively uncomfortable about where some of this goes.
There's a really dark subtext…
I cannot rate this film. I honestly thought it was a mockumentary for the whole time and watched it with completely wrong eyes.
Like la la land but about a white trash filmmaker. Solid 8/10. If this guy can make a movie, I can make a movie!
The greatest film ever made about a guy with a dream and whether or not he deserves to achieve it.
(He probably doesn’t)
One of the most entertaining docs I've ever seen. See it if a filmmaker for sure!
I think this might be my favourite documentary ever made. Hilarious, poetic and endearing.
Tobias Andersen 4,489 films
Rules: Generate a number (from 1 to x) via: www.random.org
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Ivica_Pusticki 1,000 films
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A list of Edgar Wright's favorite 1000 Movies per his list on Mubi on July 27th, 2016.
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