American Movie film review

certificate_15

AMERICAN MOVIE

The art of film-making isn't all glitz, glamour, fat pay cheques and star-studded premieres. For every actor or director oiling the cogs of the Hollywood machine, there are dozens of independent film-makers whose tireless work passes by without recognition. Hapless souls like 30-year-old Milwaukee native Mark Borchardt, the fascinating subject of Chris Smith's documentary, American Movie.

Borchardt is a dreamer who has been making films on his Super 8 camera since he was 14. Friends and family are the reluctant cast and crew for these cheap and cheery efforts, all gladly mucking in to help Mark achieve his ultimate goal: to make an epic about his formative years growing up in Menomonee Falls, entitled Northwestern.

When we first meet Mark, in the autumn of 1995, he still hasn't managed to raise the financing to commit his grand vision to celluloid. Reluctantly, he revisits a half-finished black-and-white short called Coven.

He reasons that if he can finish Coven, and sell 3,000 copies of this miniature masterpiece on video for 14.95 each, he should have enough funds to make Northwestern.

In order to get Coven off the ground, Mark persuades his 80-year-old Uncle Bill to stump up the 3,000 dollar budget, producing a photo of a pretty young actress and remarking, "She wants to be in your movie Bill!". The loveable old soul, whose memory is fading fast, is clearly impressed, and is ferried post haste down to the bank to withdraw the necessary funds.

Like many of the people in American Movie, Bill would be a fascinating subject for a documentary on his own. Despite having more than 200,000 dollars to his name, he chooses to live alone in a windswept trailer park. He enjoys writing surreal songs with lyrics that sound like they have been plucked out of thin air: "I'll visit your grave when you die/But I don't know where it is/So where is it?" Another character who deserves a film to himself is best friend Mike Schank, a guitar player who provides the music for all of Mark's features and indeed American Movie. He seems to be in a permanently drug- or alcohol-induced swoon in front of the camera, burbling complete nonsense or collapsing into fits of giggles. Only much later do we find out that Mike is in counselling, and that his Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor drives him to his Gamblers Anonymous meetings. Sometimes the truth can be so fantastically ridiculous.