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Given that we live in a huge, sprawling country whose population is almost entirely descended from outcasts, runaways, and slaves, it’s not surprising that the U.S. has an outstanding capacity for strangeness. This berzerb-o diversity shines through whenever one considers moviedom’s attempts to capture on film some aspect of the national dream. For every Norma Rae there’s a Godfather; for every Forrest Gump, a Boogie Nights; for each Flashdance, a Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But they all pale in comparison to this amazing little documentary, a low-key, unassuming, yet strikingly ambitious project which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 1999. The first directorial outing from cinematographer Chris Smith, American Movie truly is as peculiarly American an odyssey as you’re likely ever to run across.
Over the course of a year or so, Smith tracked the life of Mark Borchardt, a 30-ish indie-filmmaker from the chilly Milwaukee suburb of Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin (which is a veritable place, not a fictitious environ from “Rocky and Bullwinkle” or a Gore Vidal novel). Lest you think every aspiring Spielberg is an NYU or USC grad with a history like Kevin Smith’s, get a load of Borchardt’s resume. A self-described “half-Christian, half-Satanist” (although one can’t be sure he fully understands the implications of either), he’s a scraggly, fuzzy-toothed high school dropout who runs a paper route and works weekends at a cemetery; he’s sired three kids by estranged ex-girlfriend Alyssa; he owes his parents, with whom he lives, thousands of dollars borrowed to pay for cameras, film stock, and child-support. But Mark has a few things more genuinely valuable than any film school degree: undeniable raw talent with a camera; an almost preternatural gift of gab (which made for a great Letterman appearance); the homespun charisma to assemble a comically inept circle of friends who might conveniently be labeled losers but would do anything to help him out; and, most of all, a furious, unquenchable passion to make movies.
Since age 14, when he drafted his buddies to shoot the first installment in an ongoing series of 8mm horror shorts laden with cheesy homemade gore, Borchardt manifested artistic tendencies that would later prompt acquaintances to admit they always figured him more likely to wind up a homicidal stalker than a director. But by the time he was 23 he had turned his attention to a full-length b&w feature titled Northwestern, a paean to the beer-soaked hopelessness of growing up in a snowbound blue-collar wasteland. When after six years the project has progressed no further than some test footage, Mark decides instead to concentrate on finishing a 35-minute horror short, Coven (which he insists on pronouncing, as do by association almost all his friends except one foppish local stage actor, as if it rhymed with “woven”), whose sale on video would hopefully finance the more ambitious project.
This presents another set of problems, since Coven has itself been sitting on the shelf for two years thanks to strategic underfunding. Needing what the industry casually likes to call “completion funds,” Mark finds a reluctant benefactor in his Uncle Bill, a barely cognizant octogenarian who lives in a rundown trailer despite having accrued a $280,000 bank account. So fortified, Coven resumes shooting with a vengeance, which means regrouping the troops (including new girlfriend Joan, who also serves as “associate producer/location scout”) for much traipsing through mud, snow, and living rooms, as well as a particularly excruciating day when one friend is pummeled nearly senseless by repeated attempts to ram his head through a kitchen cabinet. Much diligent hair-pulling later, principal filming is finally wrapped.
Then the real fun starts. Post-production brings many nights camping in with his endearingly longsuffering young children (Smith at one point asks the brood, “What was the last movie your father took you to see?” Their response – “Apocalypse Now. ‘The horror…the horror…’” would seem to bode well for the next generation of cinematic Borchardts) on the editing room floor, not to mention numerous close-up and FX shots that frequently require pressing one of the kids or Mark’s heavily-accented Swedish mom into duty (“But I was going to do the shopping…”) as camera operator. These are minor problems compared to the challenge of getting Uncle Bill to endure over 30 attempts to re-record his opening line of dialogue. By the time Coven finally has its premiere at a local theater, the collective sigh of relief registers on seismometers as far away as Addis Ababa.
Co-produced by Michael Stipe (who’s actively taken up the cause of off-center film, having served in a similar capacity on Velvet Goldmine, The Limey, and Being John Malkovich), American Movie boasts a cast of priceless characters so goofy that at times it’s difficult to believe Smith isn’t pulling our leg with a Horatio Alger mockumentary like Drop Dead Gorgeous. Mark’s best friend Mike, a dippy, post-lysergic, lotto-obsessed musician who looks a bit like Kevin Smith might if a truck transporting nitrous oxide overturned in his living room, simply seems too absurd to be real. Still, when it’s all over and we finally get to see the disquieting, atmospheric product of everyone’s labors, it’s impossible not to feel at least a little pang admiration for the talent it took to craft anything even remotely coherent from such meager resources.
There’s no telling whether Borchardt will go on to any conventional success as a director; he’s not exactly the sort you’d want to videotape your wedding or bar mitzvah (his take on natural childbirth might be interesting, though). But if sincerity counts for anything, I wouldn’t be surprised of one day we’re standing in line for Coven: Episode One – The Menomonee Menace. B+
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