WhatzUp

American Movie
by Derek Neff

At a time when reality-based TV is hotter than ever, it's surprising that movie documentaries still get largely overlooked. Take director Chris Smith's enormously entertaining new film, American Movie, for instance. American Movie tracks the ups and downs of Mark Borchardt, an aggressively single-minded would-be movie director living near Milwaukee, as Mark struggles to make a movie "about rust and decay" called Northwestern. At 30, Mark is a hard drinker who knows he has wasted too much of his life up to this point and who refuses to waste any more.

It soon becomes clear to Mark that he lacks the funds to make Northwestern, so he instead focuses his efforts on finishing up a short film he has already begun, a low-budget horror flick called Coven (which he stubbornly mispronounces as COE-ven). The film looks like a groaner, but Mark keeps plugging away at it, refusing to give up. Mark is surrounded by a patchwork of family and friends who all pitch in to help, fueled along by Mark's dreams. (One scene shows his Swedish-born mother reluctantly donning a sinister-looking black cape and hood, even though she really needs to go to the grocery store.)

Then there's Mike. Mike is Mark's best friend, and Mike is, to put it bluntly, not real blessed in the brains department. But, boy, is he likeable. Mike is a recovering alcoholic (which is a difficult thing to be around Mark). He's a so-so guitar player who good-naturedly does whatever Mark tells him to do, even if he's not quite sure why he's doing it.

As a filmmaker, Borchardt seems to know his stuff, but his knowledge all seems merely rote, hollowly textbook; the way American Movie is edited at least, he exhibits no genuine feel for filmmaking as an art. No, Mark sees directing purely as a means of escape: escape from his parents, from his drinking, from his child-support debts, and from his dread of becoming, in essence, his Uncle Bill.

Mark's relationship with his uncle is the most fascinating part of the film; Uncle Bill is putting up most of the money for Coven, but he refuses to entertain any real hopes that his nephew -- or, for that matter, anyone else -- will ever do anything worthwhile. It's not clear what has happened to Bill to make him the way he is, but whatever it was, it must have been tragic. In one heartbreakingly poignant scene, Uncle Bill, who plays a bit-part in Coven, keeps bungling the same line over and over. "Say it like you believe it," Mark instructs him from where he stands behind the mic. "I don't believe it," Uncle Bill complains. "I don't believe anything anymore."

Mark is deeply flawed, but I found myself pulling for him nonetheless. He may never make it as a big-time movie director, but that may not matter now; he has just starred in one of the best movies of recent years. Besides, he really doesn't need to make his "rust and decay" movie anymore; Chris Smith just made it for him, and he has injected some hope in it to boot. For its unforgettable evocation of a place and a people, American Movie is a very funny, very sad, and uniquely great piece of filmmaking.