American Movie

American Movie

“American Movie,” a documentary about someone who wants to make a movie more than you do, is the film to see if you have ever wished to create one yourself. Mark Borchardt might desire to shoot a film more than any other person on this planet. He is a 30-year old jack of all trades from Menomonee Falls, Wis., who has been producing movies since he was in his teens and envisions an epic about his life called “Northwestern,” which will concern “rust and decay.” Mark Borchardt exists.

I have met him. I love his soul, and even some shots in his only seen (by me) film, “Coven.” I saw it at the 1999 Sundance film festival not because it was playing there, but because after the midnight premiere of “American Movie,” there wasn’t anyone in the theater who didn’t want to stick around for Mark’s 35-minute horror picture that we watch him make during the course of the documentary.

“American Movie” is a very funny and sometimes very sad documentary directed by Chris Smith and produced by Sarah Price about Mark’s life, his friends, his family, his films and his dreams. From one point of view, Mark is a loser a man who has spent all of his adult years making unreleased and occasionally unfinished movies with titles like “The More the Scarier III,” who raids the bank account of elderly Uncle Bill for cash to keep going; uses pals as well as inept local amateur actors as cast members; enlists mom as cinematographer; whose composer and closest friend is a guy named Mike Schank who after one drug trip too many seems like Kevin Smith’s Silent Bob’s twin brother.

Borchardt’s life is a suspense story of poverty, despair, frustration and tenacity. He’s behind on child support payments, drinks too much, can’t convince even his ancient Uncle Bill that he has a future in movies. Bill lives in a trailer surrounded by stacks of magazines he may have subscribed to on the theory that he would win the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes. He brightens slightly when Mark shows him an actress’ photo.

“She wants to be in your movie, Bill!” Bill studies the picture: “Oh, my gorsh!” But when Mark talks to him about great cinema, what Bill hears is “cinnamon.” And when Bill flubs any number of takes while trying to deliver the ominous last line of “Coven,” and Mark tells him to say it like he means it, Bill replies candidly, “I don’t believe it.” Smith’s camera follows Borchardt as he expounds his theories of cinema (his favorite movies are “The Night of the Living Dead” and “The Seventh Seal”). He watches as Mark and Bill go to the bank so that Bill can grudgingly sign over some savings.

He sits in on cast meetings, where one actor local theater stalwart Robert Jorge explains in a petulant British accent that “Coven” is properly pronounced “CO-ven.” Not according to Mark; his film is pronounced COVE-n: “I don’t want it to rhyme with oven!” Some of these scenes could work in a screwball comedy; one involves an actor being thrown headfirst through a kitchen cabinet.

To preserve the moment for posterity, Mark enlists his long-suffering Swedish-American mother Monica as cameraperson, although she complains that she has shopping to do. He gets down on all fours behind his actor (whose name winds up spelled three different ways) who discovers belatedly that Mark’s special effects scheme is merely to ram his head through the door. The first time, the actor’s head bounces off. Mark readies take two. One reason to see “Coven” is this shot, in light of what we now know.

For another shot, Mark lies flat on the frozen earth for low-angle shots of his friends in black cloaks. “Look menacing!” he yells hard for them to do since their faces are obscured.

Should his mother be understanding, Mark’s dad would hide away only showing his face on occasion to warn about swearing. Mark has two brothers who have grown tired of him, one saying he’d make a great “factory worker”, and the other noting that “his mouth is his best asset.” Yet no one else embodies the tormented artist as much as Mark Borchardt does. No Parisian poet starving in a garret has ever been more determined to succeed.

In order to write his screenplays in private, he drives his old beater truck out to the commuter airport parking lot and works on them with a yellow legal pad. He delivers Wall Street Journals before dawn to keep himself afloat and vacuums carpets at a mausoleum for extra cash. His friends and crew members are loyal to him, and while discussing the future with his girlfriend she mentions that “if he can do 25% of what he wants that’ll be more than most people.”

Every year at Sundance new filmmakers come out of nowhere with masterpieces made for peanuts using volunteer casts and crews; last year’s find was not “Coven,” but “The Blair Witch Project,” which cost $25,000 and so far has grossed $150 million. Someday Mark Borchardt hopes for this kind of success; if it never comes it won’t be because he didn’t try.

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