Mark C. Borchardt is a filmmaker. Sure he may not have the best actors, or the best camera, or a big production deal, or luck, or talent, or even a feature length film, but he has what really matters, and that's the gumption.
"American Movie" is a very fitting title for this uniquely american tale of one man out searching for his dream. Mark will not let anything come in his way, he is a man on a mission.
This documentary takes place over the course of two years as, at first, Mark tries to get together his magnum opus feature film Northwestern. When he realizes this is an impossibility, he goes to work on a short film Coven (but pronounced COven, because, to quote Mark, "Coven sounds like oven man, and that, that doesn't work") which he plans to release to make some money from Northwestern.
Mark is an acoholic. He isn't extremely bright. He curses and yells and screams and is manic depressive. But he is also a really nice guy, who is so tender and loving with his three kids and his senile old uncle Bill. At the end of the movie we respect him and wish him well. The movie is, overall, really about the American dream, and how Mark is truly living it, despite his lack of any kind of success. To qoute Roger Ebert "Mark Borchardt is the embodiment of a lonely, rejected, dedicated artist. No poet in a Paris garret has ever been more determined to succeed."

MIKE SCHANK: "You know, the way I look at it, with the lottery, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. But with drugs and alcohol, especially drugs, you always lose."

MARK BORCHARDT: "Man, I got so drunk last night, I was trying to call Morroco. I was trying to get to the hotel Hilton in Tanger. That's just pathetic man! Is that what you want to do with your life man, suck down pepperint schnapps and try to call Morocco at two o'clock in the morning. That's just senseless".

MARK BORCHARDT: "Coven is a 35 millimeter thriller film shot on black and white reversal. It's...an alcholic man, compelled to go to this group meeting by his one and only friend. But they're not that helpful, the group. You know the group thing mike.
MIKE SCHANK: "Yeah"

UNCLE BILL BORCHARDT: "It's allright, it's okay, there's something to live for, Jesus told me so!".

MARK BORCHARDT: "I want you to say it like you believe it!"
UNCLE BILL BORHCARDT: "I don't believe it!"

MIKE SCHANK: "Okay, so I'm at this party, allright, and I have three hits of acid. So I drop one, and the nest thing I know, I'm on the ground. So she dragged me onto her lawn, and then her grand mother came home and said I had to go to the hospital. So I woke up in the hospital and searched my pockets for the other two hits of acid, because I wanted to drop them there. But they were gone because they had taken them from. And they told me that it was just some blotter paper with some acid on it, and they told me I was gonna die. But they just kept me in there for a month, then told me I was the worst case they had ever seen, and let me go. Yeah. I've got a million stories like that."

-The Trailer.

-Mark and Mike talk about Coven in front of a burned down building.

-Recording dialogue with uncle bill.

-In a scene cut from the film, Mark discusses the philisophical implications of Burger KIng vs. McDonalds.

-Mark goes on letterman (not in the movie, but I thought I 'd put it here anyway.)

-The theme song from Coven.

-Bach Fugue.

-Hopping Mellow Stones.

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