The film opens with Mark putting together a script and casting a film
called
'Northwestern', which must be put on hold for financial reasons. Mark
then decides to go
on and finish 'Coven' (long "o" sound, does not sound like “oven”),
a film he had started
just two years prior and one he feels he could make enough money with
to fund
Northwestern. He lives day to day, shooting always, dealing with the
tumultuous life he
leads that includes a grandfather's money, his own three kids that
he is detached from and
his own mother, who goes on record to say that she feels he will not
succeed. It sounds
like a real downer, but Mark and the gang of people around him are
such entertaining
people to watch, we almost lose sight of the fact that he's in any
real trouble. He has the
patience of a saint and his guerilla style of film making keeps our
eyes glued to the
screen. Hollywood couldn't have fictionalized better characters than
Mark, his family and
his crew.
The central image of the film comes when Mark and his mother are
watching the
Oscars, intently. Directly following this is Mark (the main character
of his own film)
being dragged through a marsh by several black-hooded goons while the
'Coven' camera
crew follows close behind. Mark is watching success on television and
then attempting
with everything in him to create success. It's really very admirable.
However, as a film
that I believe is saying something about the roots of the recent wave
of independent films
that have overtaken the media, the multiplexes and, in fact, the world;
'American Movie'
snaps itself in and out of a strange dimensional door that sells it
short, yet remains
riveting.
It almost becomes a volley as to which filmmaker we are to praise:
'American
Movie' director Chris Smith or Coven director Mark Borchardt. The movie
is
exceptionally sympathetic towards Mark, almost to the point where I
feel that if I don’t
buy a copy of his film, I’d be doing him a disservice. I felt an instinct
to deny American
Movie as it's own entity because watching Mark and his film were essentially
more
accessible and more in the front and center of my analysis and my entertainment.
It
becomes a comparison discrepancy within the film. Will Mark (and 'Coven')
break down
'American Movie' into a powerhouse of watching one man succeed and
the film that's
propelling it sit in the background, just as Mark's friends do on his
big premiere night?
We almost want to watch him succeed at the expense of 'American Movie'.
That said, the film is very, very funny. At one point Mark picks
up an important
member of his crew from jail and nearly kills him when he accidentally
hits the gas
pedal. Mark's kids remember the last movie he took them to was 'Apocalypse
Now' and
they are so taken with Marlon Brando's final speech, they chant "the
horror". Mark curses
like a sailor and when speaking once, his dad leans his head in the
room and tells him
there will be no more of that type of "conversation". 'American Movie'
captures tons of
entertaining little clips in Mark's life.
Finally, the film is essentially the longest, most brilliant commercial
for Mark's
movie 'Coven'. I felt, when it was over, that perhaps they should have
added the price of a
copy of 'Coven' to my ticket at the door to save time. The film may
be too long in spots,
but overall, when Mark shows us on an erase-board that his goal is
to sell three thousand
units of 'Coven' to make approximately forty thousand dollars, he isn't
just telling us his
plans, he's asking for our help. It's shameless, yes - but that's what
Mark is (as Homer
Simpson would put it): a shameless self-promoter. In 'American Movie',
promotion is only
a single element hiding behind a thankless motion picture with a lovable
and
all-American star.