‘I'm rooting for them': why American Movie is my feelgood movie

The Guardian

13 hours ago

'I was a failure and I get very sad and depressed about it. I really feel like I betrayed myself. Big time. When I was growing up, I had all the potential in the world. Now I'm back to being Mark with a beer in his hand who is thinking about the great American script and the great American movie. This time I cannot fail. I will not fail.'
As far as opening monologues go, you couldn't have scripted a more perfect introduction to a film that captures one of the purest pursuits of the American Dream ever set to film. But these were not written for a character, but instead straight from the heart of Mark Borchardt in a 1999 documentary. It's rare that documentaries are associated with feelgood movies, which is odd because they are remarkable vehicles for generating warmth, empathy and humor from spending time in the company of real life people who you grow to like. And I utterly adore spending time with these people.
Borchardt is from Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, a town with a population of fewer than 40,000 people. He is a dedicated but struggling film-maker. At 30 years old, he delivers newspapers and cleans cemetery toilets for work, has major issues with alcohol, relationship problems, and often has to borrow gas money from his mom, who he lives with. His own brother speaks on camera about him with pity, stating that he thought he would turn out to be a stalker or serial killer. But he is also smart, deeply passionate, articulate and ferociously committed to making films with close to zero budget. He's got a team of locals, many of who volunteer their time to help make his dreams a reality. We follow him, through ups and downs, as he manages to coax a few thousand bucks from his distrusting, disdainful, yet sweet and endearing uncle, as he sets about to film his 16mm black and white horror film Coven.
His best friend is Mike Schank, a metalhead, and recovering party monster, who likes to play guitar blindfolded. He has taken such copious amounts of hallucinogens – and once spent a month in hospital after overdosing on PCP – that he has never quite recovered and exists in a kind of perma-haze. A cruel reading of the pair is as wasted buffoons who come across like a bumbling, real Wayne's World but there is far greater depth to them, and the film, than this.
American Movie is a profoundly moving document about dreams, friendship, class and America. Yes, it's funny as hell and loaded with as many one-liners as any scripted comedy, and has subsequently seen the pair pop up as characters in Family Guy, but it's also shot through with real emotional weight.
When I watch Borchardt, I don't see him as a down and out drunken loser who is delusional about his aspirations, but as someone with roaring ambition and an unflinching belief that another life is possible and that art can take him there. 'There was no such thing as college or religion,' he says at one point, speaking about his own upbringing in a town far away from the bright lights of Hollywood. 'There was drinking. Drinking, drinking, drinking. Everything would revolve around that.' Despite this, he is an autodidact. The camera pans across his shelves to reveal book after book on film history. While there are calamitous moments and funny fails, and he may need to rope in his confused mom to be an extra or camera operator along the way, he's clearly got a vision underpinned with deep cinematic knowledge. 'I will be goddamned if I don't get the American Dream,' he says at one point.
I feel buoyant and inspired every time I watch the film. It's such a beautiful example of how much talent exists out there in the world, in unconventional places, that never gets a shot or a look in. And the people who give up their time to support his vision is a stirring depiction of community in action. The film is ultimately one that can be interpreted two ways: you are either laughing at these people or you're rooting for them and laughing with them along the way. I'm rooting for them, every time. There's a line that Borchardt speaks, as he is passionately trying to convince a room full of people to be in his film, that perfectly sums up the finished documentary itself: 'You get to see Americans and American dreams and you won't walk away depressed after seeing this. Period.'
American Movie is available to rent digitally in the US and Australia and on Amazon Prime in the UK